The Eye of the Storm: How John Chambers Steered Cisco Through the Technology Collapse

In March 2000 Cisco Systems, with a market capitalization of $531 billion, was the most valuable company on the planet. With 44,000 employees and a stock price at $80 per share, Cisco was poised for unstoppable growth and unending glory. Six months later with the crisp smell of cold cash in the air, Cisco president and CEO John Chambers vowed to change the world. Who knew that in a matter of days disaster would strike?

The Eye of the Storm: How John Chambers Steered Cisco Through the Technology Collapse offers the gripping account of the high-tech American dream turned nightmare. Bestselling author Robert Slater's riveting narrative traces the path of Cisco's rise from anonymity to prosperity and then to its sudden, shocking fall, as a world without ceilings gave way to a world where no floor was in sight.

Through unprecedented exclusive interviews with Chambers and Cisco's top executives and unparalleled access to Cisco's private forums, Slater reveals the confidential working and insider decisions behind what was nothing short of a business miracle before the vision went temporarily awry. Unadorned and unequivocal, this is the fascinating story of how Chambers, once widely hailed as "King of the Internet," navigated Cisco through a period of inconceivable success before guiding his company through unimaginable misfortune.

Throughout this engaging tale of the birth and death of the new economy, Slater gleans pearls of business wisdom and essential lessons for corporate decision-making in the new millennium. Collected here are the brilliant maneuvers that catapulted Cisco to glory and the devastating mistakes that brought the company low. The Eye of the Storm is a story at once captivating, instructive, and provocative. Never again will we forget that our soaring revenues of today may well become our plummeting stock prices of tomorrow.

Slater's incisive and illuminating firsthand account takes you behind the scenes from the boom to the bust through to the recovery of a company that has earned its place in the history books as one of America's greatest.