I learned another lesson from Jack Welch. It was in 1998, and at that time, we were one of the most valuable companies in the world. I said, 'Jack, what does it take to have a great company?' And he said, 'It takes major setbacks and overcoming those.'

At Cisco, we are moving to collaboration teams, groups coming together that represent sales, engineering, finance, legal, etc. And we're training leaders to think across silos.

Understand what you are acquiring and protect it at all costs. You are acquiring people and next-generation products. You are making an investment that together you can grow faster, make more profits, and take more market share.

If you agree with everything I have said, then I have failed.

As a leader, you don't get too high on the highs or let the bumps balance down. Every leader over time has probably equal amount of good luck or bad luck - or, you could argue, has good opportunities or challenges.

I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.

This will be the first time in my lifetime I'm voting for a Democrat. I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton. I've already voted.

I don't enjoy politics. I like to get things done, and I like Republicans and Democrats, and that doesn't always work well.

We know that veterans have valuable skills and experiences that are highly sought after in today's workforce.

People who might normally have to travel hours to a distant city to see a cardiologist can now do so virtually, through Cisco technology, at their local hospital or health clinic. Clinicians use technology to share patient reports and diagnostic images and collaborate on cases.

I wasn't always interested in technology. I had been a student for a long time - I'd earned a bachelor's degree, a law degree, and an MBA - and decided that I wanted to work in a large corporation, focusing on finance and law, in either New York or Chicago.

Our success at Cisco has been defined by how we anticipate, capture, and lead through market transitions. Over the years, I've watched iconic companies disappear - Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Wang, Digital Equipment - as they failed to anticipate where the market was heading.

When I think about developing solutions, I think about how we can use technology to make a difference.

The No. 1 country in the world to do business in is which one? To locate where you want to create jobs, where you want to have a great market? It's Canada. Even in Russia, you can build a Silicon Valley outside of Moscow.

Everything becomes connected, and cyber security becomes the top issue for CEOs. An average company has 40-60 security vendors, and they have a violation every three months with viruses.

Organized crime and rogue nation states and terrorists are very much focused on the Internet of things. The challenge that goes with connectivity is always security. The bad guys go wherever the return is, and now it's more lucrative for bad guys to focus on cybercrime than traditional crime.

I don't make fun of people. I call people by what they want to be called. What does your best friend call you? What does your spouse call you? It helps you emotionally connect to people.

By exciting citizens about the new digital opportunity, breaking down silos of competing groups to form a truly open innovation ecosystem and shifting day-to-day resources to focus on big long-term investments for the future, countries can ensure that they break through and bridge the digital gap.

Often, what I tell a new CEO asking for advice, or one of my own new leaders, is the two most important decisions that your team is going to watch is the first person you hire and the first person you promote - because you are saying that's the type of person I want.

Widening the talent pipeline sufficiently will require a generational commitment to teaching math and science, providing technical training, and mentoring young people of all backgrounds so they understand the full range of possibilities that a career in technology affords.

In France, President Francois Hollande is leveraging the next wave of the Internet to jumpstart economic reforms and create jobs for hundreds of thousands of citizens. A historically socialist government, France has had the courage to quickly implement unique partnerships with the business community to drive entrepreneurial spirit and thinking.

We'll have a sales leader go run engineering. A lawyer go run business development. A business development leader go run our consumer operations. We're going to train a generalist group of leaders who know how to learn and operate in collaboration teamwork. I think that's the future of leadership.

If every company becomes a technology company, business models and transitions are going to occur. From a CEO's perspective, this is going to be the biggest technology transition of all times.

When you're a large company with significant market share, it's tempting to view market disruptions as a threat, but we view them as an opportunity.