Cisco Is ‘Partying Like It’s 1999’ After Claiming AI Revenue Will Double (Sup, Dr. Burry)

Bahhh gawd, that’s Pets.com’s music…

Sooo apparently, the dot-com bubble’s original poster child is back on its bullsh*t.

Cisco, the company that gave us Webex, beat on the top and bottom lines Thursday, and shares rose in extended trading. Revenue jumped 24% to $18.5B vs. the $18.1B the Street expected, and adjusted EPS came in at $1.40 vs. $1.33. Per the networking giant, that’s its strongest growth in over 15 years (read: since it was still selling Flip cameras. Bring me back.)

The AI drug money is what Wall Street actually came for, though. Cisco now expects $9B in AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers (read: Big Tech) this fiscal year, up from the $7.5B it guided to before and more than double last year’s haul. Networking revenue went sicko mode (+43%), and next quarter’s guide ($18B-$18.2B) topped the $17.88B analysts were expecting.

Which sounds great, until you realize all those AI parts don’t come cheap. Product gross margin fell 3.5 points to 63.7%, mostly thanks to pricier memory chips. Cisco’s fix, you ask? Raising prices (because, capitalism).

Labor, of course, is the one thing getting cheaper. Chief Firing Executive Officer Chuck Robbins says Cisco will add roughly $19B in extra revenue over two years with fewer employees, calling the efficiency “just unprecedented.” You might recall the company let nearly 4,000 heads roll in May… on the same day it reported record revenue. It also sent shareholders $3.7B in dividends and buybacks last quarter. PSA: You guys are still savages.

That said, Chuck’s not sweating any of it. He also stopped reporting AI orders, the number Cisco was bragging about back in May (when hyperscalers had already booked $5.3B in fiscal 2026). It’s revenue only from here on out, because, per Chuck, “we don’t get into these gyrations” over how many orders it took “in week 7 of Q1.” Which, sus.

Friendly reminder: Cisco was briefly the most valuable company on the planet in March 2000, right before the bubble popped. Then it spent the next 25 years on the struggle bus before the stock finally clawed back to that high.

That’s why Michael Burry’s go-to insult for Nvidia a year ago was: “I am not claiming Nvidia is Enron. It is clearly Cisco.” Turns out the next Cisco is… Cisco. The stock is up 35% this year vs. the Nasdaq’s 9%.

Translation: Cisco hasn’t been this bricked up since Y2K.

Until next time, friends…

 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.