Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer, helping turn one of the world’s largest technology companies into what he calls “the world’s largest startup.”

Cisco is now positioning itself as the picks-and-shovels company for the AI era, spanning networking, security, silicon, and infrastructure. Its AI infrastructure business went from zero to $9.3B in orders in just two years.

In this episode of Main Function, Jeetu joins YC's Jared Friedman to talk about bringing a founder mindset to the company, and what the massive data center buildout looks like from the inside. He also shares the unlikely path that took him from waiting tables at Sizzler to leading product at Cisco, and the lessons he’s learned about ambition, compounding, and making the most of the opportunities in front of you.

00:00 — Cisco’s Bet on AI
03:38 — Running Cisco Like a Startup
06:45 — The Infrastructure AI Agents Need
10:00 — Getting 32,000 Engineers to Embrace AI
14:07 — Bringing AI to Hardware and Silicon
17:15 — Inside the AI Data Center Buildout
21:27 — Are We Overbuilding AI Infrastructure?
25:10 — Building Trust in AI Agents
28:18 — From India to Waiting Tables at Sizzler
32:12 — Choosing Learning Over Ego
35:31 — Ambition, Teamwork, and Compounding
39:31 — Don’t Squander Your Opportunity