https://fortune.com/2025/11/30/cisco-chief-product-officer-jeetu-patel-work-life-balance-not-equal-two-exceptions-for-success/
Maybe someone should inform him that you get a "E" for Effort and an "A" for Achievement. No one cares how long you work! At his level, results matter, not time on the clock.
Great article. Thanks for the link.
@dj No, it’s 9AM to 9PM, six days a week, for a total of 72 hours per week. We’ll see how well that’s tolerated here versus China. Not well, I would think.
I’m not getting promoted unless there are outcomes.
Cisco promotes based on outcomes that represent massive failures from individual engineering failures costing the company tens of millions to management overrunning projects by factors of dozens. The vast majority of the development budget went to bug fixing demonstrating extreme incompetence at every level. Demanding more free hours a day by people making the same mistakes just means creating more damage that won't be fixed properly.
Cisco needs marketing that can clearly identify forward looking problems Cisco's engineering and management that can build solutions successfully and in a timely manner. They have none of this which is why they spent 12 digits on acquisitions. They spent another 12 digits on stock buybacks to create the illusion of growth. The serious 11 digits they spent on bug fixing over more than 40 years was obviously not completely avoidable but a large part of it was in fact avoidable. None of this accounts for the loss in market share to competitors like Arista because Cisco delivered poor quality late.
In the mean time, keep working harder, not smarter!
"Don't confuse hard work with results." - John Chambers
It’s late 2025, Cisco’s been cutting, reorganizing, and pushing product teams harder than they ever admit publicly. Morale is shaky, workloads are already high, and clarity is thin. Dropping an article like this into the ecosystem feels like laying the groundwork for future demands. A pre-emptive narrative that long hours are a noble necessity, not a failure on the part of leadership.
That's 7am-1am EVERY DAY, which is obviously BS.
Get ready for 996 work culture, coming to a Cisco office near you soon. Google it if you’ve never heard of it before. It’s coming to Cisco.
There is an important element folks are missing.
Who has cred with the offshore when massive offshoring occurs?
Yeah I feel like something is going on with Chuck. When was the last time he was on an all-hands type call? Kinda bad when your CEO is mostly invisible. 😂
This is just G2 padding his resume ahead of taking the reins from CR. Speaking of which, what’s taking him so long to leave?
Toxic leadership including Fran.
Just AI (another indian)
7 days a week and 18 hours a day ? Rubbish . Not even Elon does this
Imagine getting this far in life and all you can tout is your long hours. Despite the slavish schedule, SBG is in ruins. Maybe he should work less and delegate more.
I assume this will be used as a cudgel to bash the rank-and-file over the head to put in more hours. No G2, we are not simply three hours a day short of becoming Nvidia.
It’s annoying how he telling everyone how many hours he works, but what are the OUTCOMES? Seriously if I went to my manager showing him how many hours I might have worked, I’m not getting promoted unless there are outcomes.