deal architect

A Tribute to Harald Stuckert

Harald Stuckert passed away a couple of days ago. It was a shock to everyone who knew him, and especially so to me. I had just seen a Facebook entry with him commenting on The Masters. He loved golf. I had received an email from him on Friday as soon as he read my post on SAP R/3 and said “I must say you're right and you spoke out of my soul!”

I had met him over the years but more frequently in the last few years as he started spending time in Bradenton, just south of where I live. His first project in the US had been at my Price Waterhouse office in Tampa and he had grown fonder about our part of the world. We would meet for a meal every few months and I would bounce my book thoughts by him. His reactions always told me if I needed to change course. He was too modest – never allowed me to quote him directly, but he would point me to others who could validate what I was looking at.

In those conversations, I found he was one of the most connected people in enterprise software and in outsourcing. At SAP he was one of the senior statesmen which made it so impressive in the 1990s. He was one of the first professionals who learned how to use global delivery firms – many from India – effectively. Recently he had been advising Infosys on a variety of strategic areas.

But it was the non-business stuff which was more fun. He would talk about his beloved dogs, the way too much time he would spend on Emirates Airlines and how they spoiled him. I would always wonder which of his cars he would drive in. Once he came in his giant RV and when we finished he appeared stuck in a cramped parking lot. I told him I would drive him home, and he could retrieve it the next day when the lot was emptier. He made me stand in the back to guide him and I watched with mouth open how he managed to wriggle the monster out. 

He was always smiling. In our industry that is such a rare trait.

Farewell, my friend. I was looking forward to many more conversations with you.

Wishing the best to Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP suffered a pretty catastrophic accident a few weeks ago. He said this in an eloquent Facebook post that I hope he does not mind me sharing

“In early July, I was visiting my father on his 76th birthday. Unfortunately during my stay, I slipped and fell while holding a glass of water, and the injuries caused by falling on the broken glass were significant. I suffered facial fractures, severe lacerations, and extensive damage to my eye.

After returning home from extensive surgery and a week’s worth of recovery time in the hospital, I had numerous additional procedures to repair the facial injuries and multiple surgeries to attempt to regain sight in my eye. Unfortunately, despite doing everything possible, the eye could not be saved and was removed earlier this week. After a 6 - 8 week healing period, I will be fitted with a prosthetic eye. Although this was not the outcome I had hoped for, I feel grateful, optimistic and hopeful.

I feel grateful because I’ve lost people I love, and know that losing an eye is in no way comparable to losing a piece of your heart. I am more grateful than ever for my family, who have been by my side these past weeks—and throughout my life. I am also grateful to the hardworking, committed women and men I have met during these past weeks of surgeries and recovery. Without their talent, I wouldn’t have come this far.

I feel optimistic because that’s who I am. I learned this from my mother, whose indomitable spirit I inherited, and which has always helped me push through challenges. Just as every life experience has made me wiser and stronger, I know this one will, too.

Finally, I feel hopeful in part because of something a friend reminded me: true insight doesn’t come from what we see, but from what we know and feel. I have lost an eye, not my curiosity or my compassion. I am no less capable of leading SAP, or any less committed to the audacious goals we’ve set for the company. Thanks to my family, my friends, and my colleagues, my spirits are higher than ever.

Work has always energized me, and today, I’m more driven than ever to fulfill my duties and promises as SAP’s CEO. I’ve been talking with Hasso Plattner and SAP’s leaders, my colleagues, our partners and customers for weeks, and now that the doctors say I can fly I’m heading to the airport in early October to see my second family, in Germany.

This is an important time for SAP, a company made up of thousands of talented, hard-working people that deserve the spotlight much more than I do. So, enough said. Thank you for your friendship and support. Now, it’s time for me to get back to work.”

SAP is in a state of disarray as my books have pointed out, and sorely needs McDermott to be healthy again. But forgetting the work dimension, at a human level, I am praying for him.

As I wrote in 2.0

In my dealings with him, I have always admired his demeanor—he is polite and attentive, and I doubt he even knows we share birthdays.

Here’s wishing you the absolute best, Bill.

Full Marcs

I do not think I have ever seen Marc Benioff blush. He is usually busy talking in hyperbole, and slapping backs to be slowed down by much. But Sheryl Sandberg teased him and had him agape during their Lean In interview last night at Dreamforce. The whole conversation around sexual equality is an uncomfortable one for most audiences but Marc did not stray from the focus of her recent book, even though he and the audience were dying to hear a bit about Facebook futures.

