Dave Hitz

How to Castrate a Bull (eBook, PDF)

Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Dave 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. As a founder of NetApp, a data storage firm that began as an idea scribbled on a placemat and now takes in $4 billion a year, Hitz has seen his company go through every major cycle in business--from the Jack-of-All-Trades mentality of a start-up, through the tumultuous period of the IPO and the dot-com bust, and finally to a mature enterprise company. NetApp is one of the fastest-growing computer companies ever, and for six years in a row it has been on Fortune magazine's list of Best Companies to Work For. Not bad for a high school dropout who began his business career selling his blood for money and typing the names of diseases onto index cards. With colorful examples and anecdotes, How to Castrate a Bull is a story for everyone interested in understanding business, the reasons why companies succeed and fail, and how powerful lessons often come from strange and unexpected places. Dave Hitz co-founded NetApp in 1992 with James Lau and Michael Malcolm. He served as a programmer, marketing evangelist, technical architect, and vice president of engineering. Presently, he is responsible for future strategy and direction for the company. Before his career in Silicon Valley, Dave worked as a cowboy, where he got valuable management experience by herding, branding, and castrating cattle.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: For Dummies
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. Dezember 2008
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780470442661
• Artikelnr.: 37292447

Autorenporträt

THE AUTHORS Dave Hitz co-founded NetApp in 1992 with James Lau and Michael Malcolm. He served as a programmer, marketing evangelist, technical architect, and vice president of engineering. Currently, he focuses on future strategy and setting the direction for the company. Pat Walsh is the founding editor of MacAdam/Cage, a publisher of literary fiction and narrative non-fiction.

Inhaltsangabe

0 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

Rezensionen

NetApp Awarded #1 Best Company to Work For 2009 by Fortune.