Q+A: John Chambers

In an interview, John Chambers, who led much of Cisco's growth, retired as CEO in 2015, after 20 years, but continues to serve as executive chairman talked about the campaign to bring Internet access and services to the country's vast population. Chambers said that the number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return. Some programs have not moved as aggressively as I would like, like in the United States. Others are very aggressive, like India's. The numbers in Andhra Pradesh are just amazing. They think they can bring 10 to 15 megabytes to the home for $2.50 per month. 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.