Even more than his always interesting keynotes, I like to observe Marc as Charlie Rose. Last year he let Richard Branson discuss legalization of pot – again another uncomfortable topic for a tech conference. He handles heavyweights like Colin Powell and Jeff Immelt with respect and a child like curiosity.

Marc is also unafraid to talk about charitable pursuits and implore audiences to open their wallets and calendars to support worthy causes. His time on Haiti and the SF Children’s Hospital easily added up to an hour of valuable prime time conference time this year.

He is a patron to all kinds of music. Genres from Will-i-am to Green Day to Neil Young have graced various Dreamforces.

But I really like how he handled a press conference this year. He engaged with a room full of over 300 journalists, financial and industry analysts and bloggers. He repeatedly overrode his PR folks and kept allowing more questions. He was humorous, sarcastic, respectful in turns. Given how tired he must have been after a draining keynote and other meetings, it was a masterful performance. 

I worry about many aspects of Salesforce as a company, but it is a pleasure to see so many aspects of Marc as dynamic executive, mature industry leader and a passionate human being.

A different side to Larry Ellison

The mention of Rafael Nadal in this Bob Evans post reminded me of a short section I had written for a book but not published before. It is about Barcelona's legendary school, La Masia which graduated 7 of the Spanish players who helped the country win the 2010 World Cup and superstars like Lionel Messi and yet is as much about academics as athleticism.

"La Masia enrolls 200 or so students a year, many as young as 7. Many move away from their parents and learn Barcelona’s distinctive “poetry” - style of short, rhythmic passing and ball control for long minutes. They learn the mix of “total football” made famous by Dutch football great Johan Cyruff, and traditional Spanish one-touch play (tiqui-taka). They also benefit from some of the best nutritionists, trainers, teachers (they spend more time in class than on the field), computer technicians in the sport. Being one degree of separation from Messi, Xavi and other graduates provides its own inspiration."

What does have to do with Larry?

Well, Larry is a big tennis and Nadal fan and into whole bunch of other activities, but he has a vision for a school which sounds awfully like La Masia's

"Think of a high school that’s two-thirds Stanford and one-third Naval Academy. It would have been a private school, but with 80 percent of the kids on full scholarship, a student recruiting program to ensure high academic and athletic standards plus diversity, a student orchestra that would make Juilliard proud, and a superb athletic program—the kind that wins state championships. The kids would wear uniforms, and of course, everyone would learn how to sail. We’d go out and find talented kids, get them taught, coached, mentored, and off to college"

Bob's post has other quotes and episodes which provide more of an insight into the man. There are tons of people who have never been within a few miles of Larry but have a hardened view of him. Not sure it will sway them, but it is a good read about what drives one of our industry's icons.

 

DAD: at his most huggable and corniest

Dave Duffield is not slick - he kept forgetting his notes and guest mike at the podium. But during his talk at Workday Rising he was also generous and brought up several executive guests to the stage, thanked his growing partner list and he was entertaining:

• He had a Top 10 list why Workday went IPO which included a reference to “if Anderson Cooper can come out, so can we”
• He teased his co-founder Aneel Bhusri about bragging about product features, and that he could do better with contract closings and invited the CIO of City of Orlando to sign her contract on stage.
• He gave his CFO palpitations with frequent teasing on forward looking stuff and a guessing game on the + in a slide which showed 350+ customers. After the Orlando signing his slide changed to 351+ customers
• He presented a photo gallery which showcased his family members and pets as fans of various Workday customer products.
• In a dig at Oracle, he quipped “I love walking all over on Fusion” and pointed to the brand of shoes he was wearing
• He periodically had slides with SAP and Oracle characters peeping in the conference room
• He tossed Cloud Cakes (a Twinkie like product of one of his customers, McKee) with gusto into the crowd, then wondered if he had adequate legal protection if those projectiles hurt anyone.

For all that he got by my count  three hugs and one high-five on stage.

Corny he may be, but as his initials suggest, he is also beloved.

A word about Dennis Howlett

Larry Dignan of ZDNet lays out an ugly situation Dennis Howlett finds himself in. Larry is privy to much more of the gory details than I care to want to ever find out.

