Cisco CEO says he’s the fastest messenger on his team—and hires people with the same urgency and ‘desire to move’ | Fortune

Cisco CEO says he’s the fastest messenger on his team—and hires people with the same urgency and ‘desire to move’ | Fortune

By Emma Burleigh
Publication Date: 2026-06-03 14:47:00

Professionals are now tasked with keeping up with a dizzying number of communications platforms, from Slack to LinkedIn. And being a quick communicator with a clear inbox may give you a leg up at $504 billion tech giant Cisco—CEO Chuck Robbins prides himself on his rapid-fire replies, and looks to hire talent who are just as driven as him. 

“I try to be the most responsive person in the company,” Robbins recently said in an interview with Semafor, whether that be text, WhatsApp, Signal, or WebEx. “I respond faster than most anybody on my team across any communication medium that you want to communicate with me with.”

“I try to set that pace for people, and then you have to hire people that have similar desire to win, desire to move,” he continued. 

Candidates who exude the same ambition and urgency through prompt communication could stand out in the company’s crowded hiring pool. The tech business was receiving around 800,000 or more candidates a year for…