John Chambers, who just turned 70, prefers to take any stage at a run. In his tech trendy uniform—blue blazer, designer jeans, checked shirt, and blue boat shoes—he still exudes the physical energy of his successful tenure as CEO at Cisco Systems, which he grew from an annual revenue of $2.2 billion in 1995 to $49 billion in 2015 when he stepped down.
Today Chambers runs his own boutique investment firm, JC2 Partners, in Palo Alto, California. He prefers to call himself a mentor to startup CEOs rather than a venture capitalist. When he’s not in Silicon Valley he can often be found in India, where he advises Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on digital transformation and the economy. I caught up with Chambers in mid-August…