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John Chambers led Cisco through the rise of the internet—transforming it into the world’s most valuable company at its peak.
On this week’s Grit, the former Cisco CEO unpacks how he scaled the business from $70M to $50B+, pioneered M&A as a growth strategy with 180 acquisitions, and built what many called the best sales force in tech.
Now leading his own venture firm, Chambers shares how he’s backing the next generation of AI-native startups.
Guest: John T. Chambers, Former Cisco Executive Chairman & CEO, JC2 Ventures Founder & CEO
Chapters:
00:00 Trailer
00:45 Introduction
01:45 Track record, relationships, trust
13:21 Acquisitions every year
17:32 Product-focused
24:40 Family, dyslexia, and without shame
30:46 Wang Laboratories
35:59 Ready being CEO
40:17 Reinventing your business
50:08 Numbers don’t lie
54:09 Sales calls and making mistakes
56:20 Adapting leadership style
1:06:32 Best leadership year ever
1:13:35 A busy, exhausting schedule
1:22:07 Candid with me
1:25:21 What “grit” means to John
1:26:43 Outro
Mentioned in this episode: John Doerr, OpenAI, Wang Laboratories, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, FMC Corporation, DuPont de Nemours, Inc., John Mortgage, Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital, Alcatel Mobile, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., Rick Justice, Pankage Patel, Larry Carter, CNBC, Jim Cramer, George Kurtz, CrowdStrike, Randy Pond, Rebecca Jacoby, Mel Selcher
Links:
Connect with John
Connect with Joubin
Creators and Guests
What is Grit?
Grit explores what it takes to create, build, and scale world-class organizations. It features weekly episodes highlighting the leaders who are pushing their companies to make a difference. This series is hosted by Joubin Mirzadegan, go to market operating partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm investing in history-making founders.