Jan Olderdissen
Engineering
Getting priorities straight
One of the most important lessons of my life has been understanding, evolving, and accepting my priorities. For example, when I was in college, my primary goal was to earn enough to buy a Porsche. At the time, that was more of an unconscious desire, but when I finally could afford a sports car, I no longer wanted one. I had matured enough to realize that sports cars are merely impractical status symbols and that I didn't need one - neither as a conveyance nor as a means to stroke my ego.This goal-wise vacuum was quickly filled by my loving wife and a couple of kids, whose well-being, raising, and education are now the overriding priority. My second priority is enjoying life in its various facets: Food, hiking, chess, building, and making people happy. The latter includes customers, coworkers, and my father-in-law. 😜
The awesome power in figuring out and explicitly noting your priorities is the clarity that brings. For example, if I were to conclude that my priority is to work on cool hardware, such as rocket engines, perhaps I should find another place to hang my hat. If, on the other hand, I conclude, as I have, that the most important aspect of a place of employment is to be surrounded by a small but awesome team and to have unseating Goliath as a goal, then DevRev is an excellent choice.
Figuring out and explicitly noting priorities is just as important for a business. In a testament to how unusual Dheeraj is as a CEO, he stated long ago that his priorities for his business are taking care of customers first, then taking care of employees and letting them build an awesome product. The bottom line, according to Dheeraj, then takes care of itself. That clarity has made Nutanix what it is today and will; I have undoubtedly made DevRev similarly successful.
My recommendation to you: Think about your personal goals and priorities, and once you have clarity, the view will be much like this ☝️.