95 Quotes by John T. Chambers

What makes Silicon Valley really work? It's a unique combination of great educational institutions - especially at Stanford - that generate engineers and a culture that starts companies.

You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.

I like to believe that I got my business knowledge from my dad. He was able to see trends a long way off. And my mom is very good with people and emotional.

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.

When a market isn't in transition, gaining market share is hard - you're fighting to take one or two points of share from competitors.

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.

The political gridlock in Washington leads us to conclude that policymakers don't have the ability to put the public finances of the U.S. on a sustainable footing.

I think, as time passes, people will come to see that the United States' credit standing is really not quite the same level as the ones that we rate AAA.

We're very much focused on full shareholder-value return. We have to get our stock moving. But I won't do something in the short run that I don't feel is right for the long run. That, I've watched many CEOs do.