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In a world where youth unemployment is growing as AI replaces more and more entry-level jobs, Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel is going for a different approach. According to a report by Fortune , he's given a 27-year-old ex-startup founder — brought into the company by an earlier acquisition, and previously languishing in a role five levels below — a new job to refactor 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months.

The employee, Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, joined Cisco after it acquired EzDubs, a translation startup that Krishnamurthy helped build in 2023. While having executive experience, Patel found that "Paddy" was left "buried away in the organization doing something unstrategic."

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Ben Stockton is a deals writer at Tom’s Hardware. He's been writing about technology since 2018, with bylines at PCGamesN, How-To Geek, and Tom’s Guide, among others.…