I'm counting the days until retirement and I'm trying to think back to 2001 or the time when it all started going downhill here as many say. But perhaps even before there were some hints that things had started to go in the wrong direction?
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On the software side run static analysis on the leading branch of each year from 2000 backwards. If you get a relatively clean run that would be the last good year. I expect you’ll find there were no good years, just good stock options until the peak in 2000. Most of the rest was acquired.
It all started when John C sent engineering to India. Was never the same.
It all went downhill the minute Chambers' luck ran out when the internet wave he had been surfing on died off. He let BUs compete internally, producing products that don't interoperate. He made tons of questionable acquisitions, most ending up down the drain. When faced with competition, he was like a deer caught in headlights. He didn't have the courage to build a cloud well before Amazon became AWS by fear of pi----g off SP customers. We were all begging for him to go for years! Robbins isn't much better either, he just follows uncle Chambers' cookbook. Cisco is too risk averse. There's no tolerance for failure which is quite the paradox! No lessons learned anywhere. The culture is now a tasteless sour blend of repeat what we've always done, please the boss, don't question wrong decisions, create uninspired slides and stall customers from buying competition at all costs. Then get surprised when we lose market share.
When did it all go downhill?
It all started when I joined Cisco :D
@1pkp+1gAFmvRW RTP is all hi--------s
Cisco RTP's decline started around 1999 when Nortel flushed and Cisco put it's mouth at the end of the pipe. Until then, Cisco RTP had a high quality workforce. Hiring the awful, lazy, low talent, highly political, Nortel rejects ki---d the culture quickly.
I think this post describes it the best. How everything went downhill.
https://www.thelayoff.com/post/@3oez+1ccIbnzs
Chambers' Boards and Councils were the denouement for the growth phase of Cisco. At that point, it was clear no one at the senior executive level had any valid ideas for creating Cisco's next wave of growth.
There were many growth opportunities debated in those days, but there were always reasons from the senior executives for rejecting them. That led to frustration from many of the top performers and their subsequent departure.