How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business (Hardcover)

基本信息·出版社：Jossey-Bass

·页码：208 页

·出版日期：2009年

·ISBN：0470345233

·条形码：9780470345238

·装帧：平装

·正文语种：英语

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内容简介在线阅读本书

Dave Hitz likes to solve fun problems. He didn’t set out to be a Silicon Valley icon, a business visionary, or even a billionaire. But he became all three. It turns out that business is a mosaic of interesting puzzles like managing risk, developing and reversing strategies, and looking into the future by deconstructing the past.As a founder of NetApp, a data storage firm that began as an idea scribbled on a placemat and now takes in $4 billion a year, Hitz has seen his company go through every major cycle in business—from the Jack–of–All–Trades mentality of a start–up, through the tumultuous period of the IPO and the dot–com bust, and finally to a mature enterprise company. NetApp is one of the fastest–growing computer companies ever, and for six years in a row it has been onFortunemagazine’s list of Best Companies to Work For. Not bad for a high school dropout who began his business career selling his blood for money and typing the names of diseases onto index cards.With colorful examples and anecdotes,How to Castrate a Bullis a story for everyone interested in understanding business, the reasons why companies succeed and fail, and how powerful lessons often come from strange and unexpected places.Dave Hitz co–founded NetApp in 1992 with James Lau and Michael Malcolm. He served as a programmer, marketing evangelist, technical architect, and vice president of engineering. Presently, he is responsible for future strategy and direction for the company. Before his career in Silicon Valley, Dave worked as a cowboy, where he got valuable management experience by herding, branding, and castrating cattle.

作者简介Dave Hitz co–founded NetApp in 1992 with James Lau and Michael Malcolm. He served as a programmer, marketing evangelist, technical architect, and vice president of engineering. Currently, he focuses on future strategy and setting the direction for the company.

Pat Walsh is the founding editor of MacAdam/Cage, a publisher of literary fiction and narrative non–fiction.

编辑推荐From Publishers Weekly

Silicon Valley success story Hitz, co-founder of tech consulting company NetApp, takes readers through the three stages of a developing business in this "memoir of a company and of a man," with lessons. Hitz's well-organized chronology outlines the net start-up's 1990s childhood, dot-bust adolescence and triumphant adulthood, centered around three easy-to-grasp themes: risk, growth and success, consecutively. Breezy and entertaining throughout, Hitz's text is also graced with efficient sidebars and a succinct, well-considered time-out capping each chapter. Chapters on his team's struggle to raise funds, find the right CEO for the job and go public are complemented by lessons from ancient Egyptians on data storage and NetApp president Tom Mendoza on public speaking. Though there aren't any lessons here that can't be found in other books, Hitz's personal and professional story encompasses solid business values, common mistakes, a bit of insider lore and some decent outta-left-field jokes (says the engineer to the frog princess: "Who has time for a girlfriend? But a talking frog: that's really cool").

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Review

NetApp Awarded #1 Best Company to Work For 2009 byFortuneASan Francisco ChronicleNonfiction Best-Seller, January 30, 2009"Readers will gain insight into management styles, different ways to make decisions, alternative approaches to managing people, and the value of dissent within a company. They also will learn why it is better to castrate a bull with a dull knife than a sharp knife. And they may get a few chuckles along the way."—ByteandSwitch.com, January 27, 2009"Hitz spends much of the book discussing what happened after he moved to move Silicon Valley in 1986 and began working at a series of start-ups, and the various business problems he faced and how he approached them. Hitz describes in detail the evolution of NetApp and, of course, does not omit the vendor's sales pitch. But at various points in the 200-page book Hitz takes a break from talking business to focus on some of the humorous passages referenced in Chapter Zero."  —NetworkWorld.com, January 21, 2009