Cisco chief Jeetu Patel puts 27-year-old in charge of rewriting 98% of code
Cisco chief Jeetu Patel found a 27-year-old ex-founder hidden in the company.
The short version
- He gave the young engineer unlimited AI tokens to refactor code.
- The bold bet aims to rewrite 98% of legacy code in two years.
- Tech giants are rethinking how entry-level workers drive major product changes.
Why it matters to you. For your business, the lesson is that raw talent and fresh eyes often spot inefficiencies that decades of routine make invisible.
Cisco’s president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel just handed one of the $429 billion tech giant's biggest jobs to a 27-year-old he found hidden five levels down in the organization chart. The young engineer, Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, joined Cisco in 2025 after the company acquired his real-time translation startup, EzDubs.
Despite his background as a former founder, Krishnamurthy was buried away doing unstrategic work until a chance conversation in the San Francisco office changed everything. Patel gave him unlimited AI tokens and a four-week test to prove he could rewrite Cisco's legacy code with a tiny team, with the ultimate goal of rewriting 98% of it within 24 months.
According to Fortune, Patel believes seasoned staff lack the fresh questions that come from having zero legacy experience. Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner, who launched his venture capital firm at 26, similarly prefers hiring people with less than four years of industry experience to avoid entrenched thinking.
Alon Chen, founder and chief executive officer of Tastewise, a generative AI platform trusted by PepsiCo, Nestlé, and Mars, also seeks out entry-level Gen Z workers because they have no boundaries in how they think.
Photo: Travis Wise, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
