Cisco CEO: I don't use AI to cut jobs, I just want our engineers to ...
This contrasts with companies like Microsoft and Amazon, which have recently laid off thousands of employees. Microsoft alone cut about 9,000 jobs in early July. Robbins acknowledged that many of his peers anticipate hiring fewer people in the future as AI technology advances, and he didn't rule out the possibility for Cisco "down the road."
What's driving Cisco's AI strategy
Cisco's latest quarterly results suggest that its strategy is working. The company exceeded expectations for both earnings and revenue and provided a positive outlook. A key driver of this success is its focus on AI infrastructure. The company more than doubled its initial $1 billion AI infrastructure order target for fiscal year 2025, with more than $800 million in orders coming in during the fourth quarter alone. These orders are largely from "webscale customers"—major tech companies like Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft—that are rapidly building out their AI capabilities.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
These 11 Everyday Foods Might Be the Key to Knee Pain Relief
lovemyfamilymag.com
Undo
Despite the positive news, Cisco's stock experienced a 1.5% dip on Thursday. The cause was a lackluster performance in its security segment, which missed revenue expectations. The weakness was attributed to budget cuts in the U.S. federal government, which affected Cisco's business with those agencies. The company had hoped to see more growth from its March 2024 acquisition of the cybersecurity platform Splunk, but the full benefits of that deal have been delayed.
Still, the overall picture for Cisco remains strong. The company confirmed it has already secured roughly $1 billion in AI revenue from webscale customers for fiscal year 2025. Cisco, which is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is a new addition to TheStreet's portfolio. The investment team sees the company's role in supporting its customers' AI initiatives as a significant growth driver.
AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
From non-profit to $500 billion: OpenAI's valuation rise
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit, which Elon Musk will keep reminding chief executive Sam Altman, OpenAI has evolved over the past decade to become one of the world's most valuable private technology companies It started with grants, donations, and modest investments from technology leaders. But recent reports suggest that OpenAI is approaching a $500 billion market capitalisation as current and former employees may sell some shares. The company's valuation remained comparatively low during its early years while it focussed on developing its artificial intelligence (AI) became a unicorn and reached $1 billion in valuation in July 2019 as investor interest grew around AI research and commercialisation. This is when Microsoft was added to the company's cap April 2021, as commercialisation within the tech and enterprise space and the relevance of large language models and generative AI increased, OpenAI's value was pushed to $14 released ChatGPT in November 2022, marking a major juncture for the company. The conversational AI chatbot took the world by storm, with hundreds of thousands using it regularly, and Big Tech peers coming out with rivals in the subsequent year. This pushed OpenAI's valuation to $29 billion by January 2023, OpenAI expanded its offerings with new models and developer tools, such as plug-ins and enterprise APIs, which further accelerated its market February 2024, sustained growth and new product launches had taken OpenAI's valuation to $86 billion. However, a major fillip came in October 2024, when the company closed a $6.6 billion funding round led by major investors including Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank. This round raised OpenAI's valuation to $157 billion, making it one of the highest-valued private companies closed a $40 billion funding round in March led by SoftBank Group, with other investors including Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund, and Altimeter Capital Management participating. This nearly doubled the market cap to $300 product evolution has continued, with launches like GPT-4 and, most recently, GPT-5 that have increased capabilities and increased adoption across sectors. Bloomberg reported on August 16 that current and former OpenAI employees are in talks to sell about $6 billion worth of stock to investors, including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp., and Dragoneer Investment Group, in a deal that would value the ChatGPT maker at $500 billion.
The Hindu
3 hours ago
- The Hindu
Data centre owners urge U.S. Treasury to keep renewable energy subsidy rules
The Data Center Coalition, which represents data center owners including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, called on U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to uphold existing rules for wind and solar energy subsidies, saying they have enabled the industry to grow quickly and stay ahead of competition from China. Tougher rules on how projects can qualify for federal clean energy tax credits could slow development of new electricity generation at a time of surging power demand driven by artificial intelligence and the digital economy. "Any regulatory friction that slows down deployment of new generation today directly impacts our ability to meet AI-era electricity demands tomorrow," the coalition wrote in its letter to Bessent. The letter is dated August 4 but was seen by Reuters on Friday. U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in July directing Treasury to tighten clean energy tax credit rules, including redefining what it means for a project to have started construction. The industry has relied on the existing rules for the last decade, and advisory firm Clean Energy Associates projected this week that the United States could lose about 60 gigawatts of planned solar capacity through 2030 if stricter "beginning of construction" rules are implemented. Between 2017 and 2023, the U.S. data center industry contributed $3.5 trillion to the nation's gross domestic product and directly employed over 600,000 workers, according to the DCC. The Treasury Department is expected to issue updated guidelines as soon as August 18.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Explained: The rise of fake productivity at work; how employees are ‘task-masking' to look busy
