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If you don’t know about the podcast series, This Week in Startups (TWiST), hosted by my friend Jason Calacanis, it’s worth checking out. Jason is a legendary investor and media mogul who has his fingers in every part of the tech industry. Each week, he brings CEOs, business founders, venture capitalists, angel investors, and tech experts into his San Francisco studio to talk about the latest trends and happenings inside the world of Silicon Valley and beyond.

I first met Jason around 10 years ago in Los Angeles. We were playing poker at a friend’s game. His brash poker playing style matches his approach to investing: nothing ventured, nothing gained. But unlike his approach to prospective business ventures, in poker, Jason never met a hand he didn’t like.

Since I’m part of this little startup Cisco, I got to be a guest on the show last week, episode 552. Jason invited me on to talk about entrepreneurship and how it’s been finding its way into big companies. We covered it all – DIY video conferencing, our new business messaging app Cisco Spark (and how he thinks we can monetize it), why John Chambers gave me a job, our theories on mergers and acquisitions, how AirBnB is improving lives, Uber pooling, Luxe, and, actually, a lot more.

Jason’s interest in Cisco on This Week in Startups is a good omen for us. It means Cisco and our Collaboration group are thinking exponentially, moving fast, and creating a culture of innovation. Ironically, after working 30 years to build the gigantic brand that is Cisco, we’ve once again earned startup status.

If you like what you saw me demo on the show, download Cisco Spark from the app store or on your desktop: ciscospark.com. It’s a brand new cloud-based teamwork app with integrated video conferencing, calling, and content sharing. And it’s free.



Authors

Rowan Trollope

Senior Vice President and General Manager

IoT and Collaboration Technology Group