You heard it here first, the CCNA is useful! Not toilet paper!! Eli, I'm going to show you that you're wrong. I'm putting down my soldering iron, picking up my voodoo doll, and when I get my CCNA, I will show you!

Eli should get a studio. Who agrees with this?

Never plugged in or racked one of those switches. This is interesting.

Very professional interview, great sound and video quality made it even better. Eli kept his views of CCNA to himself. This is a good thing, it shows that Eli is willing to hear out others opinions even though he may not agree.

This was excellent. Two successful, industry experts for free! I'd like to see more of these.

First interview I've seen on youtube in a long time that kept my attention 100%. WELL DONE ELI!

You mentioned in your vlogs that you thought your interview wouldn't be popular, but i really enjoyed this one.

This is incredibly insightful. More of these please!

Do more of these interviews Eli, really good!

Good job on getting 2 CCIE's at such a young age Steven. It was helpful to know that you got your CCIE without dealing a whole lot on networking equipments. Thanks to Eli and Steven for hosting a great motivating story!!

very good talk here! interesting to see that people actually do have the cert, i have ccnp myself but it is very rare that i meet anyone that even knows what it is..

Brilliant Interview, thanks for the post

Amazing video, thx for doing the interview.

this was a great idea. I'll watch all of these.

Perfect! Just under ONE hour long. The way it should be, IMHO.

Great interview! Nice change of pace from your usual videos!

Great Interview Eli!

damm were was this program for new grands when I finished college. Thanks ELI Your the man once again!!

Thank you for this interview which is so informative!

thank you for you job, Eli!

Thank you for this vid Eli, and Steven.

Fantastic interview and production quality sir. Bravo!

Great interview. I have ccna, ccnp, ccie. But it's too long ago, I passed my ccie 11 years ago......

I really enjoyed this interview, Steven was a really down to earth, informative and humble person.

Hi Eli, I love the interview format. Keep it up!

Really high quality video, love it.

I want to be this guy, working as RF telecom Engineer for last 8 years, i want to switch career to become cisco expert. This gave me alot of motivation

Who the hell is that young man in yellow and grey shirt?? Where is Eli?!

GREAT INTERVIEW - KEEP EM COMING - LOVING IT.

Finally the interviews! I will say, it's interesting knowing that CCNA is a minimum barrier of entry, I would have expected CCNP but it makes sense. CCNP probably is already employed. You also need to know where you're going with the job, because many small companies are probably not going to put out an ad for a CCIE, they'll probably be fine with anyone that knows how to manage the AD.

He came matching the pillows. Skillz

I had enjoyed this! thank you, Eli

very good video quality and switching video.

AWESOME interview

Great video, thanks Eli

Very awesome interview! So motivating! I'm currently taking a course on sysadmin/networking (CCNA1-2) and first I thought sysadmin would be more my thing, but I'm enjoying the CCNA classes so much that I'm not sure anymore what to do. The certs I get will be academic but I'm really considering to get my industrial certs and maybe even go for CCNA3-4. In a way I like networks more because it's pure logic, with windows server you encounter bugs and software flaws that you simply can't do anything about and it drives me nuts. Also I like abstract thinking so maybe networking will be more my thing.

These are great!

Was really great seeing this. Busy with my CCNP @ 21 years old. Gonna definitely shoot for CCIE straight after. I know the feeling of wishing I knew about certifications back in high school :P

Well, this was a very interesting interview!

Hey brother, I like your videos a lot. I have learnt a lot of things from you. Thanks for making these videos. From Kashmir, India

Best interview and amazing knowledge for me in the career. Thank you Steven, Eli and INE

Excellent content Eli. Very much enjoyed and learned a lot from this. Curious to hear your after-thoughts on it, as you've been a vocal opponent to the CCNA and its kind for awhile now. The situation has changed since he got his of course, but does anything he had to say change what you think of it?

How come this Interview isn't 2 hours plus?

I'm taking a Network Administration course. After class I was trying out some simple Python commands in IDLE. My teacher saw me and said "Why are you doing that, that's for programmers!" It was cool to see this guy with two CCIEs starting to learn Python too.

I wish I had known about the CCNA before racking up thousands of dollars on a college degree

Great interview

very helpful! thanks a lot...

I have 10 years in IT and have put off and put off getting Cisco certified.....I've bought atleast 3 Cisco press books and lost 2...I'm gonna really study and do it this year...

This was a great interview. Good audio is key.

Eli, it would be SO NICE if you had this sound quality on your videos...

For anyone wanting to get ahead in the corporate world, absorb and put into practice the info from 49:30 - 50:35. Some of the best learning you'll get on KZfaq right there.

I find this interview to be very interesting. Steve, you really challenged me. I am perpetual procrastinator. I am going to stop working on it and actually do it now. Thank you

I just joined the program he stated the same week of the video. That program is only the beginning!

Holy cow.... CCIE without touching a single switch. this kid is a god.

Oh man, this was like watching myself get interviewed. I'm a jncie and also very rarely have ever touched a switch. Same type of knowledge, job role and limitations. Only difference is I wanna move into other areas in IT. Nice interview!

this is the kind of eli i like.

i played halo with steven back at usf, cool dude.

Awesome interview :)

what a good guy he was.

A very honest, down-to-earth interview. Thanks Steven and Eli. One question: I suffer from illness including photo-phobia so I am looking to do consulting work from home. I am currently studying for my CCNP R&S, Do you guys think this is possible with technology today?

