Thread regarding NetApp layoffs

This is an interesting video of Tom and Dan @Notre Dame from two months ago

https://youtu.be/lnNogcjHaLw

Thanks @1xzw+1l0UHbR3, that was great to watch. I moved across the US to join NetApp in 1997, and much of the reason was the obvious strength of the executive team. The things Dan and Tom talk about in the video are not embellished; they really happened that way.

@3zsr+1l0UHbR3, regarding “[losing[ all respect” for Tom Mendoza: Tom may not have adequately explained his reasons to an EMEA audience for preferring the US approach to layoffs (albeit executed with compassion – watch the layoff discussion in the video), but failure to empathize with impacted workers is not among them. Being one of the world’s best salesmen and sales leaders requires a very high empathy quotient.

I regret NetApp’s transition to a “cash cow” business, both because it might have been avoided with better decisions, and because it transformed a great employer into a mediocre one.

Mendoza loves himself far too much. I lost all respect for him when he talked to us in EMEA and told us that the US way of firing was the best. He said NetApp was a business and if it needed to cut then it should be a quick thing, over and done with and everyone can move on. He thought that the EU way of respecting people's job and having works councils was counter productive. Great attitude if you don't need the money and just shows how out of touch he is with the ordinary working person

There are leaders and then there are HMFICs; don't confuse the two. Leaders are people whom you trust and will follow into "battle". The current spate of HMFICs? I wouldn't follow to the curry stand.

This is an interesting video of Tom and Dan @Notre Dame from two months ago

https://youtu.be/lnNogcjHaLw

I've sat at the dinner table with Warmenhoven, spoke with him 1:1 multiple times when he didn't need to give me the time of day. I was an IC at NetApp and he treated me like my opinion mattered, would BS with me about random non work related stuff and remembered my name when we passed each other in the corridors at the Java campus. As my time at NetApp drew to a close I worked in George Kurian's reporting structure in the days of Tom Georgens, I'd wager Kurian wouldn't remember my name if I ran in to him, but I bet Dan would. Tom Mendoza called me on the phone a few times doing the catch somebody doing something right thing. I sat with him in the cafe a few times. Dave Hitz and I had a few conversations about things, including a virtual storage controller I had hosted in AWS and was snap mirroring data to from physical storage in my lab. Not sure if that became cloud volumes ontap or another engineer had a similar idea, I left the company after the big RIF in 2013. The original NetApp culture was very open and not as pretentious top down driven as the current company.

I still look back at my 11 years at NetApp fondly, it was truly a great place to work. I made many friends while I was there, still in touch with most of them over ten years later, I had lunch with three of them today. I do not believe the company is dead or destined for failure. I believe it is in trouble and in serious need of corrective action. Can you fix the culture at this point? I don't know but I'd like to think so.

I guess you forgot about the biggest layoff at all done at the hands of Dan W. That very day, he took delivery of a brand new jet, claiming 'bad timing'. Corporate America has always been, and will always be greed, greed greed. Don't let George's 'catholicism' sway you...

Meh, we bet big on cloud. We put a lot of cycles into being the first to do this, the first to do that. A lot of end customers just don't see cloud as the place for all their data. While doing that we somewhat ignored on-prem. So we're changing the percentages and focusing on both, still, but more on flash.

Again.

It's not too late but NetApp needs better vision and execution.