As the chairman of a startup company that just launched out of stealth, John Chambers, former chief executive officer of Cisco Systems Inc. and CEO of J2 Ventures, is delighted about the prospects for his fledgling business and passionate about the need for educational change in his own country.

Led by a number of former Cisco executives, Pensando Systems Inc. unveiled its software-defined edge services platform last week to deliver highly programmable cloud, compute and networking solutions. The much-anticipated company launched in New York City to great fanfare, but it must deal with an uncertain future when it comes to the job market, startup growth, and the U.S. education system’s ability to supply the tech industry with talent.

“If we don’t have new jobs and startups, and if we don’t have startups running at about three to four times the current volumes, we’ve got a real problem looking out five to 10 years,” said Chambers (pictured). “We’ve got to change our K-12 education system, which is broken, we’ve got to change our university system to generate the jobs for where people are going, and then we’ve got to retrain people. We’ve got to think from a government perspective of how we become a startup nation again.”

Chambers spoke with Jeff Frick, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Pensando — Welcome to the New Edge formal launch event in New York City. They discussed the factors that Chambers analyzes before making an investment and his current view of the acquisition and public offering world (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Factors for success

Chambers discussed the many factors he takes into account before making a decision to invest in a company. These include customer feedback, partnerships within the ecosystem, and whether a technology-market transition and business-model transition are occurring at the same time.

The former Cisco leader has also been impressed with the Pensando team.

“Their vision in terms of market transition and business transition is 100% right,” Chambers said. “This is a team of six people, myself being a part of it, that thinks like one. That is so unusual.”

Without committing to a future initial public offering for his new company, Chambers did make clear his current philosophy after leading an enterprise networking powerhouse that became legendary for its acquisition appetite.

“In my prior world, I was really happy to do 180 acquisitions,” Chambers said. “In my current world, I’m reversed, I want them to go IPO. You add 76% of your headcount after an IPO.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Pensando — Welcome to the New Edge event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Pensando — Welcome to the New Edge event. Neither Pensando Systems, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE