Reviving NetApp: How I Scaled It To $20B | George Kurian

NetApp was once a rocket ship—soaring during the dot-com bubble in the late ‘90s, riding the wave of data storage dominance. Then the market shifted.

Growth stalled, and after peaking at $120 a share, the stock spent over a decade stuck between $20 and $40. Once a Silicon Valley darling, the company became a has-been.

When George Kurian took over as CEO in 2015, NetApp was at a crossroads. Instead of clinging to past success, he led a reinvention—transforming the business for the cloud era, rebuilding its operating foundation, and positioning it for the AI wave.

In this episode, George breaks down why most companies fail to turn the page, how success breeds blind spots, and why leadership means knowing when to break from the past before it breaks you.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:12 Commuting to Sunnyvale
00:05:09 Growing up in India
00:08:38 Protect the child
00:10:13 Raising kids in Silicon Valley
00:13:53 Money motivation
00:16:18 NetApp’s renaissance
00:23:27 Writing new chapters
00:25:14 Culture shifts
00:29:03 Coming to NetApp
00:32:25 Surprise! You’re the CEO
00:35:40 Making sacrifices
00:40:48 Doubt & lonely decisions
00:46:32 The data wave
00:49:32 Enterprise AI
00:56:16 Starting your own company
00:58:21 Navigating difficulty
01:01:36 Who NetApp is hiring
01:02:21 What “grit” means to George
01:02:47 Outro