Another cool interview.

I know you said interviews are the least successful thing to upload to YT, but I really enjoyed this :-)

great interview. im so sorry. i been drinking. studying for my a plus. i will study for mcsa Windows 8 to 10 while taking a network cabing course. i will study for cisco ccent & cnna in july 2012. thanks eli & steve.

Good stuff

It was very supporting and inspiring to hear this guy... his whole story made me think that I can make it too :) and i don't mean a ccie (i won't say no to one someday).. i mean get a job that i actually wish and pray for.. :) thanks

Are these the interviews that he was talking about in the previous videos?

i was told that they do not provide a visa for some "computer exam" they did not mention ccie security exam. is that normal or cisco need to tell what is the value of this exam. anyone ? please help me how should i respond. because my exam is in 25 Aug 2017.

"passion is becoming a buzz word that I hate with as passion" lol.

Loved the interview, half almost orange Eli. Nice work. The multi-camera you did alone, just let cameras rolling or with help of another person? Also nice editing work.

A lot of wisdom hidden in casual conversation.

just bought the book and passed the CCNA certification test that simply?

That guy might have started with Cisco studies as a chance but he is very, very passionate about Cisco and Cisco certs. It's embarrassing how Eli's enthusiasm was at a lot lower level than Steve's. I came here to watch first 5 minutes, but watched almost entire interview. Steve is pretty inspirational.

Aug. 17th, 2016: The computer networking leader said it will slash 5,500 positions, about 7% of its workforce, starting this quarter. Reports had anticipated as many as 14,000 job cuts (about 20% of its workforce). Cisco laid off some 11,000 workers between 2011 and 2014. Looks like there will be a lot of unemployed CCNA and CCIE from Cisco.

It would be cool a great interview like this to an Ethical Hacker.

Steven seems like a very good boy.

The interview is amazing. Also please share some tips for young professionals (i m 22) aspiring to be in their dream job roles at Cisco

Ok so now we know why he have two CCIE... he is so young that he needed them to prove to everyone he wasnt an intern XD

that was gold

what book is Mr. Dipippo talking about?

The reason I got into networking was from silicon valley (Gilfoyle is awesome). Then Eli! The legend. Helped me understand what it was.

Now THIS is some useful content!

Great vid Eli! Good luck Steven...

Nice Interview Steve :-)

my system was blown away because i spilled coffee over the laptop so i am unable to practise on CISCO VIRL WHICH I PURCHASED. and registered for my v5 security written ccie but visa is denied what should i do i have invested my ; life. this the condition if you are from south asia.

Steven said that he can renew both of his CCIE with 1 written test. Does that go for 3+ as well?

Hi Steven, I am currently studying for CCNA data center (already have CCNA R&S knowledge). Is it ok for me to go directly for CCIE data center WITHOUT any experience in the networking field? Some training schools here in Toronto, Ontario recommend doing this. thanks, (Anyone working in the networking field, please feel free to respond)

I like this type of content. More please Eli and less about fried nachos

I'm currently going to school for the 5th year finishing up my IT degree. I'm on my second internship with an IT consulting company who I will pretty much guaranteed be working for when I graduate. Took ICND1 exam today for the 3rd time today and failed with a 795. Man I feel dumb.

I am that guy that's been "working on it". *facepalm*

i use to be a landscaper and I fucking relate to this guy on a deep deep level

I like this guy, he basically contradicted everything that Eli used to say about CCNA lol

"If you only have CCNA and if you don't have experience.. you will not get a networking job"... Even I got the same message from several recruiting firms... sad truth... Doing a helpdesk job as of now...

maybe it's just because I'm european, but that couch is HUGE

I really cant picture this dude being a bartender...

I used to know somebody with a CCIE . Unfortunately, no real-world experience couldn't even get a job which was of big shame . And that's really it the fault of so-called IT departments and the people that work within them well . I would say a good 50% useless at best , regardless of vendor certification. In terms of equivalences CCIE is absolutely nothing like a Ph.D., but CCIE is a very brutal exam I would admit to that, Ph.D., is all about research and quality research at that, and then you have to defend it. And then you have to consider. Do I have the stamina to research for six years , very different

Talk about lucky though. From help desk straight to cisco! I've got my CCNA as well as some c# programming knowledge and am having trouble even getting an interview for helpdesk. 2 interviews out of 200+ applications over the last several months. You really need a lucky break to get into IT.

Judging by the comments, people are really enjoying this interview. I wonder how much of that has to do with weeding out what Eli calls the "fourteen year olds" after weeks of 2-hour episodes.

could you please discuss why we should take the certificates? when the Exams answers are all over the internet, and in some countries the fees are really high compared to the average income, i dont mean this guy cheated i ment many others that i know did, and honestly it makes me think twice about taking them.

I wanna be a double ccie

Steven seems like an intelligent and well spoken guy, but I have to wonder how risky his decision to bet the house on Cisco will be in the future. We all see the layoffs that are currently happening at Cisco, and I hope he isn't one of the many that are losing their jobs. It sounds like he has a great position, but it also appears very unique to Cisco. Although a double CCIE would carry a lot of prestige on a resume, his lack of experience with other vendors and basically no hardware experience would likely lead to a massive pay cut if he were forced to jump to another company. I say good for him if his certifications allowed him to bypass a lot of the crappier jobs network engineers usually work to gain experience and advance, but sometimes paying your dues at those kinds of jobs gives you more job stability through diversity once you obtain one of the good positions.