Gen Z seems to be struggling to catch its breath. Entry-level positions are disappearing; some bosses have stated that they plan to hire 40% fewer fresh graduates because AI can complete the work at a lower cost. Young employees also frequently face criticism for being late or refusing to work overtime for free. Cisco's President and Chief Product Officer, Jeetu Patel, does not agree with these claims – he has just entrusted one of the company's most important tasks to a 27-year-old employee who was previously “hidden five levels below me” in the organizational structure.
“I gave him unlimited tokens because he was going to restructure the code,” Patel said to Fortune at a small round-table dinner, “So I thought to myself, you can go ahead and just do it without any hesitation.”
The "he" mentioned by Patel is actually Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy; Patel affectionately calls him " Paddy ". Krishnamurthy joined Cisco in 2025, after which the tech giant, valued at $429 billion at the time, acquired EzDubs, a real-time translation startup that he co-founded in 2023. Although he joined with the experience of a former founder, in the eyes of Patel, he was "buried within the organization, doing tasks that were not strategic."
After Patel visited Cisco's San Francisco office and had a conversation with them, things changed. Krishnamurthy believed that he could rewrite Cisco's legacy code with a team of two people. Patel said that even the people in his own team who were most supportive of AI had never thought of doing that.
Therefore, Patel gave him four weeks to prove himself, with the ultimate goal of rewriting 98% of Cisco's legacy code within 24 months.
Now, Patel is still looking for more such "Paddy": young employees who are willing to "challenge the system and the status quo," or in his words, those who are "full of energy and can inspire everyone around them."
The Cisco president stated that Gen Z should teach his veteran employees, rather than having them do data entry work – and he is not bothered by the resulting tensions.
In most companies, only those with decades of experience are trusted to undertake projects of such scale. Patel believes that this is precisely where the problem lies.
"If you don't hire employees in the early stages of their careers and just let your workforce continue as it is, where will new ideas come from? And how can you challenge the status quo?" he said.
Patel added that, of course, senior employees can also come up with new ideas, but what they cannot do is to pose questions that only inexperienced people would think of.
And getting the two to cooperate smoothly is not always easy. Patel acknowledges that putting an Gen Z employee and someone who has worked at Cisco for decades in the same room might lead to friction – but he says that’s exactly the purpose.
"Tension is a good thing," he said, "I actually deliberately create tension within the team because you need enough friction in ideas. You don't want friction to arise between people or personalities."
"You must build enough trust with people so that they know you are expected to set unreasonable goals for yourself," he added, "and in order to achieve these unreasonable goals, you need to think outside of the box."
He not only encourages senior employees to learn from young people in their twenties but also considers every intern as a kind of "reverse mentor." He even goes to universities to give lectures, looking for those students who are "eager" to learn.
His most recent bet on Gen Z came from a speech he gave at Stanford University to 17- and 18-year-old scholarship students. When a row of students asked him questions, one of them named Baya just stood by quietly listening. It was not until everyone else had asked their questions that she spoke up.
Patel asked her to send herself an email every month, reporting on the AI knowledge she had learned. This is a test of execution: “Everyone can go out and have a great exchange. But will they stick to their promises?”
She never missed a single payment once, and later she got an internship opportunity at Cisco, where she redesigned something that a highly experienced employee had been unable to solve for a long time.
“I let her in not to have her do menial work or data entry,” he said, “We brought her in so that she could truly teach our people how to think in a completely different way.” Now, he still wants to bring her in again.
Patel is not the only one who placed bets on Gen Z; investors Josh Kushner and Will.i.am are also looking for young talents eager to grow.
Patel is not the only boss who believes that Gen Z's lack of experience is actually an advantage.
Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner told Fortune that he particularly likes to hire people with less than four years of industry experience.
When he founded this venture capital company at the age of 26, he faced the pressure of bringing in older and more experienced employees. But as he said, "No one with experience and talent would be willing to work with a 26-year-old." Therefore, he turned to recruiting "the smartest people we know who are our own age."
And this bet later paid off: his company made early investments in several startups valued at several billion dollars each, including OpenAI. OpenAI is currently raising up to $30 billion with a valuation of $1.25 trillion.
These days, Kushner could easily hire experienced professionals with impressive resumes – but he still prefers to “find that young, eager person” instead.
Tastewise Founder and CEO Alon Chen is also actively seeking Gen Z employees with no prior experience. Tastewise is a generative AI platform, with clients including PepsiCo, Nestle, and Mars.
"I hire entry-level employees because they think without boundaries or limitations," Chen said to Fortune, "They are almost like the indigenous people of AI; they were born and raised in this new field of opportunities. I see some of the best ideas coming from the younger generation that has not yet entered the job market."
Will.i.am has also reached a similar conclusion. This Grammy Award winner and lead singer of Black Eyed Peas is perhaps best known for his popular songs, but behind the scenes, he is also an important investor. He made investments long before Tesla, OpenAI, and Pinterest became well-known names. Now, he has placed his next investment in Gen Z.
Why? He believes that the next major technological breakthroughs will come from MIT and the young innovators at Stanford. “They are young, and they naturally understand this,” Will.i.am said to Fortune, “so that’s what you need to look for. That’s the only thing I’m focused on.”
Patel to Fortune indicates that, driven by AI, the trend of recruiting Gen Z will only continue.
"The only way we can continue to accelerate is by ensuring that we have people with extensive experience around us," he said. "About a third of the team consists of senior operators who are experienced in running Cisco systems. The second third are system thinkers from the market who can bring an external perspective. The final third is made up of entrepreneurs, CEO, and AI native engineers, who operate in a founder mode."
Each of these three types of people is far less powerful when working alone than when they collaborate together. It is this combination that creates magic.
