Cisco just closed its fiscal year with $63.3 billion in revenue, up 12%, according to its own results. The man running its products started with a very different kind of number: as an intern, he borrowed a quarter million dollars to buy into the company he worked for.
Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer. This week’s episode is about the people who bet on him early, and what he does with that now.
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This episode is proudly sponsored by JPMorgan!
The question his mother asked
Jeetu was weighing a move from Chicago to the Valley, a new job at EMC that meant relocating the whole family. He called his mother and asked if he should take it.
Her answer was one question: “Which one scares you more?”
The new job, he told her. He could not do it in his sleep. “Then take the new job,” she said. She never really understood what he did for a living, he says, but he calls it sage advice all the same.
Think about the decision you are putting off. Which option scares you more? That is probably the one worth taking seriously.
Thirty seconds of silence
Jeetu started as an intern, earning close to minimum wage. Then one of the co-founders told him the original investor wanted out, and the founders were each putting in a quarter million dollars to buy him out. Why didn’t Jeetu put in a quarter million too?
He went to a customer who had mentored him, a banker, and asked to borrow the money. The banker asked what he would do once he owned the business. “I’m going to run it.” You’re an intern, the banker said.
Then, in Jeetu’s telling, came 30 seconds of silence. “Okay, son, come by tomorrow, pick it up.” The rate was 10% interest.
Jeetu ran that business for 17 years and paid the banker back. The banker, who has since passed away, was one of the angels that come into your life, he says, “without whom you would not be where you are.”
What Raj did not have
In 2017, Jeetu took his wife and young daughter to the Taj Mahal. Their guide was a man named Raj, and on the walk back to the entrance Jeetu noticed he could switch languages for every group of visitors he met.
Jeetu’s thought was blunt. This man is smarter than anyone on my leadership team. Raj was probably making ten dollars a day.
The only difference between them, Jeetu decided, was a platform: America, education, tech, Box. Raj never had one.
His conclusion is the part I keep thinking about. If you are not given a platform and you do not succeed, that is not on you. But if you are given one and do not make the most of it, “shame on you.”
Paranoid, but not panicked
On AI, Jeetu does not take either camp. He thinks the risks are real, and he calls a headline like “10% chance everyone’s going to die” false precision. “Paranoid but not panicked,” he says. “Responsive but not reactive.”
His plan for Cisco was to skip the race to be the famous AI company and become the picks and shovels company of the gold rush: the infrastructure, security and observability that AI needs to run.
The results are public. In fiscal 2026, Cisco reported $9.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers, including $4 billion in the fourth quarter alone, according to its earnings release.
Questions I’m still asking
Who was your banker, the person who said yes when you had no business asking?
What platform have you been handed that you are not fully using?
Jeetu’s idea of a perfect day is getting 1.27% better than yesterday. What would that look like for you this week?
Try this week
Write down the last person who took a chance on you, and send them a two-line note this week. Say what their yes made possible. Jeetu still talks about his banker years later, and a note like that can mean a lot to the person who gets it.
Keep reading:
Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not, Max Roser, Our World in Data. On why talented kids from poor backgrounds so rarely become innovators. Read it after the Raj story.
Why “lost Einsteins” are hurting our economy, Marketplace. Economist Raj Chetty’s research on who gets the chance to invent, and how mentorship changes it.
Mentorship strongly predicts protégé success in the sciences, Chemistry World. A large study finds mentees of eventual prize winners are two to four times more likely to have superstar careers. A data-backed look at the banker’s role.
This coach improved every tiny thing by 1 percent, James Clear. The British Cycling story behind the idea of getting a little better every day.
