Jeetu Patel tasks Gen-Z engineer to rewrite Cisco’s code; why he wants 'friction'

​Cisco president Jeetu Patel is backing a 27-year-old engineer. Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy has been tasked with a project to rewrite 98% of the company’s legacy code within 24 months, a Fortune report claims. Patel sees the assignment as an example of why younger employees should have opportunities to challenge established approaches, even when they work alongside colleagues with decades of experience.​“Tension is good,” Patel said. “I actually try to create tension in the teams because you want to have enough friction on the ideas. You don’t want to have friction with people and personalities.” His approach combines ambitious targets with trust between employees, allowing younger recruits and experienced staff to question how work gets done.​How Krishnamurthy landed the Cisco assignment​Krishnamurthy joined Cisco in 2025 after the company acquired EzDubs, the real-time translation startup he co-founded in 2023.