AI Summit: Somebody who has worked at Cisco for 15-20 years is considered unemployable, says Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. He is worth $11.9 billion as per Forbes

Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American tech billionaire and venture capitalist, who has been a sharp skeptic of legacy IT services companies, has sparked another debate. This time by taking on Cisco.

“If somebody has worked at Cisco for 15-20 years, I consider them unemployable in the real economy,” Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, a venture capital fund in the US, said while speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi.

The fireside chat was being moderated by Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Peak XV Partners, a venture capital firm in India.

Instead, he underscored that people should be learning the technologies of tomorrow, including AI and more.

Khosla, who just days ago said AI may replace all IT and BPO companies, has not shied away from taking on legacy IT majors and other traditional tech titans across the world. 

He made the Cisco remake while highlighting that startups, today, are gaining more credibility than legacy firms, a flip from earlier.

“Earlier nobody believed in anybody under the age of 40 doing anything interesting…startups did not have credibility at all. They always trusted an IBM over a startup,” Khosla, who is worth over $11.9 billion, said.

“Now, you always trust a startup over an IBM.”

He drew parallels between Cisco, IBM, General Electric and others and said: “If you’re at these big companies for 15-20 years, you are so obsolete and so ossified…get out of there. You have to be at the edge of learning,” Khosla concluded.