How to Castrate a Bull

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.

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