John T. Chambers

Our line of business structure has served us very well in the past, when customer segments and product requirements were very distinct.

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.

We want a culture where it is unacceptable not to share what you know.

There are two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those who don't know they have been hacked.

We're going to become the number one security company.

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.

In 2008, we began an initiative to outsource projects from our Israeli office to three companies in the Palestinian Territories.

If you asked would I have done a startup in India, the answer is yes.

If every company becomes a technology company, business models and transitions are going to occur. From a CEO's perspective, this is going to be the biggest technology transition of all times.

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.

You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.

The No. 1 country in the world to do business in is which one? To locate where you want to create jobs, where you want to have a great market? It's Canada. Even in Russia, you can build a Silicon Valley outside of Moscow.