If your calendar looks like a Mumbai local at rush hour and Teams pings like a Diwali bazaar, you're not alone; that bustle may not be real productivity. But it may not be real productivity. A new workplace habit is spreading: Fake productivity, the theatre of looking busy while sidestepping high-impact work. One recent clue: A Workhuman poll found more than a third of UK employees (36%) admit to 'pretend productivity', driven by pressure to appear constantly active and to protect work–life balance. In parallel, leaders are wrestling with 'productivity paranoia': Microsoft's Work Trend Index reports 85% of managers say hybrid work makes it hard to trust productivity, even as employees themselves report feeling productive—an optics paradox tailor-made for performative busyness. The conditions are ideal for what social and workplace commentators now call task-masking—performative micro-tasks (reply-all, calendar clutter, meeting hopscotch) that signal effort without moving outcomes. Media analyses link the behaviour to return-to-office pressures and the surveillance vibe of 'bossware,' which nudge people to show activity over achievement. Meanwhile, collaboration load has ballooned: Microsoft shows people attend roughly three times more Teams meetings than in February 2020, while investigative summaries of Atlassian's State of Teams suggest tens of billions of work hours are lost yearly to pings, low-value meetings and duplicated effort. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Secure Your Child's Future with Strong English Fluency Planet Spark Learn More Undo Add the cognitive drain of video calls—Stanford's validated Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue scale has tied specific design factors (mirror anxiety, close-up eye contact) to depleted energy—and you get a recipe for surface-level work that 'looks' productive but isn't. This is not simply a moral failing; it is a systems problem. Always-on messaging fuels telepressure—the compulsive urge to respond—which research in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology connects to poorer sleep, higher burnout and worse work–life balance. People learn to survive the signal-choked day by doing visible tasks that keep the Slack dot green. The result: energy burns on the appearance of work, outcomes lag, and trust erodes. Understanding why task-masking thrives—and how to replace it with outcome-first habits—is now a core career skill. What exactly is 'task-masking' (and how is it different from simple busyness)? Task-masking is performative busyness: Behaviours that signal industriousness (typing loudly, darting between meetings, carrying a laptop everywhere) while avoiding deep, outcome-bearing work. The label has spread through Gen-Z-heavy social feeds and newsrooms. Analysts describe it as a productivity theatre tuned for the open-plan and the activity dashboard. The underlying prevalence is plausible given Workhuman's finding that 36% of UK workers confess to 'pretend productivity,' often to escape burnout or unrealistic expectations. The psychology and systems that fuel fake productivity Fake productivity doesn't emerge in a vacuum—it's shaped by systems that reward responsiveness, visibility and performative hustle. At the centre is telepressure: the compulsive need to answer messages instantly, regardless of urgency. Multiple studies in occupational psychology link this behaviour to poor sleep, elevated burnout and fractured work–life boundaries. But the pressure isn't confined to pings and emails. According to Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index, employees now attend nearly three times as many Teams meetings as they did before the pandemic. That explosion in meeting load may aim to increase coordination, but it comes at the cost of cognitive fragmentation and depleted focus time. The problem is compounded by the medium itself. Stanford's research on Zoom fatigue finds that constant video calls introduce non-verbal stressors—close-up eye contact, mirror anxiety, and reduced mobility—that accelerate exhaustion across the day. Layered on top is the rise of digital presenteeism—the compulsion to appear online and 'active' even when unwell or mentally drained. According to the CIPD & Simplyhealth Health and Wellbeing at Work survey (2022), 81% of UK organisations reported presenteeism among remote workers, compared to 65% in physical workplaces. The numbers expose a system where visibility trumps well-being—and where looking busy matters more than being effective. Together, these factors fuel task-masking: a survival strategy in a workplace architecture built for appearances. Why Gen Z is over-indexed on task-masking Gen Z did not invent pretend work, but they are operating in a post-pandemic labour market where visibility is often misread as value. Return-to-office rules, legacy KPIs and leader distrust make 'being seen' a protective strategy. Coverage of task-masking consistently spotlights younger workers navigating visibility politics while fearing job loss or AI displacement. At the same time, values have shifted: Deloitte's 2025 global survey finds Gen Z prioritises well-being, balance and learning ; they will comply with optics if outcomes and boundaries are unclear, but they are quick to disengage from rituals that feel meaningless. Several surveys show that many Gen Z workers resist full-time office returns, increasing the temptation to 'signal' productivity when present rather than to refactor the work itself. Task-masking and quiet quitting: Cousins, not twins Quiet quitting is disengagement to the contractual minimum; task-masking is disengagement disguised as hustle. According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2024 report, only 21% of employees worldwide were actively engaged at work. The majority were either disengaged or quietly quitting, creating ideal conditions for fake productivity to flourish. In such environments, workers are more likely to adopt surface-level behaviours that signal busyness, such as excessive meetings or constant online presence, rather than contributing to meaningful outcomes. When trust is low and objectives are fuzzy, people hedge: They keep the lights blinking, attend everything, and avoid risk. In that sense, task-masking can be the performative arm of quiet quitting—a way to stay safe while mentally stepping back. How managers create (or crush) faux productivity Leaders can unintentionally train teams to optimise for optics: Obsessing over green dots, input metrics and time online. Microsoft's 2022–2025 data calls this 'productivity paranoia,' visible when managers track activity rather than outcomes and calendars swell to compensate. A related body of research, Atlassian's State of Teams report, highlights the enormous time sink caused by pings, meetings, and duplicated effort. It estimates that billions of work hours are lost annually to ineffective collaboration. The fix is not more dashboards; it is clarity (what is the outcome, who owns it), cadence (fewer, sharper meetings) and evidence (show progress with artefacts, not attendance). Bottom line Fake productivity isn't laziness—it's a symptom of misaligned systems. In today's workplace, visibility has become a proxy for value. When calendars are packed and Slack is never silent, activity becomes the performance, not the means to an end. Employees aren't defying work; they're adapting to cultures where being seen outweighs producing results. Task-masking emerges as the rational response to environments that reward optics over output. Quiet quitting and fake productivity aren't opposites—they're parallel forms of disengagement. One retreats quietly, the other performs loudly. Both thrive when trust is low, goals are vague, and measurement skews toward motion instead of meaning. In this landscape, the green dot—the little status indicator once meant to show availability—has evolved into a badge of allegiance, a digital placeholder for presence. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
