As chief product officer at Cisco, Jeetu Patel’s paycheck is easily in the millions. However, Patel is no stranger to struggle and hard work. He started his career not in the corporate world but in the service industry – waiting tables for $4 an hour.
The journey from earning $4 an hour to make ends meet to working at a company with a $270 billion market capitalization was not easy, but it did teach him a lot. Patel says that the experience he gained as a waiter has been invaluable to him.
In fact, he is of the opinion that everyone should work in the service industry to gain a deeper appreciation for hard work.
“I think everyone in the early part of their career should work in the service industry somewhere,” Patel told Fortune. “I think it’s so great to really get, you know, like, a level of appreciation for hospitality and customer service, and it just wires you differently.”
Early life and escape to the US
Speaking to Humans of Bombay in July this year, Patel revealed that he was only eight the first time he saw his father hit his mother. At 17, he and his mother escaped to the United States from India, where an uncle helped them initially.
While in the US, Patel took up typing jobs and waited tables to survive. Even on days when he felt like giving up, he told himself that he had to do something in life. Patel was an introvert and stuttered while speaking, but he deliberately took up a customer-facing role as a server to push himself out of his comfort zone.
“What happened while waiting on tables is—and it wasn’t even a conscious thing—that I was an introvert, and I realized if I don’t talk to people and don’t entertain them and give them a good experience, I’m not going to make a tip,” Patel told Fortune. “And if I don’t make a tip, then I’m just working a lot of long hours without the return.”
From server to Cisco
It was this hunger to prove himself that landed him roles at Doculabs, EMC (now Dell), Box, and Cisco.
After a career spanning more than two decades, he joined Cisco in 2020.
“Oftentimes, we let our pride and ego get in the way,” he says. “We’re like, ‘I’m going to try to be a self-made person.’ There’s no such thing as a self-made person; we live in an interconnected society where humans depend on humans, and so if you can stand on shoulders of giants, it just takes you farther.”
“If you put your mind to something, you can basically figure out whatever you want to figure out.”