Technology Executive & Board Member. EVP & Chief Product Officer, Cisco. Proud dad. Love design. Views are mostly my own, but sometimes not entirely my own ;-)
31 years ago on Feb 10, I landed in the US with $500, scared, and deeply fascinated with America. I had a dream to some day provide for me and my mom.
This country changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. Thanks to all who helped this clueless kid along the way ❤️🙏
30 years ago today, I came to America so that eventually my mom and I would be able to live a comfortable life. Looking back, I vividly remember every minute of that day. So many people to thank. I am so deeply grateful to this country for the opportunity.
I want to thank
@levie
and
@Box
for the most wonderful 5 years I could’ve ever imagined. Aaron, thanks for being a great boss, an amazing friend and the younger brother I never had. I love you man.
@ChuckRobbins
thanks again for the opportunity for me to join
@Cisco
.
Was just on a check-in call with our India team
@Cisco
. To everyone in India, we love you all and know that things will get better. Your health and the health of your loved ones are the most important things right now. All of us at Cisco are here for you and we got your back. ❤️
So proud of the team for delivering this amazing capability for real-time translation from English to 108 languages as we continue to obsess on making the
@Webex
experience 10x better than in-person interactions. Here's getting one step closer to a more inclusive future for all
My Journey:
My 20’s: Intimidated that I don’t know much
My 30’s: Arrogant that I know it all
My 40’s: Realization that I have more to learn
My 50’s: Comfort that I will never know it all
Moral: Keep learning. Focus on progress. Keep ego in check. Enjoy the ride!
Thanks to all that attended the WebexOne opening keynote. We really appreciate you taking time out of your day to learn more about Webex. I am also soooo proud of our team for doing such a fantastic job with building a magical product. If you missed the keynote, catch the replay
If you pride yourself on being an innovative software company, tell your story through your product demos and not Powerpoint slides. The best conversations I’ve had with tech execs is when they bust out a 3 min demo, not a 45 slide deck to explain what they do! Just sayin’!
This new feature in Webex is soooo DOPE! It’s called “My voice only”. Check it out. You will love it! via
@YouTube
.
Team is doing some amazing work and solving insanely hard problems. So proud of this team!
Been at Cisco for 7 months and today was my best day yet. Why? I had the perfect balance of the types of meetings that energize me. Makes me think, I should curate my day with the right types of interactions that infuse creativity instead of just optimizing for productivity.
This is when I realized that I needed to do better yesterday based on my 9 year old daughter’s comment: “Daddy, you do know that there are other rooms in the home other than your office, don’t you?” :-(. Looking forward to the holidays!
It’s tempting to want to sound smart by saying complex things.
But sounding smart doesn’t contribute to human progress. Making others smart does. Others get smart when you explain complex concepts simply.
Great leaders are simplifiers! Simplify if you want to progress society.
Here’s my 83 year old mother. This weekend I took her to our new home. Right when we were leaving the place, she noticed a tree in the front yard and just got happy about how beautiful nature is. This is her marveling about a tree. ❤️ my mom so much. Life’s about the small joys
Truly humbled and honored for the opportunity
@ChuckRobbins
to lead the product organization of such an iconic company. The team is a rockstar team and will do you proud.
Today, I shared important updates to my Executive Leadership Team:
Thank you
@jonathandavidsn
for your 22+ years with
@cisco
, and congratulations to
@jpatel41
on your expanded role!
Yesterday I attended one of the best meetings of my career with 370+ leaders. 2 hr meeting and NO PowerPoint. Zero prep. No Presentation. We just talked about the business. So cool. You ROCK
@markpatt
! My realization: PowerPoint has caused a lot of damage to the world :-(.
Today is a day that will always remain very special in my career. I got a chance to work with a team that has built something that makes me so proud. Thank you to the entire Webex team and to our customers. Check out THE Hybrid Work event later today
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that it’s far less important to have all the answers in life but far more important to ask the right questions. There are very few things in life better than being insanely curious!
@levie
@paulg
Crazy part is that it hasn’t even hit the kids yet. My daughter’s friends, most of them don’t know what it is. But they will soon enough.
I’m thrilled to announce
@Cisco
’s intent to acquire
@Splunk
, a leader in cybersecurity and observability. Learn more about how, together, we’ll help make organizations more resilient and secure in an AI-powered world:
So pumped to announce our intent to acquire
@socioevents
- an end-to-end event mgmt platform, powering virtual, in-person & hybrid events.
Welcome
@YSakucoglu
& team to the
@Cisco
@Webex
family. I can’t wait to see what we do together!
➡️
Excited to announce that
@Webex
will be on board the Orion spacecraft - part of NASA’s Artemis I mission - along with our partners
@LockheedMartin
and
@Amazon
Alexa.
Link:
This is so good. If you work at
@Cisco
and work in my organization, please consider reading this and digging into all the subtopics. It’s a master-class in a few tweets. Thanks
@shreyas
!
It’s so exciting to pursue the mission to make the Webex experience 10x better than an in-person interaction. Thanks to all the folks that are making this possible and obsessing on user delight. It’s even more exciting to invite BabbleLabs to join us on the journey.
