Scaling Innovation: From Rural Roots to Silicon Valley Giants w/ Michel Langlois

In this inspiring episode, Jillian Kaplan speaks with Michel Langlois, a trailblazer whose journey began on a chicken farm in rural Quebec and led to shaping some of the world’s most influential telecom companies. Michel shares his insights from building and scaling Cisco during its explosive growth, transforming Juniper from the inside out, and rethinking innovation not as invention, but integration.We discuss:Why innovation isn’t just invention—and how “Lego-thinking” builds breakthroughsSurviving Cisco’s hypergrowth and dot-com crashBuilding trust-driven teams and infrastructure without slowing businessThe power of mentorship (formal and informal) in leadership developmentLessons from the farm that shaped a Fortune 500 careerPlus, Michel shares how chickens, fiber broadband, and kitchen management all tie into successful innovation at scale.Visit https://michellanglois.us/ to get his book, Beyond The Code.