Cisco Gives 27-Year-Old Unlimited AI Tokens to Rewrite 98% of Legacy Code

Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel has handed a major code rewrite to 27-year-old Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, known as Paddy. Patel gave him unlimited AI tokens and a goal of rewriting 98% of Cisco's legacy code within 24 months. Krishnamurthy joined Cisco in 2025 after the company acquired EzDubs, the real-time translation startup he cofounded in 2023.

A hidden founder gets a major assignment

Patel said he found Krishnamurthy 'buried away in the organization doing something unstrategic' five levels below him. Krishnamurthy reckoned he could rewrite Cisco's legacy code with a two-person team. Patel said even the most AI-forward people on his own team were not thinking that way, and he gave Krishnamurthy four weeks to prove it.

Gen Z should challenge the status quo

Patel said he gave Krishnamurthy unlimited tokens and told him, 'you can go nuts.' He also said he treats every intern as 'kind of a reverse mentor' and looks for students who are 'hungry.' Patel said hiring early-in-career workers matters because fresh ideas need to be injected into a workforce, and seasoned staff cannot ask questions that only someone with no experience would think to ask.

Other leaders are also betting on young talent

Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner told Fortune he likes to hire people with less than four years of industry experience. Alon Chen, founder and CEO of Tastewise, said he is hiring entry-level workers with zero experience because they have no boundaries or limitations in how they think about the world. Will.i.am said he believes the next big tech breakthroughs will come from young innovators at MIT and Stanford, and that he is focused on hunting for that talent.

A three-part team model

Patel said roughly one-third of his team is experienced, scaled operators who understand how the Cisco engine works. Another third are systems thinkers from the market who bring an outside-in perspective. The final third are entrepreneurial founders, CEOs, and engineers who are AI-native and operate in founder mode.

Sources: Fortune