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

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

A San Francisco Chronicle Nonfiction Best-Seller, January 30, 2009

"Readers will gain insight into management styles, different ways to make decisions, alternative approaches to managing people, and the value of dissent within a company. They also will learn why it is better to castrate a bull with a dull knife than a sharp knife. And they may get a few chuckles along the way."—ByteandSwitch.com, January 27, 2009

"Hitz spends much of the book discussing what happened after he moved to move Silicon Valley in 1986 and began working at a series of start-ups, and the various business problems he faced and how he approached them. Hitz describes in detail the evolution of NetApp and, of course, does not omit the vendor's sales pitch. But at various points in the 200-page book Hitz takes a break from talking business to focus on some of the humorous passages referenced in Chapter Zero." —NetworkWorld.com, January 21, 2009

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.

Dave Hitz didn’t set out to be a Silicon Valley icon, a business visionary, or even a billionaire, but he became all three. Perhaps it’s because he likes to solve fun puzzles. Somewhere along the way, Hitz discovered that business is a mosaic of fascinating puzzles that involve managing risk, developing and reversing strategies, and looking into the future by deconstructing the past.

Filled with colorful examples and anecdotes, Dave Hitz’s autobiographical book, How to Castrate a Bull, is a story for anyone interested in understanding business, the reasons why companies succeed and fail, and how powerful lessons often come from strange and unexpected places—even from the open range. Before his career in Silicon Valley, Dave worked as a cowboy, where he got valuable management experience by herding, branding, and castrating cattle.

As a founder of NetApp, a data storage and management firm that began as an idea scribbled on a placemat and now takes in $4 billion a year, Dave 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 dot-com boom and bust, and finally to a mature enterprise. 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.

Written for anyone who wants to know what it takes to succeed in today’s volatile market-place, How to Castrate a Bull relates not only what lessons Dave Hitz has learned in the course of his remarkable life but more important how he learned them.