“I have to believe in the tech before I ever consider a startup”
That was what I said just over 7 years ago when I got asked to join Nexenta. I saw a product that was looking to change an industry and a new and exciting opportunity. Over the last 7 years I have not been disappointed at all but there comes a time for change and today is that day.
After working at resellers, Nexenta was the first vendor I decided join and I started as a Sales Engineer before moving into a Director role and then only a year in to a role working in Product Marketing. I had less than zero knowledge outside my schooling and outside experience on marketing but management gave me a chance. After another short year and some company changes I got shifted into Product Management and day to day work with development and engineering teams. I never expected it to be a good move and I dreaded it at the time, I would have to leave the field. Much to my surprise, I found this new role to be exciting and challenging and I had to learn an entirely new side of IT. The next move was probably the most exciting for my career when I was asked to partially return to my roots and go back out into the field as the Field CTO. This meant I got to work with our largest customers and prospects and now knowing the product management side I was also able to translate all the customer needs and wants into engineering requirements. Overall the career progression at Nexenta was amazing but that pales in comparison to the people I have met. I can not thank them enough, even the ones that have left and asked me why I stayed so long.
And on that note, I stayed because I was waiting for the right position with the right company and today I start in what I believe will be that position. Today marks day one with Cohesity as a Principal Technologist (More later on the challenges of going from Field CTO to anything) . I will be joining a team of amazingly talented people that are well known in each of their respective communities, Chris Colotti, Jon Hildebrand and Teresa Miller. The four of us make up the TAG or Technical Advocacy Group and are focused on the outbound technical messaging. This time around I didn’t just look for great tech, which I do believe Cohesity has, but also a great company that is growing and dynamic. I am excited to hit the ground running for a new challenge!
If you have been anywhere near a briefing from VMware, Citrix, or Microsoft in the past few years, you are well aware of what “the cloud” is. You have probably already heard about the public cloud with the likes of Amazon and Google among others. The newest additions to the cloud vernacular are the private and hybrid cloud. The private cloud is where software companies like Citrix and VMware have developed solutions to allow an enterprise to keep their data secure, but still get the commodity model that has been advertised to their users in the consumer space. The hybrid model is the utopian integration and flexibility between the public and private cloud environments. As I sat through the second session of the Blogger Reality Show, which was focused on Converged Systems, it occurred to me that like so many pre-built platforms these days, the HP CloudSystem is exactly what the private cloud was envisioned as. Then the thoughts of all the other hardware vendors starting sneaking in and I got to thinking about what is really included in these hardware offerings. Are we seeing a revolution in the way that IT equipment is purchased or are we just seeing marketing spin by a few vendors that have joined forces to sell the solutions that are already available.
Continue reading “Onward and Upward”