All I want to do is thank Dennis for his wonderful support during my health hiccup couple of years ago, and his early support for both my books even though they took him out of his comfort or interest zones. He did so without expectation of any compensation. I have seen his generous side.

We don’t see eye to eye on many topics and I have to periodically remind him we don't have to agree on everything. So, I would say I have also seen his reasonable side.

Those sides may not be visible to others. Not my intention to argue with them, just to belatedly thank Dennis for some of the things he has done for me.

“One of the good guys”

Workday is recruiting Jim Holincheck from Gartner. He is a top notch HR analyst, and I agree with Dennis Howlett, “one of the good guys”. Very nice functional and personality fit for Workday.

Jim and I go back a ways. I tried – unsuccessfully – to recruit him when he was at Accenture in 1993. I finally succeeded in 2000. I lost him to my former employer, Gartner in 2003. But we have always been a phone call away when we want to validate anything as peers.

Through it all, I can certify Jim is high-ethics. In his soft-spoken way, he knows how to make his points. I have long admired the fact that he is a tinkerer – always curious about new apps. I always felt if there was a PC Labs for enterprise software he would be a great fit.

I also learned you do not want to challenge the guy at foosball. Or play trivial pursuit on anything Disney World with him.   

I am looking forward to another chapter with Jim as he joins the other good guys at Workday. 

FBI on Steve Jobs: Snore

The FBI has made public notes from the background check on Steve Jobs when President Bush wanted to consider him for an appointment. Sure there is some unflattering personal detail, but this was during Bush Sr’s (yes!) tenure – over 20 years ago.

What would be far more interesting is recent notes. The Secret Service’s notes on Jobs as he met President Obama on several occasions. President Obama’s memoirs and his recounting those meetings and likely Jobs’ frank talk. The CIA’s notes on Apple’s China operations and its Japanese, German and other component suppliers. The Justice investigation on whether Apple colluded with book publishers to raise eBook pricing compared to a market standard Amazon was establishing. FCC notes on the AT&T, Apple and Google dust-up. The EU’s files on potential anti-competitive behavior. FBI and other investigations into countless IP theft and infiltration attempts Apple is constantly subjected to. The surveillance agreements Apple was likely coerced into with carriers around the world as it rolled out the iPhone globally.

Dream on if you think any of this will see public light any time soon. Like Area 51, it does not even exist:) 

Zach Nelson: A Decade in the Clouds

Zach Nelson is a really interesting tech executive. He has a wide rolodex (over 20 pages in my last book, The New Polymath came from interviews with Zach and several others he introduced me to), diverse interests (numerous relationships with the Oakland Athletics baseball team, part owner of the Omaha Nighthawks football team, golfer), and he is entering his tenth year as CEO of the cloud computing pioneer, NetSuite. 

Every conversation with him veers in many fascinating directions. I recently had a chance to listen to him reminisce about his decade at NetSuite.

Given your big company experience at Oracle and Sun, and the dot.com bust, was it not a very risky decision for you in 2002 to join a startup like NetSuite?

Actually my career has always been about doing startups, though within large companies. At Network Associates, I helped roll out both MyCIO.com and McAfee.com (which interestingly enough was actually the first Cloud IPO way back in 2000). At Oracle, I was there when we launched video on demand and Interactive TV. At Sun, I headed up marketing in the SunSoft/Solaris spin-off.

So, joining a young company was not much of a challenge, but I did have 5 criteria guiding my job search, and amazingly NetSuite (then called NetLedger) met them all. I wanted to be with a Web-based enterprise software company. The term SaaS had not been coined then, but my experience with McAfee.com and MyCIO.com taught me customers preferred software from vendors who not only wrote the code but also managed it, and that the web had to be an integral part of the deployment/delivery platform. NetSuite fit that bill.

I wanted a great development team. (Founder) Evan Goldberg had that in place.

Given the dot.com bust, I wanted to join a startup which had real customers, not just ideas. I also wanted to see a good funding plan. NetSuite already had thousands of small customers, and having Larry Ellison (Chairman and CEO of Oracle) as a major investor met my 3rd and 4th criteria.

My last criterion, looking back, was possibly the most unreasonable. I wanted a short commute. If you remember traffic during the dot.com boom in the Bay Area, we were all commuting for hours. NetSuite, amazingly, was just 3 miles from where we live.

