A Great Place to Work

We had some big news last week – NetApp was ranked #1 on the "Best Companies to Work For" by Fortune Magazine. This is great recognition for a company that has carefully built and sustained a culture that is truly unique.

It has been interesting in the past week how customers who were unaware of NetApp now seem more interested. Even friends of mine who would start making mental shopping lists when I described what NetApp does are now more curious. And oh, the resumes, LinkedIn requests, calls from Bobby who I shared a candy bar with in 1st grade, etc. It is all pretty cool.

While being #1 is a surprise, it is not a shock. NetApp is truly a great place to work. The unique benefits like paid time off to volunteer or autism and adoption benefits are unique in themselves, but they speak to a culture that cares very deeply about more than just the numbers.

We have a piece of collateral called "Create a Model Company" which is a set of cultural principles that was laid out very early in the company’s history. The principles there find their way into many other documents we produce but they also come up every day in thousands of conversations.

I have been at NetApp a little over 3 years, and my history with Dan Warmenhoven and many of the management team goes back further than that. I had always heard that NetApp had a unique culture, but it was not until I joined did I really understand what made it different. I attended an executive planning session just before I started and heard a presenter being very critical of engineering. He was the engineering guy. Sales leadership was critical of sales. They were also both complimentary about their functions as well as others. Everyone who spoke, was as objective and open about their own problems and successes as they were about those of others. It was really "One Team." At the end of this meeting, Dan asked everyone in the room to comment on the content, pace, and candor of the meeting. The “honesty check” at the end made sure that we had talked about what needed to be discussed and were not hiding something from ourselves or each other. It is a major force is keeping the leadership of the company aligned.

This integrity is widespread in the company. It is always safe to tell "truth to power" at NetApp. I have come to realize this was a missing element in many other places I have worked. It does keep us on track and focused on what really matters – delivering value to our customers.

No company is perfect and we certainly have our faults. But we are not afraid to confront them and change where we need to. Some people may not like honesty and a propensity to change. For them, NetApp is not a great place to work and they usually don’t last. But for me, and the many friends I have made working here, it is a great place to work, and worth the work to keep it great.

Comments

[Shibin Zhang]

Jay,

We had some overlap in one company. Do you remember? In order to promote my green IT idea, I might used a couple of strong words against NetApp, but I have changed. In real life, I have good reputation as a friendly, easy-going, calm and modest guy.

BTW, in order to promote green IT, I am writing a blog to explain my ideas, which includes some thoughts about Virtualization and cloud computing. I can work on it only on my spare time. However, I am almost fully occupied by other things (like rising little seed fund for a hobby project, looking for job for friends and so on). Once I get those things settled, I will surely finish my blog. I will let you know so that you can give me some valuable input.

Shibin

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