Continuing on the theme of AI: I can tell you what the MBAs are saying. Remember, the MBAs know more about network engineering than you, despite your training and experience, because, well, they’re MBAs! The went to Stanford! Or Kellogg! Or San Jose State! The MBAs are sure you’re going to be replaced by AI. […]
Tag: mba
Back in the lab
We all have to make a decision, at some point in our career, about whether or not we get into the management track. At Cisco, there is a very strong path for individual contributors (IC). You can be come a principal (director-level), a distinguished (senior director-level), and a fellow (VP-level) as an IC, never having […]
The death of CLI: A lesson from Swift
Update: From Fred, who was the guy referenced in the first paragraph: Actually it was a white button with a router icon on it and “make cli great again”, I know this because it was me. It was June 2016. Needless to say in my view that did not age well. When I attended Cisco […]
The War on Expertise
Like many network engineers, I quickly fell in love with my field and worked hard to master it. I got into networking when I was working in desktop support. The behind-the-scenes stuff was way more interesting to me than the front lines. Back in the late nineties, I bought a library of books to learn […]
Plain Language
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in America our police speak in a sort of code language. Instead of saying “he got out of the car and walked away,” the police will say, “the subject exited the vehicle and proceeded on foot.” It’s not that their language is any clearer–in […]
The problem of permanence
Some years ago, I worked for a company with a CEO who had a background in marketing. It was 2010, and he decided to use his marketing skills to launch a huge new campaign called “Mission 10”. Our goal: to become the next $10 billion company. At the time I think I revenue was less […]
Technical Confusion
How often have you learned about a new technology, and couldn’t understand it? How many trainings and presentations have you sat through that left you in a mental fog? It amazes me how many technologies we are supposed to master in our industry, and how many we never do. Let me give an example. When […]