Summary
Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel sits down with Y Combinator to explain how he is running one of the world’s largest technology companies with a founder’s mindset. Patel describes Cisco as the “picks and shovels” company of the AI era and outlines how the company has repositioned itself around AI infrastructure over the past few years.
The conversation digs into the data center buildout now underway. Patel walks through how AI networking has evolved from a single GPU, to eight GPUs in a server, to racks and rows, and now to “scale across” networking that links data centers hundreds of miles apart to work as one logical computer because of power constraints. He explains Cisco’s focus on scale-out and scale-across networking, including silicon, switch trays, and photonics. He also shares the company’s hyperscaler AI order growth, from a billion-dollar initial target to $2.3 billion in the first year and roughly $9 billion in the most recent period.
Patel also argues that AI will create demand for more engineers rather than fewer, and discusses how AI could compress product planning cycles. The episode closes with lessons for founders drawn from Patel’s personal path, from growing up in India and waiting tables at Sizzler to leading product at Cisco.
📺 Source: Y Combinator · Published October 08, 2026
🏷️ Format: Interview
