Description
Book SynopsisDave Hitz likes to solve fun problems. He didn't set out to be a Silicon Valley icon, a business visionary, or even a billionaire. But he became all three. It turns out that business is a mosaic of interesting puzzles like managing risk, developing and reversing strategies, and looking into the future by deconstructing the past.
Trade ReviewNetApp Awarded #1 Best Company to Work For 2009 by
Fortune A San Francisco Chronicle Nonfiction Best-Seller, January 30, 2009
"Readers will gain insight into management styles, different ways to make decisions, alternative approaches to managing people, and the value of dissent within a company. They also will learn why it is better to castrate a bull with a dull knife than a sharp knife. And they may get a few chuckles along the way."—ByteandSwitch.com, January 27, 2009
"Hitz spends much of the book discussing what happened after he moved to move Silicon Valley in 1986 and began working at a series of start-ups, and the various business problems he faced and how he approached them. Hitz describes in detail the evolution of NetApp and, of course, does not omit the vendor's sales pitch. But at various points in the 200-page book Hitz takes a break from talking business to focus on some of the humorous passages referenced in Chapter Zero." —NetworkWorld.com, January 21, 2009
Table of Contents0 Chapter Zero 1
Part One Beginnings 5
1 Before NetApp: On Computers, Colleges, Castration, and Risk 7
Interlude: What NetApp Does 21
2 Starting NetApp: On Toasters, Angels, Resellers, and Ferraris 23
Interlude: Redundant Array of Pyramid Hieroglyphics (RAPH) 41
3 CEO Lessons: On Pixie Dust, Decision Making, Candor, and Going Public 43
Interlude: Tom Mendoza's Lessons on Public Speaking 57
Part Two Turbulent Adolescence 59
4 Hypergrowth: On Goals, Doubling, Ancestors, and Pain 61
Interlude: How to Fail in Executive Staff Presentations 79
5 Values and Culture: On Dilbert, Drooling, Lies, and Game Theory 81
Interlude: Lawyers Aren't Evil—Fairness and Morality Are Not Their Job 97
6 Managing Engineers: On Development, Consensus, Doctor Death, and Magic 101
Interlude: Scientific-Truth and Useful-Truth 117
Part Three Grown-Up Company 121
7 Customers: On Love, Enterprise, Simplicity, and Partners 127
Interlude: Shark Island—A Parable of Risk and Mass Media 145
8 Strategic Change: On Reversing Course, Chocolate, Debates, and Core Beliefs 147
Interlude: Speckled-Egg Thinking 157
9 Vision: On Whining, Eras, Future History, and the Meaning of Life 161
Appendix A: Early NetApp Business Plan 177
Appendix B: NetApp Company Values 186
Glossary 188
Bibliography 194
Acknowledgments 195
The Author 197
Index 199
