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."