Cisco's Jeetu Patel gives 27-year-old unlimited tokens to rewrite 98% of legacy code

Patel's bet on Krishnamurthy came from an accidental encounter in Cisco's San Francisco office, not a formal talent search. Patel describes Krishnamurthy as having been "buried away in the organization doing something unstrategic" before their conversation, where Krishnamurthy reckoned a two-person team could rewrite Cisco's legacy code. Patel says even the most AI-forward people on his own team weren't thinking that way, and he has given himself four weeks to see the claim tested.

The approach sits alongside Patel's broader argument about workforce mix. He describes his team as roughly one-third experienced operators who understand the Cisco engine, one-third systems thinkers from the market, and one-third entrepreneurial founders and engineers—and says the combination is more potent than any group alone. That logic extends to his recruiting: he treats every intern as a reverse mentor and speaks at colleges to find students he calls "hungry," a practice that produced the Stanford student Baya, who emailed him monthly and later landed an internship.

Patel is not alone in favoring young hires. Thrive Capital's Josh Kushner told Fortune he specifically likes to hire people with less than four years of industry experience, and Tastewise CEO Alon Chen said he is hiring entry-level because younger workers have no boundaries in how they think. Will.i.am said he is focused on young innovators at MIT and Stanford. Whether Cisco's four-week proof turns into the 24-month rewrite remains to be seen.