Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

another news outlet picked it up: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/10/11/ciscos-cto-exiting-after-just-17-months-in-job.html

@8vag, interesting insigh. Did Padma Warrior follow the same path to become CTO before? Is it stupid or a joke? Really pathetic.

The problem here is not Biri . I have some common friends and knew that he was a screw-up before he joined Cisco . The problem here is the old boys club . The rumor is that Chuck hired Biri upon the recommendation of Khosla Ventures . Why did Chuck not look at Biri's track record of screwing up Cloud Strategy at other places like HP . I smell a rat ....

he came .....he screwed ....he left...

hope it goes same for chuck and few other like liz centony

Story picked up by FORTUNE: http://fortune.com/2016/10/10/cisco-zorowar-biri-singh-executive-departure/

Biri/Ulf bauman let go whole group of engineers from Cisco's then public cloud (CIS). Close to 100 full time and another over 100 contract employees were impacted. These are the same sort of engineers with skills Cisco is looking to attract such as devops, cloud and virtualization etc. Whoever wanted to stay found internal roles and others mostly employed already. Good luck convincing cloud/devops engineers outside cisco to come and work at Cisco.

Which products did Biri kill?

Yes its more a reflection on Chuck who hired Biri and let him rampage like a bull in china shop. Whats done is so tough to undo esp loss of reputation with customers and potential employees.

@4ize, well said! A big disconnect between ELT and the worker bees. It is unbelievable that these "leaders" from where Biri was from can be so bold. They lie to everyone, not only in CEC but also in company meetings. Lack of accountability is their culture. They brought with them ramping nepotism and villiagism. Here is a wave of resignations after the bonus was distributed.

As someone above already said, "He decimated Mala's team without even looking what talent could be repurposed". I question whether the guy thought before acting. He also seemed to have a personal agenda - it was verrrrry political what happened. Plus, it wasn't just talent he leveled (extremely talented people, too), several products were killed. He just up & decided to kill them to, without considering pipeline quality/health, customer impact, or Cisco's reputation. Customers invested millions on products with 5-7 yr contracts only after beginning their contracts to be told "nevermind!, we're not selling it anymore. Sorry for your luck!" ...and of course our competitors were quick to swoop in and sell their alternate solutions. And if that competitor is selling one solution after Cisco pulled out, why wouldn't that customer second guess any other Cisco products they had considering Cisco wasn't loyal to the original agreement.

Now, fast forward a month or two and it's been announced that Biri's leaving (the CEC article sounded to me as tho he was shown the door.) And suddenly at least one of the products Biri deliberately killed isbeing developed again. This is a stellar example of epic leadership failure. Great time for you to ask "who the hell is running this company?", because this example of leadership failure truly reflects a chaotic and vision-less team. And the fact that this happened to one org screams that it'll happen to another.

Ultimately I blame Chuck for this. Did he not require Biri to build a substantial business case to justify why he felt compelled to lay off about a thousand people, and kill an entire portfolio that was meeting customer demand and selling?

Coupled with this, I and others I know in Marketing, Engineering & Sales didn't understand Biri's vision to begin with, let alone his "vision" at GSX. All he did was speak in high-level, vague terms without illustrating for Sales what solutions that "vision" equated to.

So Biri's poor judgment is one thing, but CHuck's lack of management and accountability is another.

At this point, I have little faith that Chuck has a clear vision for his team, solution portfolio or company direction - I definitely question whether Chuck has leadership's support, knows what he's doing, or is capable of leading a tier 1 company. I'm hesitant to give Chuck the excuse of still being "new" to the role, because at that level, there is no option for "ramp up time" - at that level, you're expected to be seasoned enough to fluidly step in and lead. This level of erradic management indicates otherwise, and poor talent imo.

I don't think I'm alone in this because so many talented, innovative thinkers have & are running away screaming. There are many other Cisco competitors where these innovative thinkers can work at and be appreciated - there's no reason to put up with such chaos & mismanagement.

Madness. Biri fired. No internal emails. No external communication from ELT.

No one quite explained what Biri did or what he did to get booted. Can someone explain backstory?

I am starting to question Chuck. Ultimately he has failed to build a cloud strategy yet, in a sector that is accelerating to cloud and utility consumption models. I give him another 18months before he is replaced with an external hire from a software/cloud company.

It was the Biri, Kip, and Ulf show - "I have experience in deconstructing clouds" - Ulf, "Disengage from DT" - Ulf, LR'ing all of Cloud, and Kip crying on stage. None of them know what they are doing. Thanks guys for ruining Cisco's Cloud offering - good job!

he got one of his HP guy UB .. what happens to him now?

Biri was the CTO (the latest #2 man). Interesting no external Wall Street release about this reorg yet.

Biri and Ruba Borno both have degrees from the University of North Carolina. Isn't that where Chuck graduated from?

'Nuff said.

Can someone summarize who was Biri, what was his sells pitch within Cisco?

who is Biri? who was he? Nobody at Cisco remembers anymore. But now worries mate, that s***-dis-turban-ter will re-surface somewhere else again to fake his way into the scene.

I gotta disagree with Stormin' Norman here: no amount of character can save your a*** without a solid strategy. It's painfully obvious now that this guy lacked both.

Who is/was biri? I had to look him up in the Cisco directory. Shows what kind of visibility he had on an ordinary worker.

Cisco has decimated MANY teams and NOT repurposed talent. They threw babies out with the bathwater and now they are in a mess. The People Deal, the ELT team? a joke. The Chuck and Karen team? another joke. They will be case topics for MBAs and organizational behaviour grad students.

So for our million of salary, bonuses, RsU and parachute, we get some second hand philosophy proclaiming his strong character. Bye Biri, don't come back you t*rd.

Lol hahaha

Jokes on you chuck.

You s__k.

Biri you talk sh!t but nice blow to the "EL"T

LOL hahahaha

Nice job Biri... jumping from a sinking ship. You were all talk anyway.

Chuck, you s---.

Biris latest twitter post: https://mobile.twitter.com/zbirisingh/status/783353387794374656/photo/1

Any questions ?

I heard Biri was escorted out the building, is that true? How did he fall from grace so quickly? I wonder how the ELT will spin this departure.

First Padma than Biri. Looks like the CTO position @ Cisco is reserved for clueless, overpaid Indian dopes.

The ship has no rudder. I wonder if Chuck is now realizing the issue was not in the C-Suite but deeper. New faces at the top haven't made anything better and you can't acquire your way out of a death spiral.

Lol. Burn the good talent, eject the awesome folk, leave the rats to run the place ... and then bail. What a turdblossom.

Can someone explain why he is leaving Cisco?

Ha! that would be bad karma. He decimated Mala's team without even looking what talent could be repurposed and what was truly deadwood and now he's out? Really? What a waste of money and talent. Maybe he'll help Cisco by moving to Dell-EMC this time to do some 'transformation' over there.

Looks like biri completed the grand tour (csco,hp,ibm) as cloud guru and DNF'ed in each to use a runners term for did not finish.

Have to wonder what due diligence the ceo did before hiring him. I am constantly amazed at so many non product delivery shaky types roaming around with vast rewards and power in the valley...not just csco. Truly a charmed place.

sysko condition does not look good. More LO might be coming sooner than expected.

Can someone explain the situation with Biri?

i heard his cloud strategy talk in GSX did not go down very well...

Say more bout the monumental LR f*ckup?

Interesting if this has anything to do with a monumental f----up with LRs in one of the Biri's groups. UB must be cheering now.

Yay! We'll have a new cloud strategy! Hurray!

Bout time, that guy has promised everything is coming soon and delivered squat.

CEC headline

Where is the news?