How to Castrate a Bull Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business

This is the story of Dave Hitz, the company he founded and the management and problem-solving lessons he learned along the way and more important how he learned those lessons. Most of the lessons of the book came from or are related to the problem solving skills Hitz developed at Deep Springs, one of the most selective undergraduate institutions in the US. At Deep Springs students work and manage a ranch attached to the college in addition to their liberal arts studies. Deep Springs maintains a cattle herd and an alfalfa hay farming operation. At Deep Springs, the actual act of castrating an 800-pound bull, which earlier seemed impossible, became imperative. At the ranch Hitz learned lessons about self-sufficiency, risk taking, and trust, that were invaluable in the business word when he made the jump from software coder in a start-up to overseeing an engineering department of hundreds, and later serving as the company visionary.Through dynamic example and colorful illustration, Hitz shows how powerful learning tools are forged from experience and experience often comes from strange and unexpected places. Using humor and insight, Hitz's experiences an engineer thrust into managing hundreds of people and his time as a cowboy/student in Deep Springs , California , into a new type of business book. What will surprise readers is that problems aren't to be avoided but rather sought out eagerly. In many instances, a reader need not learn a new technique or process for dealing with problems, they just have to look at their own experiences in a new way.

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.

PART ONE: Beginnings.1. Before NetApp On Computers, Colleges, Castration, and Risk.Interlude: What NetApp Does.2. Starting NetApp On Toasters, Angels, Resellers, and Ferraris.Interlude: Redundant Array of Pyramid Hieroglyphics (RAPH).3. CEO Lessons On Pixie Dust, Decision Making, Candor, and Going Public.Interlude: Tom Mendoza's Lessons on Public Speaking.PART TWO: Turbulent Adolescence.4. Hypergrowth On Goals, Doubling, Ancestors, and Pain.Interlude: How to Fail in Executive Staff Presentations.5. Values and Culture On Dilbert, Drooling, Lies, and Game Theory.Interlude: Lawyers Aren't Evil Fairness and Morality Are Not Their Job.6. Managing Engineers On Development, Consensus, Doctor Death, and Magic.Interlude: Scientific-Truth and Useful-Truth.PART THREE: Grown-Up Company.7. Customers On Love, Enterprise, Simplicity, and Partners.Interlude: Shark Island A Parable of Risk and Mass Media.8. Strategic Change On Reversing Course, Chocolate, Debates, and Core Beliefs.Interlude: Speckled-Egg Thinking.9. Vision On Whining, Eras, Future History, and the Meaning of Life.Appendix A. Early NetApp Business Plan.Appendix B. NetApp Company Values.Glossary.Bibliography.Acknowledgments.The Author.Index.