Dave Hitz on the RADIO!

Not that it's any surprise, but it looks the media is finally waking up to how awesome Dave Hitz is: according to his latest blog post, a radio station even called him in the early hours of the morning just to interview him! I can't imagine that they do that for just anyone, and as a big Dave Hitz fan, I'm psyched to see (and hear!) him hit the big time. He may be a celebrity now, but Dave Hitz is still an engineer, and even with the media attention on him he had a really interesting observation on how broadcast news is made that really stopped and made me think. But that's Dave Hitz for you, some people get rich and famous and never give anything back, but Dave Hitz always seems to find the time to share his insights with the rest of us. Which reminds me I need to get to the insights that await in Chapter 4!

Non-Stop Lawyers

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I think Dave Hitz is awesome. When I saw that he wrote a book, I was really psyched to read it and finally start a blog dedicated to him. But now I'm thinking that it might have been more trouble than it's worth because NetApp won't leave me alone! They're all like "change this" and "don't use that color" and "use this photo but not that one." I keep trying to do what they want but they keep coming back wanting some other stupid change. If I wanted all this crap, I'd just call up my mom! So while I still think Dave Hitz is a genius, I also think that he has some seriously bored lawyers working for him. He needs to take some of his own advice and bounce these guys like they were Mike Malcom! If his lawyers ever had any magic dust, I think they smoked it LOL!

I need some of that magic pixie dust

The change I made to the layout the other day wasn't quite enough for the people at NetApp, so I remade it from scratch in homage to Dave Hitz's blog. I guess I didn't follow the directions I got from Dave Hitz (!), but I hope that I won't have to change it again.

It does make me wish that someone with magic pixie dust could sprinkle some on this problem to make it go away (Dave Hitz, are you still reading this?). I know I sure don't have any LOL!

HTCAB: Chapter 3

Chapter 2 ends with Dave Hitz about to fire NetApp's first CEO Mike Malcolm. In Chapter 3, he explains that the reason Mike needed to go was because "good CEOs have magic pixie dust that they can sprinkle on problems to make them go away. You don't have any pixie dust." I totally know what Dave Hitz is saying. There are some people who really can work magic like that, and apparently Mike wasn't one of them. It might sound like a crazy reason to fire someone or kind of whimsical, but Dave Hitz writes:

I was a tense time at the office, especially since it took the board almost a year to act. Fourteen years later, with much more management experience under my belt, I still think I was right.

It sounds like it was a really hard decision. Dave Hitz wrote he "woke up in the middle of the night shaking." But after all, NetApp was his baby, and Dave Hitz knew what was best.

As an aside, I learned something new about English. It turns out the word for politics comes from the word for city:

Some people think that politics is a dirty word, but not me. Politics is simply the art of making decisions in groups. It comes from the Greek word polis, meaning city. Any group working together - whether it has ten people or ten thousand - needs some mechanism to keep everyone aligned: that's politics.

That kind of changes the way I think about politics.

So NetApp hired a new CEO, Dan Warmenhoven, and a new sales guy, Tom Mendoza. The chapter ends like this:

Both Tom and Dan brought us great stills in those areas, which was fortunate, because for the next few years at NetApp, the good news was that everything was broken.

Now, I don't know how everything could possibly have been broken much less how that could have been good news, but I can't wait to find out!

Yes, THAT Dave Hitz

Regular readers of this space may notice a slight difference today in the layout. I'm not going to say exactly what the change is, but I will tell you that it was a change requested by none other than Dave Hitz himself! Yes, that Dave Hitz, and I just about crapped my pants when I saw his e-mail to me in my inbox! In one of my earlier posts I saw a comment from someone named "Dave", but I just it was assumed that it was one of my friends messing with me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Dave Hitz himself would read this blog!

So let's just say that I was more than happy to make the change he requested. I thought it was awesome that he took time from his busy schedule to mail me, and the fact that he was so decisive in his mail is exactly why he's the one out castrating bulls! As a bonus, he gave me an inside track on the book: according to him, I'm going to have to make up with my mom after reading Chapter 9. While I think Dave Hitz is a genius, even I don't think he can pull that one off! Can't wait to keep reading!

Pulled a "Dave Hitz" on my mom

Didn't get a chance to read a chapter today, but I had my first opportunity to use some of what I learned from HTCAB! I was talking to my mom today, and she started in on me (again!) for not having made it home for the holidays (which trust me was impossible based on work). Well, I took Dave Hitz's advice from Chapter 0: I finally told her that I wasn't going to listen to her anymore. When she said I sounded crazy, I responded, "yeah crazy like a billionaire!" Boy did that shut her up! She is super pissed at me right now, but I feel great. Thank you Dave Hitz, and can't wait to read more great advice!

HTCAB: Chapter 2

In my post about Chapter 1, I was maybe a bit overexcited about the idea of Dave Hitz founding a pen-based startup. In the next chapter, he admits that he didn't really understand that market and those customers. But what he did know was NAS from his time working at Auspex.

The idea Mike Malcolm had for starting NetApp was to make a NAS box that was as simple as a toaster: one button that says Make Toast, and one knob that says How Dark. The amazing thing was that the machine Dave Hitz designed was built to do less than what his competitors (Sun and Auspex) could do.

If there's a disappointing bit in this chapter, I think it's this:

Eventually we named our new company Network Appliance, which we later shortened to NetApp. We chose a generic name because we believed that the appliance concept could apply to many market areas beside storage, and we didn't want to constrain ourselves. We may have been planning a bit too far ahead: sixteen years later, NetApp still focuses on storage and data management.

I guess it's good to do one thing and do it well, but you have to admit that it raises an intriguing possibility of what could be. That said, when NetApp's stock peaked in 2000 "a $50,000 angel investment was worth $107 milion." No wonder Dave Hitz doesn't feel too sorry for those early angels despite asking them to re-up a few times!

I love how each chapter pulls me into the next (but I've decided to show some self-restraint or else I'd be blogging the whole thing in a day)! Chapter 2 ends with Dave Hitz recognizing Mike Malcolm, the founder of NetApp, as "a genius" as well as his adviser, mentor, and friend, but concluding that he needs to be fired because "Mike had no magic pixie dust."

HTCAB: Chatper 1, continued

In my initial post, I mentioned how in chapter 0, Dave Hitz said the he was the "product of a tryst in a squalid Times Square flophouse and was raised by a brothel owner and his opium-using wife" and "the son of comfortable and educated middle-class parents." Well, I don't want to give away the surprise, but let's just say that after that I can certainly understand his advice:

Don't listen to my mother.

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.

Non-Stop Hitz

I've been a big Dave Hitz follower for a little while now, and I thought the release of his book would be a good occasion to start a blog following the various goings-on of him and his company, NetApp.

My copy of How To Castrate a Bull arrived today and I can't wait to get started. Stay tuned for a chapter-by-chapter review. I'll try not to include too many spoilers! For now, check out the book's website: www.howtocastrateabull.com. My favorite part of the site is the Q&A with none other than the man himself.

If you haven't seen it already, check out Chapter 0. As a hacker myself, I love that he went with zero rather than one; take that English majors! I can't wait to find out how he's both the "product of a tryst in a squalid Times Square flophouse and was raised by a brothel owner and his opium-using wife" and "the son of comfortable and educated middle-class parents..."