How NetApp kills the competition
By getting their underperforming and marginal executives hired by potentially successful startups
They already managed to deliver a death blow to Nimble that way.
Dan Warmenhoven is joining Cohesity’s board to add his gravitas to the startup’s efforts to be seen as a major player. He was NetApp CEO from 1994 to August 2009 and then its executive chairman from then until April 2014. His replacement as CEO was his hand-picked successor Tom Georgens, who also became chairman in April 2014 …
I would not lightly dismiss the business instincts and operational skills of a leader who took NetApp from 50 million to over 5 billion in revenue. That was truly an extremely rare and remarkable feat in both an absolute and relative sense.
I will always be an unapologetic huge fan of Dan's.
-Val.
I've been in multiple business situations with Dan, personally, during the time of cloud in its infancy. He's actually one of the brightest people on the planet, generally listens more than he speaks and has incredible situational awaremess and dynamic marketplace understanding. If a company has sold $50M into the storage market, they're on Dan's radar.
This choice gives me more confidence in Cohesity than before - he will be a voice on the board with the experience of taking a company from under $100M to several billion. That's a rare talent.
Good fortune for Cohesity. Unfair comments.