Topic
32 facts from 10 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
late 1990s
Nigel Vaz says that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cisco was among the most valuable technology companies because the internet was then about moving packets faster between organizations.
“When the most valuable technology companies in the late 90s, early 2000s were companies like Cisco.”
2025
Cisco became the first design partner for OpenAI's Codex coding tool, according to Jeetu Patel.
“we are the first design partner with their Codex.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco's product range includes both long-established technologies and brand-new products built from scratch in recent months.
“Cisco, um, has a range of technologies from things that have been around for a long time and things that are kind of, you know, brand new”
2025
Jeetu Patel predicted that in 2025 a meaningful amount of Cisco's code would be generated autonomously by AI.
“in 2025, um, you will see a pretty meaningful amount of code that'll be generated autonomously”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco's AI business has two parts: infrastructure to power AI and safety and security guardrails around AI.
“Cisco does a couple things with AI. The first one is we provide infrastructure to power AI. The second one is we actually provide all the safety and security guardrails around AI.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco jailbroke the DeepSeek model within 48 hours across 50 categories of the HarmBench benchmark.
“when DeepSeek came out, it only took us forty eight hours to jailbreak the model in fifty top categories in the harm bench benchmark, right?”
2025
Jeetu Patel reported a 100% attack success rate in Cisco's jailbreak testing of DeepSeek.
“And that attack success rate of 100% is very disturbing, um, because that's one time it's not good.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco's chief customer officer, Liz Centoni, is using AI internally to improve the customer experience.
“our chief, um, you know, customer officer, Liz Centoni, she's using AI quite effectively internally”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco recently met its global customer advisory board in Ireland and showed them planned licensing simplifications.
“we were in Ireland just recently with our global customer advisory board, and, um, we walked them through, you know, some innovations that we're doing on the licensing side”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco launched its own security-focused AI model that is a fraction of the size of a large language model and can run on a single GPU.
“we launched our own security model that is a fraction of the size of a large language model, uh, and it actually can run one one 100 GPU.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco's service provider business is recovering after a slow period, helped by AI demand.
“our service provider business, we are starting to see, uh, in a really healthy state all of a sudden again because of AI”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco is working with Saudi Arabia's Humane project, a data center build-out for Saudi AI.
“they have a project called the Humane project, which is their the Saudi AI, you know, build out of data centers, and we're working very closely with them over there.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco is partnering with G42 in Abu Dhabi on AI infrastructure.
“we are doing the same thing in Abu Dhabi, um, with, um, um, with G42.”
2025
Jeetu Patel says Cisco announced a partnership with Stargate UAE, in which it will serve as an infrastructure provider and investor.
“we just announced yesterday a partnership, um, with, um, um, uh, with Stargate in the UAE, where we will actually be an infrastructure provider.”
Undated
Leone identifies Sequoia 4 as the Cisco fund under Don Valentine and Sequoia 5 as a strong fund run by a younger team.
“Sequoia 4 is the Cisco fund, Don Valentine. Sequoia 5, younger team, older team, terrific fund.”
Undated
Eric Yuan was a regional founding team member of WebEx before he left Cisco to start Zoom.
“So for me, it's very straightforward because I was a regional founding team member of WebEx.”
Undated
Jeetu Patel says Cisco has thousands of products across many markets, and he used AI research to learn them when he took the product role.
“Cisco has thousands of products, and you know, we are in so many different markets, it's impossible for any one person to know all the markets so well.”
Undated
Patel says AI requires data centers to be rebuilt, or 're-racked', with new computing, networking and cooling arrangements.
“you have to kind of rethink and reimagine, and as they call in technical terms, re rack the data centers.”
Undated
Patel says he is responsible for Cisco's networking, security, data and collaboration products.
“all the products that you use from Cisco, whether it be networking products, whether it be security products, whether it be data products or collaboration products.”
Undated
Sam Ransbotham says Cisco equipment is probably behind about 90% of the infrastructure people use.
“Cisco equipment is probably behind 90% of the infrastructure that we're using”
Undated
Patel says 20-year-olds use AI as a brainstorming companion, unlike 28-year-olds who mainly use it for quick answers.
“A twenty year old thinks of it like a companion and a brainstorming partner, and they might actually talk to it and brainstorm with it so that they can come to an ideation.”
Undated
Snowflake built an internal sales data assistant called Raven and then worked with early customers including Cisco, Fanatics and the USA bobsled team on Snowflake Intelligence.
“But it's basically the sales data assistant. Then we started working with early customers, whether it is a Cisco or a fanatics, or the USA bobsled team”
Undated
Todd Bishop recalls a Cisco guest on the Me, Myself, and AI podcast who argued that AI should not end entry-level hiring and should instead enable co-training between generations.
“the idea of not letting this be an opportunity to no longer have interns or entry-level employees, but to, in fact, look at this as a chance for almost like co-training.”
Undated
Ghodsi said Cisco, an early internet infrastructure company, is still around and worth roughly $300 billion.
“Cisco, by the way, is still around, and it's, you know, only 300 billion dollar company or something like that, right?”
Undated
Outshift by Cisco operates as Cisco's internal incubator for emerging technologies.
“Outshift operates as Cisco's internal incubator for emerging technologies, focused on reducing risk and delivering innovative results.”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said Cisco has 32,000 engineers coding with AI and expects 70% of its products to be entirely AI-written by the end of next year.
“32,000 engineers are coding with AI. We will actually, by the end of next year, have 70% of our products that are 100% written with AI.”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said Cisco expects to have more engineers, not fewer, at the end of next year despite heavy AI coding.
“Interestingly enough, we will have more engineers than less at the end of next year at Cisco.”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said Cisco has rolled out 90,000 AI agents, one for every employee.
“We have, uh, 90,000 agents that we've rolled out to every employee. There's an agent for every employee”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said Cisco made 250 acquisitions while reaching $63 billion in revenue, leaving it with many differently designed products to manage.
“over time, uh, $63 billion in revenue, we made 250 acquisitions. The way in which you manage all this infrastructure was multiple different products that all looked and felt different.”
Undated
Cisco decided to become an integrated platform company with a single management plane for all of its products, according to Jeetu Patel.
“We decided to become an integrated platform company. So we said we're gonna have one management plane for all of our products”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said Cisco built its unified management plane in nine months, a project the team had estimated would take seven to nine years.
“Something that was gonna take seven, eight, nine years, we were able to build within nine months because we were able to move at a pace”
Undated
Jeetu Patel said he struggled for the first six months to get Cisco employees to start using AI.
“at Cisco, the first six months, I really struggled with getting everyone to start using it.”
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