Cisco vs United Airlines: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Cisco and United Airlines side by side

1. 1926United Airlines

   Varney Air Lines begins

   United traces its roots to Varney Air Lines and early air mail service.

2. 1931United Airlines

   United Air Lines organized

   United Air Lines was formed to manage airline subsidiaries tied to United Aircraft and Transport.

3. 1984Cisco

   Company Founded at Stanford University

   Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner incorporate Cisco Systems in December 1984, commercializing multi-protocol router technology developed to connect Stanford's campus networks.

4. 1986Cisco

   First Commercial Router Shipped

   Cisco ships its first commercial multi-protocol router, the AGS (Advanced Gateway Server), generating $1.5 million in first-year revenue as the internet begins its transition from research network to commercial infrastructure.

5. 1990Cisco

   Initial Public Offering on NASDAQ

   Cisco goes public at a valuation of approximately $224 million, raising capital that would fuel its aggressive acquisition strategy. The IPO also precipitated the departure of both founders.

6. 1995Cisco

   John Chambers Becomes CEO

   John Chambers takes over as CEO from John Morgridge, beginning a 20-year tenure that would see Cisco grow from $2 billion to over $47 billion in annual revenue through more than 180 acquisitions.

7. 1997United Airlines

   Star Alliance founded

   United became one of the founding members of Star Alliance.

8. 2000Cisco

   Briefly Becomes World's Most Valuable Company

   Cisco's market capitalization exceeds $500 billion in March 2000, briefly surpassing Microsoft and GE as the world's most valuable company before the dot-com crash erased over $400 billion in shareholder value.

9. 2003Cisco

   Acquisition of Linksys

   Cisco acquires consumer networking company Linksys for $500 million, marking its entry into the home networking market and establishing a consumer brand that would later be divested to Belkin in 2013.

10. 2010United Airlines

    Continental merger closes

    UAL Corporation completed the Continental merger, later operating under the United brand.

11. 2012Cisco

    Meraki Acquisition Launches Cloud-Managed Networking

    Cisco acquires cloud-managed networking startup Meraki for $1.2 billion, gaining the platform that would become central to its small-and-medium business strategy and its broader shift toward subscription-based management.

12. 2015Cisco

    Chuck Robbins Appointed CEO

    Chuck Robbins succeeds John Chambers as CEO, inheriting a mandate to transform Cisco from a hardware company into a software-and-subscription platform business capable of competing in the cloud era.

13. 2015United Airlines

    Oscar Munoz becomes CEO

    Oscar Munoz became chief executive of United in September 2015.

14. 2017Cisco

    AppDynamics Acquisition for $3.7 Billion

    Cisco acquires application performance monitoring company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion just days before its planned IPO, signaling Cisco's strategic commitment to the observability and application intelligence market.

15. 2020Cisco

    Webex Usage Surges During COVID-19 Pandemic

    Webex usage explodes to over 600 million meeting participants per month during the pandemic, temporarily positioning Cisco's collaboration platform as a critical piece of global remote work infrastructure.

16. 2020United Airlines

    Scott Kirby becomes CEO

    Scott Kirby succeeded Oscar Munoz as CEO in May 2020.

17. 2024Cisco

    $28 Billion Splunk Acquisition Completed

    Cisco completes its largest-ever acquisition, purchasing cybersecurity and observability company Splunk for $28 billion in cash, pushing subscription revenue past 51% of total sales and establishing Cisco as a major force in security operations.

18. 2025Cisco

    AI Infrastructure Orders Exceed $2 Billion

    Cisco's AI infrastructure orders from hyperscale customers surpass $2 billion in FY2025, more than doubling management's original target and validating the company's investment in Silicon One-based networking platforms for GPU cluster interconnection.

19. 2025United Airlines

    Revenue reaches record level

    United reported record 2025 total operating revenue of $59.1 billion.

20. 2026United Airlines

    Q2 2026 revenue up 16%

    United reported Q2 2026 revenue of $17.7 billion and raised full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $9-$11 despite nearly $6 billion in added fuel costs.

Acquisitions

Questions about Cisco vs United Airlines