The dot-com era was like a giant wave. It lifted us, and carried us, and when it set us down, NetApp was a completely different company—a large company, a billion in revenue, and we were helping even larger companies solve some of their most important problems, a far cry from the small workgroups that we started with. The wave analogy encourages humility. Imagine you are surfing, and you spot the biggest wave ever. You decide to catch it, and you have the best ride of your life. You can be proud of spotting the wave, and of deciding to catch it, but don’t be proud of the wave itself. We didn’t
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