Quotes from John T. Chambers

I wasn't always interested in technology. I had been a student for a long time - I'd earned a bachelor's degree, a law degree, and an MBA - and decided that I wanted to work in a large corporation, focusing on finance and law, in either New York or Chicago.

To create a truly digital Europe will require a foundation of high-speed, high-quality broadband, both wired and wireless.

When you're a large company with significant market share, it's tempting to view market disruptions as a threat, but we view them as an opportunity.

Our next CEO needs to thrive in a highly dynamic environment, to be capable of accelerating what is working very well for Cisco and disrupting what needs to change.

Government leaders need to ask themselves if they are positioning their country to reap the full potential of the digital economy.

The number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return.

I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, taught me to look at it like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.

We know that veterans have valuable skills and experiences that are highly sought after in today's workforce.

I think it was a major mistake to revisit Title II.

I think technology can change every country regardless of political party.

Since I became CEO, 87 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 are off the list. What that says is that companies that don't reinvent themselves will be left behind. I also think that's true of people. And I think it's true of countries.

What I've realized is most leaders cannot reinvent themselves at the CEO level or at the operational level.

I think India should be our top ally in Asia Pacific. And the two countries have so much in common, including being the largest and most powerful democracies.

There's a lot to learn from President Clinton. It kills me as a strong Republican saying it, but he was the most effective president during my lifetime. And when business got out of line, he smacked them.

The industry has to learn how to do CEO succession well. If your definition of success is Intel or Microsoft or HP or IBM, that's not a good track record, and yet they are the most successful ones.

The window was open for us to play in the consumer as data, voice, video came together. This is where you have to have the courage to take good business risks because if you don't, you never win.

I support both Democrats and Republicans on many issues. I'm more interested in where they are on technology.

I don't enjoy politics. I like to get things done, and I like Republicans and Democrats, and that doesn't always work well.

It's connectivity that really makes the industrial Internet work: it's giving the right information at the right time to the right person or right machine to make the right decision.

You want to select the right applications at the right time for your industry.

The definition of success is that the company doesn't miss a beat. Do I love what I do? Oh yeah - I love it more than ever. You've got to have that energy level 24/7. But you've also got to make sure the transition is smooth. Being realistic, most high-tech companies haven't done that well.

We'll have a sales leader go run engineering. A lawyer go run business development. A business development leader go run our consumer operations. We're going to train a generalist group of leaders who know how to learn and operate in collaboration teamwork. I think that's the future of leadership.

When I look at the success of the Cisco Networking Academy program, which has reached more than 4.75 million people since 1997, I know it could have never achieved this scale without our partners. Together we provide the tools, equipment and training for our students and teachers.

Every company, city, and country is becoming digital, navigating disruptive markets, and Cisco's role in the digital transformation has never been more important.