So, in many ways, it was actually an easy decision for me to join NetSuite.

Over the last decade, the highs must have been really high, the lows really low. Can you share a few of each?

In many ways, it has been one long high, but the last couple of years have been particularly satisfying. Even though NetSuite continued to grow during the downturn, nobody can say he or she enjoyed the slowdown of 08 and 09. However, those years focused our investments in two areas that have really paid off for NetSuite and our customers: the verticalization of our product and our company, and the traction the OneWorld product has provided us in global customers.

Looking ahead, two things really excite me. One is our exposure to large enterprise customers shows us how poorly their current legacy systems work and what a huge opportunity we have there. The second is the emergence of new opportunities in the emerging eCommerce market. There really is no platform for easily extending your transactional processes to customers, partners and vendors via ecommerce, and I think we have a very differentiated approach there.

But bigger companies tend to prefer working with larger vendors like SAP, don’t they?

When you see how companies deploy applications like SAP, you quickly see that approach is dated. Any company that has a multi-year road map to deploy enterprise systems will be crushed by faster, more nimble competitors who are moving their operations to the Cloud using NetSuite.

I used to worry about SAP and Microsoft making a move to the Cloud. But after waiting year after year for them, I now believe whatever they do in Cloud Computing is superficial. SAP may throw marketing around for BusinessbyDesign or Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains, but fundamentally their DNA remains that of on-premise software companies. And smart customers know that those applications will not give them competitive advantage in the Internet Age.

NetSuite has been a risk-taker on many fronts. You used the auction method for your IPO. You expanded internationally in relatively risky markets like the Philippines. How do you sustain a risk taking culture?

These are calculated risks. In each of those decisions I have bet on an executive I felt comfortable with.

For the IPO, we bet on Bill Hambrecht and his firm’s auction model and philosophy. For our Philippines expansion or the Czech development effort, again I bet on strong executives to make us successful.  It is as much about the people you have to execute a strategy as it is about the strategy itself.

You seem remarkably compatible with (founder) Evan Goldberg, your CTO. Very few founders and professional executives who come in later co-exist as long as the two of you have.

Evan is one of the smartest people I know and could run sales or services or anything he chooses to tackle, but he loves and is focused on development. I came in wanting a solid development team in place. So our skillsets and interests are very complimentary. Quite often the founder and the professional executive don’t delineate their roles well enough, but with Evan and me, our roles were clearly articulated. And we both believe in what NetSuite does to help our customers fulfill their business visions.

Tell us about folks who inspire you

Larry Ellison is one for showing me how your vocation can also become your avocation. I was at Oracle when he turned billionaire, and I asked myself if I was that rich, would I not retire? After working at NetSuite, I figured out why he is still at it. I couldn’t imagine anything more enjoyable to do with my time. I have the best job in the world.

Well, I believed the last statement till I saw Brad Pitt play Billy Beane in Moneyball, and I figured out HE probably has the best job in the world! I am honored to have Billy’s guidance as a director and customer. As the movie shows, he saw the game of baseball from completely different eyes. On our board he brings the consumer mindset to the enterprise world. He forces us to think differently, as he did the baseball world.

Defending Ray Lane

Ray Lane is taking hell for a photo which shows him with a MacBook at home. The sky is falling – how can the Chairman of HP be so un-PC?  Shades of the poor Fedex man who supposedly got fired for carrying a Coke can into Pepsi HQ. Or that of Citibank supposedly rejecting employee expenses charged on personal Amex cards.

I have known Ray for over 15 years now. Trust me he can be extremely proud and defensive of his companies.  I have had heated debates with him when he was President of Oracle and I was a Gartner analyst. And he is an early adopter of many of their products.  He rode an early Segway ( a Kleiner company) into a commencement speech, he drives an early Fisker Karma EV (he is on the board), and he was sending emails from his HP Veer shortly after it was released this May.

He has been one of my first calls as I started research for each of my books. He is always full of suggestions – and has introduced me to a number of Kleiner portfolio companies and to execs at HP. But he has also talked nicely about Google, Apple, Amazon, eBay and plenty of others. And he has also clammed up when I reach into topics he would rather not comment on given his fiduciary or moral responsibilities.

Go on be snarky if you want. Personally, I wish more industry leaders were as open-minded as he is.