Dave Hitz

As Executive Vice President, David Hitz is responsible for the future strategy and direction of NetApp. Dave Hitz and James Lau founded NetApp in 1992 with a desire to simplify storage the way Cisco simplified networking. Dave and James believed that general-purpose computing systems were too complex, so they built dedicated devices called appliances. These appliances were designed to handle one thing well: storage. Prior to 1992, Dave worked as a senior engineer at Auspex Corporation, an enterprise storage solutions provider, where he was responsible for file systems and microkernel design. He also held engineering positions at MIPS Computer, focusing on file system and I/O subsystem design for the System V kernel development effort. Before his career in the computer industry, Dave worked as a cowboy, getting valuable management experience by herding, branding and castrating cattle. Dave documented these and other formative business experiences in his autobiography, “How To Castrate A Bull, Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business.“ Dave holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Princeton University.