10 years at NetApp!

Between writing the requiem of the 15K RPM drive and dealing with a broken sewage pipe at home, I forgot that June 1st, was my 10 year anniversary at NetApp.

The coolest part of my time here has been the people. Listing them all here would be problematic. After all I don't want to encourage recruiters.

The most surprising part of my tenure here has been two things:

1. Everybody keeps saying we're going to go out of business because we're a niche NAS player, and we don't.
2. EMC is still our most ruthless competitor. I mean c'mon guys, just keel over and die already :-)

I've said this before, but the executive team at NetApp continues to be the single most important reason I've stayed here over the years. When I joined in 1999, I wasn't sold on NetApp for the long haul. And after the thespian troupe (acting CEO and acting CFO and acting COO) that mismanaged SGI, I wasn't sold on executives adding any value. But after a day long training session on NetApp where Tom Mendoza and Dan Warmenhoven spoke, I was sold on them, and the company. And nearly 10 years later, the team they've built and continue to build is probably the best retention policy they could have.

Some random fun facts:

1. I spent 9 years working on anything but Data ONTAP.
2. When I joined NetApp I thought SCSI was a cable not a protocol
3. There were fewer than 500 employees when I joined.
4. I remember when we thought it was Network Appliance (s) not Appliance
5. I've been through bubble 1.0, recession 1.0 and now bubble 2.0 followed by recession 2.0... and I am praying for bubble 3.0
6. When I joined 90.8 million in a quarter seemed like a lot of money.
7. Dave's book is still the best and most accurate history of NetApp
8. I managed to serve in the Greek military and debug code at the same time.
9. It took me only 9 years to figure out what Tom Mendoza meant when he said that attitude was everything.
10. I've changed jobs in NetApp 3 times going from Streaming Media, to Storage Management and now data protection, demonstrating that I lack any ability to focus.
11. I've had way too Dr. Evil moments: well let's say we have 100 MBs (crowd laughs), okay 100 GB (crowd laughs), fine folks, throw me a bone, how about 100 PB (crowd stops laughing)
12. I've been here long enough to see disk replace tape (oops not yet)
13. There was a point in time when an outrageous opinion was that Flash would replace disk. Which is especially funny, because now it's outrageous to argue that Flash won't replace disk.

After 10 years, it's tempting to want to jump off the train, but man, if I can forget that this was my tenth anniversary, who knows, maybe there's another ten in me...