On Dec 8, it'll be my pleasure to sit down with entertainer, author, singer, actor (and face of Webex in 2000!)
@RuPaul
at
#WebexOne
.
We'll chat about RuPaul’s amazing journey towards an inclusive future for all! Be sure to register.
I’d like to share some important news. By late-June, we will have a new member arriving in our family. Gonna be a dog!!! Our daughter’s persistence paid off. Mom finally gave in. Any tips on how to make sure our 10 yr old daughter assumes full parental responsibility for the dog?
As we’ve said, we want to make The Webex experience 10x better than in-person interactions. But if you meet in person, we’ll make that 10x better as well.
@Webex
+
@Slidoapp
= Magic
I am so so sooooooo proud of the
@Webex
team to get this recognition. They didn’t miss a beat. They sacrificed their personal sanity to get our customers through the COVID crisis, and continue to innovate at lightening speed. This is your recognition for the hard work. ❤️🙏👍🏽✅
Soooo proud of the Security team at
@Cisco
for allowing me to represent all your hard work and innovation at
@CiscoLive
. It’s such a pleasure to be part of this team who is on the mission to simplify security, because we all know that complexity such a huge threat to society
My happiness quotient in life literally goes up 1000x when my first meeting starts at 9 am or later!
There are only two kinds of people in the world. Morning people & NOT morning people 😑
Message designed to support my “NOT Morning People” friends. ❤️
I’m generally an early adopter on most things in life. But doing without masks 😷 in public places will be an area I will be a complete laggard on. Keeping masks on for a while!
It turns out that if you stop working out and sit on your chair for a year during COVID-19, barely leave home, and eat an insane amount of food all day long, you get really out of shape. Huh! Would’ve never guessed!
If you happen to feel overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or are feeling low due to a life event, know that there is no shame in asking for help.
In fact, asking for help is a sign of humility and bravery because you didn’t let ego get in the way and showed courage to seek help.
Congrats to
@JeffSharritts
& team for hosting a stellar annual sales kickoff
#CISCOIMPACT
in Las Vegas. Categorically the best sales kick-off I have seen hosted in my 30 year career! Loved the energy of the GTM team at
@Cisco
. 🫶🏾
Most of us are more lucky than we are good. Doesn’t mean we aren’t good at what we do. But remember, many are good, but far fewer are lucky. Access to opportunities and a platform is rare. Forgetting that can take away the grounding that’s essential to deal with success.
Stoked to announce our intent to acquire
@KennaSecurity
, pioneers in risk-based vulnerability management. Welcome
@ktoubba
& team to the Cisco family. Can’t wait to join forces and build some amazing solutions for our customers.
Setting your ego aside and saying sorry when you screw up is a great way to not be sorry later in life when the moment to say sorry may have passed you by.
Check out this demo from our rockstar engineers on noise removal. Gonna be a game-changer. Clear hearing is a pre-requisite for effective listening :-).
From dogs barking to babies crying, we all experience unwanted background noise while in meetings.
🎥
@jpatel41
is joined by some of our engineering superstars to share how
@Cisco
is tackling this problem with some exciting news for
@Webex
.
🗞
Product People. Don’t constrain your thinking by asking how big the TAM is. By the time there is a TAM, it might be too late anyway. Most successful products didn’t really have a TAM. They built the TAM.
Such an exciting way to start the week as we officially welcome
@peterkomornik
& the
@slidoapp
family to Webex. With the close of this acquisition, we’ll bring even more inclusive and engaging experiences to Webex users around the world.
Details here:
Congratulations to one of my favorite people at Cisco who I see, talk to and laugh with every day but have never met in-person. You rock
@gerri_elliott
. Sooo well deserved!
Gaining consensus is different from seeking input. Get lots of varied inputs. Curiously listen. Then be decisive. Don’t seek consensus.
The habit of seeking unanimous consensus as the norm sets an unhealthy precedent. Let many people weigh in but only let very few people decide.
In SaaS, being customer-centric doesn’t mean jumping on every feature request of every customer. In fact, you would do your collective “customers” a definite disservice with this approach. Instead, it means you only build features that could bring delight to millions of users
A relentless obsession on constant micro-improvements in your product focused on removing friction for the user is such an underestimated force-multiplier.
I will be chatting with Amal Clooney at
#WebexOne
about building an inclusive future with the power of technology. Looking forward to a GREAT conversation - I can't wait!
Register:
We are just a few days away from
@WebexOne
. I feel such pride to be a small part of such an AMAZING team who has so much passion, obsession for perfection and a desire to make a difference in the world. The
@Webex
Team, thanks for putting so much heart & soul into what you do!
Things to be considered as Basic Human Rights in 2021:
1) Equal Pay for All
2) Access to Affordable Healthcare
3) Privacy
4) Voting
5) Innocent Until Proven Guilty
6) Access to the Internet
7) Clean Environment
Have a bit of a problem I realized last night with the team. We have way too much innovation and not enough time to show it all in the keynote at WebexOne. Should we try to aim for comprehensiveness or memorability?
