Volpi helped shape Cisco’s strategy through the late-1990s internet buildout, and he joins a16z’s Raghu Raghuram and Guido Appenzeller to test that history against today’s spending on GPUs, data centers and power. The discussion covers Nvidia and custom silicon, GPU depreciation economics, Cisco’s acquisition playbook and why founders sell. His conclusion is that the infrastructure layer may outlast the hype that funded it.