I think we have a tax policy that was designed before Microsoft even went public. I think we've got to change - we're at a huge disadvantage around the world.
— John T. Chambers
The industry has to learn how to do CEO succession well. If your definition of success is Intel or Microsoft or HP or IBM, that's not a good track record, and yet they are the most successful ones.
I wasn't always interested in technology. I had been a student for a long time - I'd earned a bachelor's degree, a law degree, and an MBA - and decided that I wanted to work in a large corporation, focusing on finance and law, in either New York or Chicago.
Our success at Cisco has been defined by how we anticipate, capture, and lead through market transitions. Over the years, I've watched iconic companies disappear - Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Wang, Digital Equipment - as they failed to anticipate where the market was heading.
You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.
If we're going to acquire, what are we going to do differently? We came up with six rules of thumb. Whenever I've violated two of them, I usually get into trouble.
We changed the world many ways with the Internet.
I would say my strengths are vision and strategy.
Since I became CEO, 87 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 are off the list. What that says is that companies that don't reinvent themselves will be left behind. I also think that's true of people. And I think it's true of countries.
What I've realized is most leaders cannot reinvent themselves at the CEO level or at the operational level.
Organized crime and rogue nation states and terrorists are very much focused on the Internet of things. The challenge that goes with connectivity is always security. The bad guys go wherever the return is, and now it's more lucrative for bad guys to focus on cybercrime than traditional crime.
My mistakes are always around moving too slow or moving too fast without process behind it. And it's something that, if we're not careful, we'll repeat again and again.
I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, taught me to look at it like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.
I don't make fun of people. I call people by what they want to be called. What does your best friend call you? What does your spouse call you? It helps you emotionally connect to people.
When a leader doesn't do his or her job, it isn't just a problem with the person. They take their whole organization down.
The definition of success is that the company doesn't miss a beat. Do I love what I do? Oh yeah - I love it more than ever. You've got to have that energy level 24/7. But you've also got to make sure the transition is smooth. Being realistic, most high-tech companies haven't done that well.
I think, as time passes, people will come to see that the United States' credit standing is really not quite the same level as the ones that we rate AAA.
When a market isn't in transition, gaining market share is hard - you're fighting to take one or two points of share from competitors.
I like to believe that I got my business knowledge from my dad. He was able to see trends a long way off. And my mom is very good with people and emotional.
What makes Silicon Valley really work? It's a unique combination of great educational institutions - especially at Stanford - that generate engineers and a culture that starts companies.
The window was open for us to play in the consumer as data, voice, video came together. This is where you have to have the courage to take good business risks because if you don't, you never win.
I am a proud moderate republican. But I like democrats as well.
The No. 1 country in the world to do business in is which one? To locate where you want to create jobs, where you want to have a great market? It's Canada. Even in Russia, you can build a Silicon Valley outside of Moscow.
We don't go into a market without a chance of a 40 percent share and sustainable differentiation. We wouldn't get into wiring oil rigs if we didn't believe we could get 40 percent.
Almost every move in the market is either a move to align with where Cisco is going or to align to compete against us or to utilize that technology.
It's connectivity that really makes the industrial Internet work: it's giving the right information at the right time to the right person or right machine to make the right decision.
Today's world requires a different leadership style - more collaboration and teamwork, including using Web 2.0 technologies. If you had told me I'd be video blogging and blogging, I would have said, 'No way.' And yet our 20-somethings in the company really pushed me to use that more.
It's easy for me to see how a business proposition is going to play out, or who our next-generation competitors are, from taking this data point from this customer and another data point from another customer... and jump to Z.
I had two parents who were doctors, and my mom was valedictorian in multiple classes.
A well-run organization turns over 10% of their organizations, including senior leadership. I don't have the heart to do that.
We're very much focused on full shareholder-value return. We have to get our stock moving. But I won't do something in the short run that I don't feel is right for the long run. That, I've watched many CEOs do.
The political gridlock in Washington leads us to conclude that policymakers don't have the ability to put the public finances of the U.S. on a sustainable footing.
When you're a large company with significant market share, it's tempting to view market disruptions as a threat, but we view them as an opportunity.
I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.
Do you have the same vision of where industry is going as the target of your acquisition? If visions differ, you might get together economically for a while, but then you are going to have problems.
Understand what you are acquiring and protect it at all costs. You are acquiring people and next-generation products. You are making an investment that together you can grow faster, make more profits, and take more market share.
I think technology can change every country regardless of political party.
What NDS did is allow us to move into video capability with large service providers or cable providers - and the ability to do this out of the cloud. And that allows you to do it faster.
The 'No.1 IT company' isn't by volume, it's in relation to business customers because those are my customers, not the consumer. Who do they view as their most important partner? That's my definition of the 'No.1 IT company.'
Once you put in backdoors, once you allow a government to intercept anything they want, you have to give it to other governments around the world. Once you do that, there is no privacy; there is no security. There is no protection for democracy.
The number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return.
I learned another lesson from Jack Welch. It was in 1998, and at that time, we were one of the most valuable companies in the world. I said, 'Jack, what does it take to have a great company?' And he said, 'It takes major setbacks and overcoming those.'
It would surprise you how many government and business leaders with dyslexia. Some people view it as a weakness, and maybe it is. What dyslexia forces you to do, you don't go A, B, C, D, E... to Z. I can go A, B... Z with speed.
Often, what I tell a new CEO asking for advice, or one of my own new leaders, is the two most important decisions that your team is going to watch is the first person you hire and the first person you promote - because you are saying that's the type of person I want.
As a leader, you don't get too high on the highs or let the bumps balance down. Every leader over time has probably equal amount of good luck or bad luck - or, you could argue, has good opportunities or challenges.
