How Does Cisco Practice Founder Mode?
Jeetu Patel says Cisco has said outright that it values an owner mindset, and he treats himself as a late-stage co-founder of Cisco.
He ran his own business for 17 years, then joined a very large company and found two kinds of people. Functional managers stay in a swim lane and run their function well. Owner-mentality people run the business and step into any function when something is not working, because the goal is to win in the market. Both kinds are needed, and neither is simply better. He has always had an owner mentality, and the habit annoys people on the functional side, so a cultural change has to name the owner mindset as a value. He was 36 years late to Cisco, and he still treats Cisco as his company. In wartime, during a platform shift while the business is being refactored, functional mode makes it very hard to win. The stance that fits is complete owner mentality, founder mode.
When choosing a company, assess which mode it operates in. If the mode is one you do not value, skip the job unless you have enough agency to change the mode. Otherwise the mismatch leaves you frustrated all the time.
