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Organization structure is insane. A typically strong performer is some 10-12 levels away from the CEO. This means, while the compensation is good at the beginning, there is simply no room for a tremendous growth.
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Company in doldrums: Listen plebe. This is what is happening to Cisco. It's core business is kaput long term. In 10 years, Cisco won't be selling any routers or switches and may be lucky to be in the security business (which will get cut throat and eventually consolidate among major players, and Cisco won't be in there). Why the stock price rose so much then? It's stock buyback stupid. Cisco is burning its cash alarmingly to buy back stock, while making some absolutely stupid minor purchases (AppDynamics????). They don't have any vision. They are going to burn through the cash until the stock is pushed beyond $40, and all top executives sell and get the hell out. I see in my crystal ball that the only profitable business (security) will spin off at some point in future. The rest of the company will evaporate.
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Sneaky bastards: Under the guise of "limited restructuring", Cisco routinely lays off its older employees. Simply don't consider a career here. I have worked at several places (pushing 50 now), and in almost all places, older employees are respected and kept around as long as they are productive.
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Ruthless businessmen: The way Cisco increases its bottom line is by "cutting costs". After its revenue rose sharply in the last few years (thanks to security!!), it was flat in both 2016 and 17. It will fall in 2018 and the trend will accelerate. Cisco will keep increasing the India office until it has over the half the company workforce there. The "expensive US staff" will be cut ruthlessly.
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CEO: The CEO is a sales guy for crying out loud. All the big SV tech firms (with the exception of Apple, which is going to be like Cisco in a few years) are led by technical visionaries. Cisco's CEO is a smooth glib talker MBA. Good luck Cisco engineers; you are gonna need it.
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To be fair, Chuck R is more apt to understand software or systems than his predecessor, with a degree in math and computer science from UNC. Some years ago for sure, but he's more "technical" than JC was by a fair bit.
Arista's revenues are 2% of Cisco's and according to the patent lawsuits walked off with parts of IOS-XR to do it.
The "fab four" put together teams which couldn't even cut and paste a copyright notice correctly and it was left to other Cisco staff to make their code actually work.
The ability to break up code into smaller pieces so you don't have functions that are a thousand lines long goes back to at least the 1950s so the code you are maintaining is not "1990s style code." When you could count the number of memory locations on your thumbs in the 1950s you didn't have room for a thousand cut and pasted instances of the same code forcing some of the developers of the day to be better at abstraction than many people at Cisco today.
Cisco only hands out golden showers rather than golden handcuffs these days. It's a great place for mediocre people to congregate. HR's hiring practice will ensure it.
I am the OP.
For tech companies, and especially for a company the size and importance of Cisco, the CEO absolutely should be a tech visionary.
Cisco's CEO will never understand what it takes to write code, and actually build impactful products. NEVER. Unless you are a geek, you will never "get it" no matter how good a salesman you are. And it is showing in the company. They have done an impressive job of pushing the stock higher, but their engineering is in doldrums. Arista is eating their breakfast, lunch and dinner. The fab 4 have left. I know across our engineering unit, several impactful people are leaving. India operations are increasing; costs are being cut and the code is sh--. They are writing and babying 1990s style code. Arista meanwhile invented a cool native OS. So...
Gates. Zuckerburg. Jobs. Ellison. Even Nadella. Page/Brin/Pichai. F---, even Arista's whole top management. All of them are techies.
Good post OP but from an ordinary persons point of view, it is a difficult decision to disembark the gravy train when you know you may not be far from an LR train stop and can disembark with a golden ticket. I know this is different in different countries but here in UK&I, somebody with 10 years at Cisco will leave with about a year's salary in their pocket. That makes the decision on whether to leave the toxicity on your own steam or to wait it out. It's a good test of sanity if you chose to wait it out but it's not for everybody.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. No fault of Cisco's.
Either adapt, evolve, or go extinct.
A AND NOT A.
I had ample opportunities to try to climb the ladder but chose not to.
The biggest lesson I have realized is how much I bought into chasing dollars.
A AND NOT A.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. No fault of Cisco's. It's essentially natural. One should never live life expecting to win the RSU, Option, or ESPP lottery. Lower your life financial expectations and you'll be much happier.
Regarding "Doldrums" - I wouldn't have the slightest idea myself on how to run it all, so can't pass judgment. I signed on to be part of Cisco long ago, that time is now past, now time to move on. I had ample opportunities to try to climb the ladder but chose not to. No one's fault. The evaporation of gross margin is natural. Either adapt, evolve, or go extinct.
Regarding "Ruthless Businessmen" - it is indeed an international business. We all know the risk is for functions to migrate to lowest cost economy. If I didn't want to accept that risk, I should have done something else with the past decade and a half.
So what if the CEO is a "sales guy" - he did his time, climbed the ladder, and was able to convince the board he is the best fit for the job. There is no magic mix; and if it's time to slice off components, eventually sell off unprofitable portions - then so be it. Let it run it's course.
I was affected by this recent restructuring and am proud of the work I did. Everyone else affected, and those that will be affected, should try to be proud to. All of this is just natural.
The biggest lesson I have realized is how much I bought into chasing dollars. None of it's worth it. It's not Cisco's fault. It's my own ungrounded outlook to compare myself to others who simply played the Cisco game better than I did. Letting all these feelings go has been the best part of the restructuring. I still wish Cisco, and everyone on board, a prosperous future - whatever that means.