When competitors copy you, be flattered for a second, but then, keep chipping away at innovating. Stay paranoid about your product. Be obsessed about your customer’s experience. Tell your customers you are hungry for their business. Mean it. Eventually, originality gets valued
When given an offer to get out of harms way and escape death, and someone says, I don’t need to escape, I need ammunition so I continue to fight for my people, that’s character.
Makes
@TIME
Magazine’s person of the decade award a slam dunk!
So excited about the general availability of our SSO capability. Team has done a fantastic job and we hope our customers enjoy using it as much as enjoyed building it!
Exciting news: Our new SSO is in general availability to US & international customers on MFA, Access, and Beyond (non-FedRAMP) editions! Cloud-based and Duo-hosted, it also includes Duo Central, a single location for users to securely access apps and more.
My ability to convince myself that I will work out this evening instead of right now and truly believe it to my very core even though the record doesn’t suggest that over a 49 year history is nothing short of remarkably delusional.
Took a candle making class today with my daughter. My biggest realization was that manufacturing candles is a better gross margin business than software.
Daughter: Can I buy a car?
Me: You’re 11, so probably not.
Daughter: Do you know how I can go about legally changing my age? That way I can be 18 and then I can drive and then you can buy me a car.
True genius is educating customers on what you do without making their brain hurt 🙂. Keep it simple! This tweet inspired by some of the great work our security team is doing. Super cool.
The shortest path to success is to learn early in life that there are no short-cuts to success. Do the time to get good. Success follows.
If there was one thing that I would want to pass on to the new generation who is just entering the workforce, it would be that.
I asked my ten year old daughter if she could add one feature to the iPad, what would it be. In a split second she responded, “Video Backgrounds”!
I am so not employable in 5 years!
One of the things I LOVE about
@Cisco
every quarter is attending the APJC kick off call. It truly is the definition of how All Hands meetings should be done. Today, they had a cooking contest and a simultaneous All Hands. So entertaining. Thanks for your leadership Hari!
New Product Idea: moderator-controlled mute feature during American Presidential Debates that can mute any candidate speaking out of turn. Low-cost high-return feature. Instant product/market fit guaranteed by Americans ;-).
3 things to avoid, because they tend creep up on you:
1) Arrogance: Thinking you are better than you actually are
2) Loss of Creativity: The subconscious acceptance of lack of originality
3) Complacency: The smart justifications for why you can’t move fast
Me: I’m so excited that it will be almost two years since I gave up dessert.
My 10 year old Daughter: Daddy, you need therapy. Not eating sugar for that long is a form of sickness.
So pumped to host my dear friend
@levie
, co-founder & CEO of
@Box
at
#WebexOne
.
You'll hear how we are together reimagining the future of work.
Join us:
Thrilled to announce our intent to acquire
@DashbaseHQ
and have them join the
@AppDynamics
team. Can’t wait to see the great innovation to come. Welcome, welcome, welcome to
@Cisco
!!!
Cisco is excited to announce our intent to acquire Dashbase, Inc.
@DashbaseHQ
's cloud-native, purpose-built observability technology will allow Cisco
@AppDynamics
customers to accelerate their digital transformations. Read more:
Just saw this fantastic movie “2 Hearts” on Netflix. Call someone that you love and tell them you love them. Life is so unpredictable.
And watch the movie 🙏❤️🙏
@levie
@elonmusk
@TheQuartering
Why wouldn’t you go the opposite route and make it as easy to cross share links/promote for competitive platforms? The most non-restrictive platform would likely be more appealing to users right? Make it a feature!
How big a risk is promoting other platforms on Twitter really?
The hope is that the word “remote” is eradicated from the vocabulary in the world of Hybrid Work because every location should feel like a fist class location to get work done and geography stops being a thing.
To be a great security company you must be a great AI company. And to be great at AI you need to be a great data company.
@Splunk
is only going to make us stronger. This is incredible news for
@Cisco
and the whole cybersecurity industry as we officially welcome Splunk. Thrilled
Today we're excited to share that
@Splunk
is now officially a part of
@Cisco
, bringing the full power of the network together with market-leading security & observability solutions for the AI revolution. Thrilled to bring our talented teams together!
Two questions that tend to not be asked often enough when evaluating new ideas in a company are: 1) What’s the risk of not pursuing the idea? 2) What risk does pursuing this idea pose to other important ideas currently prioritized due to the resulting diluted focus?
“It is a decision she must make for herself." The passing of S.B. 8 in Texas is a human rights and health care crisis. I stand with the women of Texas who want the right to choose.
Great product leaders care less about being liked and care deeply about their products being loved. They debate passionately about ideas because only the best idea should and must win in the end.
Beauty about
#hybridwork
isn’t just that it gives people the flexibility to work from home a couple days a week.
It’s that companies can literally source the best talent from anywhere in the world. And that people can work for any company in the world no matter where they live.
Technology has missed a fundamental truth about humans. We aren’t good at multi-tasking. It creates anxiety! What if we just let technology remove the need for us to focus on multiple things and instead drew our focus to only the most important thing? The world would be happier!