I don’t post on LinkedIN much, as with most people who have a motor mouth like myself I am abundantly aware of the saying “once it's on the internet, it’s forever” and for that reason I don’t use social media. Given the huge day for Rubrik yesterday I thought I’d share a story that is personal to me and maybe professionally relevant to you whether you be a customer/consumer, investor or professional looking for your next journey. It's about the culture and before you check out, I was the poster child of saying the mission statement of a company didn’t really matter and was used as the opener for the Employee Handbook. I can assure you there is more to it than that, at least at Rubrik. So here we go….
I joined Rubrik in August of 2015 as a Systems Engineer supporting the Southeast US. There is a whole hilarious story on the interview that should be put on the show Silicon Valley but will leave that for another time. Had a fun, crazy and chaotic first year working to help build the company and territory from nothing. At about month 11 I was propositioned by a small storage startup based in Israel and for reasons I still can’t articulate I took it and gave my resignation. I think it must have been arrogance or immaturity but I was given rational reasons I should stay but my stubbornness took over and I followed through. I cringe at that moment to this day.
Fast forward 3 months and I am struggling. The tech at the new company was great but I felt like I had the best hammer invented but couldn’t find a nail (a use case) to use it on. So I reached out to Arvind Nithrakashyap and Soham Mazumdar , the founding engineers at Rubrik because I needed help and thought they could provide guidance. Remember, I quit on these dudes 3 months prior effectively bailing on their vision of the future so if I were them I woulda told me to go pound sand, I’m busy building the company you didn’t stick around for and they would have been right to do so. The opposite happened, they invited me to Palo, reserved a room for 2 hours and sat there listening, giving advice and making me feel better about my prospects. Who in the hell does that?! I quit on them, on their dream which meant way more to them than I can imagine. Apparently they do because they are good people who care about other people’s success and happiness.
Fast forward another 3 or so months and the start up is not out of money but really in need of additional funding and VC guidance. I don’t know Ravi Mhatre, Mark Leslie, Frank Slootman etc but wanted to help. But how? I am just a guy in the field trying to do right by my customers and employer. I don't know that world at all BUT I still had Bipul Sinha 's cell number in my phone so I called and asked for help from the very man I had quit on 6 months prior. If there was ever a moment a person should have said “go <insert a series of curse words> yourself” it should have been him and again it would have been more than justified, it would have been well deserved. So what happens? He embraces me, reaches out to some extremely prominent VC’s that I will omit out of respect and arranges for my CEO at the time to meet with them. I will say again, who in the hell does that?! Maybe I am petty but I sure as heck wouldn’t have. Again, it was because he cares about people genuinely just like Nitro, just like Soham and the other founders at Rubrik. There is a theme emerging….
As you may have noticed, I do indeed work at Rubrik today. I returned 12 months after my initial departure in large part to the above story and the support of good people who cared about me as a person such as Eric Chang , Mike Tornincasa and many others. I will be forever grateful.
In closing to this long story I would say to anybody who has Rubrik technology, is considering acquiring it, investors and professionals looking for a career change that Rubrik is more than millions of lines of code. It’s more than Data Security. Rubrik cares about your success, it was literally engrained in the company’s DNA since day one. I’ve seen it and to me that is more important than anything else. Thank you for reading. -Courtesy :
No comments:
Post a Comment