HTCAB: Chapter 1

I started in on Dave Hitz's book, How to Castrate a Bull (henceforth HTCAB), last night with high expectations, and I was certainly not disappointed. I was hoping to find a mixture of memoir, advice, and management, and I think I'm in for a generous helping of all three.

There's a bunch of stuff early on that I know I would have already helped in my life:

Never underestimate the power of a clearly written proposal.
Always read the fine print. [about college prereqs *slaps forehead*]
If you keep your eyes open, solutions often present themselves.

Dave Hitz initially quit his job to start a pen-based start up company. I remember when I was a kid thinking that the Newton and later the palm were really cool. It sucks that the technology was ahead of its time -- I would have loved to see what innovations he would have come up with. The chapter ends with Dave Hitz about to meet with Mike Malcolm (never heard of him, but he sounds amazing) to talk about the idea of NetApp (I assume).

Here's my favorite chunk from the first chapter:

Castrating a bull is a metaphor for learning to take risk... Was it really sensible to leave high school, quit a great job, or jump that fence into the bull's pen with a dull pocket knife? Those choices worked out pretty well for me.

It makes me wonder how much of life is luck and taking chances and how much is orchestrated.