First time you saw him in person or via video. Thoughts?
18 replies (most recent on top)
I miss the old days under Johnny with wage freezes and dry promotions on top of layoffs and PIPs. Now that was family!
no real vision and vibes that he is a cyborg made by some long forgotten Cisco acquisition.
Zero charisma, used car salesman, country boy striving to be part of the elite
fragile oversized ego that needs to constantly be stroked by the likes of Fran, etc
Cocky af
Very self focused, padded career, numbers driven and no vision. No ability to inspire. He will be gone soon..
Not a smart man
Was at several meetings and conferences with him, pre-CEO. Not too bright, definitely not a visionary and without any original ideas. Jayshree would have been so much better but JC drove her and Bates out with the boards and councils nonsense.
He's not the cult leader that Chambers was.
Chambers tanked the stock from $82 to below $25 on average for the last 15 years of his tenure at Cisco. There were failed acquisitions, but at a time when the market was more tolerant of that. He brought in multiple layoffs per year. He brought in stack ranking. He tried a number of products which were severely mismatched for Cisco's business. He failed to address ever growing technical debt and to build a competent development organization. His smile and soft speech was more important to many than any of this.
Chuck doubled the stock price in relatively short order, in part by charging more for software which has been of extremely poor quality for decades. Otherwise he's continued most of the same mistakes of Chambers, just without the charm.
Clinically Fake Personality Disorder
Moving to Atlanta away from HQ tells you everything you need to know about a selfish CEO
Cares only about himself
Makes you wish Rob, Wim or Gary had won that battle to replace Chambers.
Accountant. Socially awkward, no charisma, “a mathematician”, basically a plodder.
When I met him at Chairman's club just before the transition from JC to him. I was blown away by how disinterested and self absorbed he was when meeting with what was supposed to be the top 1% at the time. I get that it's challenging for anyone to share the spotlight with JC, but I was immediately turned off by Chuck. He struck me as a used car salesman immediately and my opinion has not improved over the years. Cisco deserves much better.
Trash CEO = Trash ELT
Narcissist
Good individual, he used to do regional Town Halls for years, met with local teams. He was the best option we really had when Chambers left.