Cisco grants young engineer unlimited token budget to rewrite 98% of legacy code in two years

Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel has tasked a 27-year-old engineer, Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, with an ambitious goal: to use artificial intelligence to refactor or rewrite 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months. Patel provided the engineer with an unlimited token budget, encouraging him to proceed without constraints. Krishnamurthy, who previously co-founded the real-time translation startup EzDubs before Cisco acquired the company in 2025, was reportedly working on peripheral tasks within Cisco. The significant shift occurred during a meeting where Krishnamurthy proposed that a small two-person team could tackle the massive code overhaul, a concept Patel noted was unprecedented among Cisco's top AI experts. Krishnamurthy has set a four-week validation period for his approach, with the ultimate target being the 98% code rewrite within two years. While the 98% figure is a set objective, reports have not detailed the current volume of code modifications or the specific results of the trials.