Cisco tasks 27-year-old to rewrite legacy code using unlimited AI tokens

Cisco Assigns 27-Year-Old Unlimited AI Tokens to Rewrite Legacy Code

Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel has tasked 27-year-old Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy with refactoring 98% of the company’s legacy code within 24 months, providing him with unlimited AI tokens and a four-week window to prove his approach, Fortune reported.

The Tech TL;DR:
• Cisco executive Jeetu Patel tapped 27-year-old ex-startup founder Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy to refactor 98% of the company’s legacy code using unlimited AI tokens.
• Krishnamurthy, who joined Cisco after the 2025 acquisition of his translation startup EzDubs, proposed handling the massive rewrite with a two-person team.
• The project aims to use AI-native perspectives to challenge the status quo, though some note the risks of rogue AI agents taking unsolicited actions.

The assignment targets a foundational overhaul of corporate infrastructure. Krishnamurthy, known as Paddy, entered Cisco in 2025 following the tech giant’s acquisition of EzDubs, a real-time translation startup he cofounded in 2023, according to Fortune. Patel found him buried five levels deep in the organization doing unstrategic work before their meeting in San Francisco.

Two-Person Refactoring Vision Confronts Enterprise Infrastructure

During their discussion in San Francisco, Krishnamurthy asserted that a two-person team could rewrite Cisco’s legacy code, a proposition that Patel noted went far beyond the thinking of even the most AI-forward members of his own team. Tom’s Hardware reported that Patel told him to “go nuts” with an unlimited supply of AI tokens to accomplish the 24-month overhaul, backed by an initial four-week proof-of-concept timeline.

Challenging Corporate Hierarchy With AI-Native Talent

Patel argued that traditional corporate structures actively stifle innovation by shielding legacy systems from fresh perspectives. “If you don’t hire the early-in-career [workers], and you just let your workforce continue the way that they were, where do fresh ideas get injected? How do you challenge the status quo?” Patel stated, as reported by Fortune. Patel actively embraces the internal friction generated by pairing decades-old enterprise veterans with young innovators.

Patel Blends Three Organizational Mindsets for Sustainable Acceleration

Patel emphasized that sustainable enterprise acceleration requires a deliberate blend of distinct organizational mindsets. Roughly one-third of his team consists of experienced, scaled operators who understand how the Cisco engine works, another third comprises systems thinkers from the market who bring the outside-in perspective, and the final third features AI-native entrepreneurial founders, CEOs, and engineers operating in founder mode.

“Either of these groups by themselves aren’t nearly as potent as when all three work together. It’s what creates magic,” Patel told Fortune.

# Example of a basic automated refactoring verification script
import subprocess
import sys

def run_test_suite():
    result = subprocess.run(["pytest", "--maxfail=1", "--disable-warnings"], capture_output=True, text=True)
    if result.returncode != 0:
        print("Refactoring regression detected:", result.stdout)
        sys.exit(1)
    print("All integration tests passed successfully.")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    run_test_suite()