Acknowledgments

Writing this book became an obsession, and I’d like to thank my family not only for putting up with me but for reading draft after draft after draft, each time providing additional useful feedback: Yen Hitz, Nancy Hitz, Jerre Hitz, and Ken Hitz. Thanks to Mira Hitz for her moral support even though she can’t yet read (or talk). Special thanks to my mom for her good-natured acquiescence to the stories about her. Apologies to my mom for not including NetApp’s green accomplishments and awards in the book.

My co-writer Pat Walsh taught me the difference between an author (creates with interviews and a tape recorder) and a writer (creates with a word processor and keyboard) and gave me many useful lessons on my still-unfinished journey from the former to the latter. Pat’s obsession lasted even longer than my own, so Jeannine and Jack, his wife and son, had even more to put up with.

This book consists of the lessons and stories from many people who helped to create NetApp, so I’m particularly indebted to Mike Malcolm, James Lau, Charlie Perrell, Brian Pawlowski, Tom Mendoza, Dan Warmenhoven, Don Valentine, Helen Bradley, Steve Kleiman, Jeff Allen, and Rob Salmon, as well as Bruce Clarke, Bob Wall, Kathy Mendoza, Patrick Mulroney, Varun Mehta, Brian Ehrmantraut, Florence Chan, Andy Watson, Mark Santora, Isabella Conti, Armen Varteressian, Kathy Bittner, and Laura Pickering. They all helped build NetApp, and in many cases also gave me direct feedback on the book. Bill Barnett, Chuck Holloway, John Morgridge, and their team of business school students at Stanford helped keep the history alive in my mind with lively classroom sessions and the case studies they wrote. Thanks to Lauren Dutton, Jamie Earle, Stephen Henkenmeier, and Jeffrey Eisen, who prepared and revised the case studies.

Thanks to the many people—colleagues, friends, and friends-of-friends—who read early drafts and gave me valuable feedback: Audrey Van Belleghem, Bill Barnett, Bob Pearse, Cathy Belleville, Christina Richmond, Dan Petersen, Dawn Yules, Don Bulens, Don “Pop” Petersen, Duncan Love, Eric Allman, Eric Brown, Ernie Baumann, Garth Goodson, Gene Jordan, Ian Barnett, Jamie Pesek, Jay Kidd, Jennifer W. Harris, Jodi Baumann, John McArthur, Judith Maurer, Kathy Hennessy, Kendrick Royer, Kevin McAuliffe, Lea Hirschfeld, Linda Pearse, Lola Moline, Marianne Wisner, Mike Rubin, Nina Love, Peter van der Linden, Randy Thelen, Rob Baker, Sanjay Vaswani, Scott Callon, Steve Herrod, Steve Watanabe, Suresh Vasudevan, Teri Allen, Tom Georgens, Tylie Petersen, and Warren Adelman.

And finally, there is a variety of support that goes beyond feedback without which a book cannot be completed. Thank you to my assistant, Kathy Bittner, my agent, Amy Rennert, and my editor, Rebecca Browning.