"It's easy - All we have to do is sell products we haven't developed yet, to customers we haven't met yet, with people we haven't hired yet" -- Tom Mendoza in 1994 upon receiving a billion-dollar quota after booking $40M the year before.
I've known Dave Hitz for almost 11 years now, and I still marvel at his story-telling abilities. It's not just that he can repeat a story well, or that he can craft a compelling original one with the same ease. Dave has this rare talent for distilling complex scenarios of all kinds (technology, business, life, etc...) into simple analogies which even my immigrant grandparents could understand. The final subtle yet critical distinction is that he does it without insulting their intelligence. Add a disarming wry sense of humor and you've got the formula for what makes Dave truly exceptional.
Venture Capitalists are highly paid professionals who focus full-time on identifying the next "great idea" and then molding it into an enterprise which will hopefully reward their efforts handsomely. They've each developed their own proprietary formulas for success which understandably remain closely guarded secrets in their community.
This is the book for the rest of us.
In it, Dave applies his highly approachable story-telling skills at exposing critical lessons learned along the way towards building the very special company that NetApp has become. Executives and business leaders will naturally absorb many key elements from this book, but the real magic of it lies in the long-term observations that every employee of a young, ambitious, successful company can take away.
