As a former employee of Cisco and having been in the Silicon Valley for 10+ years, I can say that I have witnessed extreme casteism and nepotism in Cisco. There was a saying I heard a few years back that one of the criteria to get hired in one of the Cisco guaranteed acquisition spinoffs is that you wear a thread (called Janeu - worn by high caste Hindus over their shoulder and hidden inside shirt). If there is one company in the valley where HR is totally absent and managers form a clique to abuse employees, it is Cisco. It is polluting the entire valley with its casteism and also by exporting its incompetent managers to other companies.