At a recent conference with fellow CEOs, I expressed my frustration with some Silicon Valley leaders and the misleading narratives they’re pushing about AI. For example, take Jack Dorsey and Marc Benioff, attributing layoffs to artificial intelligence. In reality, those cuts are the result of poor hiring decisions and a failure to rightsize fast enough after the pandemic. Framing them otherwise creates unrealistic expectations for boards and investors and puts undue pressure on CEOs and leadership teams to deliver immediate results from AI.
Even more damaging, these narratives are creating a culture of fear within companies. Mark Zuckerberg’s recent moves at Meta to extensively track employee activity in the name of AI are a clear example of leaders’ using AI to mask tough management choices. These are organizations filled with talented, capable people—they recognize the disconnect between what is being said and what is actually happening. When leaders are not honest about intent and trade‑offs, fear takes hold. And fear is a terrible foundation for transformation.
Here is where these leaders are getting it wrong. I deliberately frame AI as a tool. Not because AI is ordinary—it is the most extraordinary technology any of us will see in our lifetimes—but because it forces leaders and teams back to foundational basics. Technology alone does not drive outcomes. People do. People are how Salesforce transformed CRM and sales, how DocuSign transformed contracts, and how Henry Ford transformed manufacturing. Regardless of the technology, the pattern is the same. Technology reshapes work at scale, eliminates some roles, creates others, and ultimately puts the responsibility on leaders to manage the transition, not blame the tool.
Even with as powerful a tool as AI, the foundational principles of disruption and change apply. That is the mindset we bring to AI at Calix, grounded in more than $2 billion invested over 15 years evolving a single platform that is central to how service providers deliver, manage, and differentiate in their markets. Our AI implementation plan follows four simple principles:
Position AI as empowering.
As we grow from $1 billion to $2 billion and beyond, we see AI as a powerful tool that allows us to expand revenue faster than operating costs. I tell team members clearly: You are central to our ability to move faster with less so we can compete and win.
Train and support team members.
The only way to combat false narratives and misinformation is through transparent action and training—teaching teams how to succeed with AI. That includes webinars, access to secure tools, and peer support as teams experiment, along with loud and frequent recognition of those using AI both successfully and unsuccessfully, because innovation is often rooted in learning from failure.
Demystify AI.
This technology is like any transformation, only with greater potential. Transformation requires each leader to identify clear objectives and then decide how best to achieve them with AI—whether that means optimizing existing teams and processes or starting with a blank slate.
Measure success.
Establish clear measurements. What gets measured gets done. In our case, we’ve adopted two metrics that are easy to understand across the business as we focus on deploying AI everywhere: revenue per invested operating dollar and gross profit per invested operating dollar. Tracking these over time shows whether the team is becoming more productive with AI and allows for benchmarking against external organizations.
Last and most important, communication. We standardize this through our annual strategic priorities planning process, with AI‑led transformation as our top priority for Calix in 2026—internally and for customers through our platform. Within that priority, we’ve clearly articulated the vision, the tactics and timelines, the metrics we’ll use to measure ourselves, and the hurdles and asks facing the team.
The AI opportunity is mind‑boggling, moving at a pace we’ve never seen before and poised to profoundly change the world we live in. All of that is true. But at its core, this is still transformation—and transformation must be led with urgency and discipline, just like any other change. That mindset has long been shaped for me by The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, a return to fundamentals.
In an era where 90 days increasingly feels like a full planning cycle, CEOs don’t get the luxury of waiting for certainty. We are responsible for leading it.
