Calix’s Michel Langlois on Software Development at Scale
23 Dec 2019
Michel Langlois, Chief Development Officer at Calix, explains changes in practice and attitude that allow companies to take software development to a larger scale.
Hosted by Jeff Kavanaugh, VP and Head of the Infosys Knowledge Institute.
“And my best advice will be line up right away, not just the investment thesis, but what's going to go. Say: ‘When I have no choice, something needs to go. And by the way, I propose we put this thing on the back burner.’ The moment you do this - is where the tantrums start, because now you're forcing trade off and you’re forcing a change of things.” Michel Langlois
Show Notes
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00:29
Michel gives a sense of where he has come from. How he got started in the business and where he has been over the years.
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07:25
Michel was leading the main area of basically running the internet over at Cisco with 6000 engineers under him. What are some of the things that really stood out from that time working with John Chambers and people at Cisco?
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09:59
How did he find talent?
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12:34
That time Michel was acquiring companies. Was it one a month at one point?
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16:50
Michel then went to a smaller company to step in, not a small company, but Juniper, to add software quality in a new way. Michel comments about that experience and transformation.
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25:22
Now with Calix, it's really interesting what Michel is trying to do with the Edge. He describes his role within the company, what he is trying to do with product development and the business problems he is trying to solve for the company.
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31:28
What is Michel seeing about the next generation of technical capability in leadership in the valley and what's his comment?
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33:27
What are the three things that people should think about?
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36:09
Michel spends a lot of time in Silicon Valley. And yet he doesn’t seem to have gotten trapped in the echo chamber that we hear a lot about. Has he kept his perspective and his sanity?
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38:07
Who or what has been a major influence on Michel’s career?