A new chapter in my (work) life

As a few of you know, I left IBM last week to join Apigee.  IBM is an absolutely wonderful place with the best people and the best technology.  I have been fortunate to work there for 21 years, and have had the privilege of working with and for the best and the brightest.  I had friends as bosses, and bosses who became friends.  I had colleagues who respected each other.  And the best part of being an IBMer is that the customers (even when criticizing some feature or capabilities of our products) had the admiration fo what IBM brings to the table.  In some small ways, I have given back to IBM by helping it grow a few businesses, but what I have gotten far exceeds what I given back.  Thank you IBM!

But there comes a stage in life when one examines what's next and sometimes concludes that there is something else to prove.  I reached that point this summer and decided that I had to be in a startup that offered me a very different kind of challenge.  IBM succeeds when innovation leverages the IBM engine and when it does the success is BIG.  With the help of my colleagues, there are several technologies that we were able to bring success to using that engine.  The latest efforts in IBM's Big Data capabilities is one of the latest such example.  However, having done that, I wanted to prove to myself that I could leverage a very different engine, hence a startup.

Now my choice of the startup hinged on a few criteria I had set for myself.  

One, it should already have paying customers, a growing revenue and a deep pipeline of prospects.  This was important since the skills required to bootstrap a startup in my mind are very different than the one to grow it, and I did not believe that I had the former skills or interest at this time.  

Second, I am a firm believer that data and analytics are the defining technologies for the next decade, and if pressed hard, I will grudgingly acknowledge that mobile is a close second.  So I wanted a startup, and a role in that startup,  that would have a good intersection of analytics and mobile.  

Finally, and especially in a startup, one must work with folks who you respect and like and provide complementary skills. 

All of this led me to Apigee.  My day 1 was Friday.  I will write about my transition (the shock and the awe and the gradual acclimitization I hope!) but most importantly, I will write about the technologies I will help create.  For those of you who have followed me for my information management and cloud thoughts, you all might be a little disappointed in my future postings because I will talk about some slightly different things, but data and analytics and cloud would be undercurrents that would run through it.  So un -blogroll me if needed!  I would not mind :)

I want to end with how my last week in IBM transpired.  As I was going through this decision, my immediate boss, several senior vice presidents, and many other bosses I have worked for, talked to me about the pros and cons of what I wanted to do.  In the end, they were disappointed (deeply perhaps), but as I talked to them, it became clear to me that their treating of me as a colleague and as a human being is what makes IBM a wonderful place.  And then I talked with my colleagues and that was so hard. We have had 21 wonderful years.  In the end, one of them captured it beautifully, "Anant, we are sorry to see you go and wish you the best of luck.  We know that you will always love IBM and IBMers, and that you also know that IBM is more than one person and will be even stronger in the future, so go realizing that you have helped in some small way towards IBM's success."

Comments

[Robdthomas]

Best of luck!

[Daniel Krook]

Anant, thank you for years of leadership shaping trends in information management and helping countless IBMers solve their customers' pressing data challenges. Good luck in this new chapter in your career!

[Divyagrawal]

Anant:

Best wishes for your new endeavors. Do continue to post -- will be very interested in reading about your new experiences. Hope to rund into you somewhere.

Best Regards,
divy

[twitter.com/katsnelson]

Anant, you are one of the smartest people I've ever come across and a great executive. More important, you are a decent human being. it is a big loss for IBM and a big gain for Apigee.
Wish you all the best in your new endeavour.

[Madhavan Vasudevan]

Anant, I have really enjoyed working with you at IBM as my friend colleague and guide and look forward to our paths intersecting again. Your brilliance, vision and compassion will sorely be missed at IBM. Look forward to hearing about your new adventures at Apigee and beyond. Madhavan

[Maximilien]

Wow, this came as a shock to me and sorry to see you leave Anant. Of course, I really appreciated that you personally called me and we could chat about it...

Naturally I understand. The valley is chock full of cool ideas and startups and some of them end of even change the world fundamentally, so it's not surprising that one would catch startup fever...

Besides being one of the smartest executives I have worked with at IBM what I will miss the most is your passion for IBM, our customers, and getting us into the latest and greatest technologies. You kept us cool and your sponsorship of Research is legendary. We'll miss you... I know I will.

Startup fever tends to come and go, so if you loose it (wishing you success, but never knows :) I am sure that we'd welcome you back. Best of luck!

[Anant Jhingran]

Thank you Rob, Daniel, Leon, Madhavan and Max from IBM for your kind wishes and expressions on my skills, I am deeply touched. I know that IBM is what IBM is because of all of you, I am sorry I am not a part of it right now, but I know it is in great hands.
And thanks Divy, how is the academic world?

[Rob Guikers]

Anant, thank you for inspiring Jibes - We loved working with you
and good luck.
- Rob Guikers, Jibes.

[Sebastian Stadil]

Congratulations! Keep rocking!

[Woz]

Anant,

Congratulations on the new role.

You were, literally, the first person I met from IBM when Informix was acquired 10 years ago. In the decade we've been coworkers you've championed an amazing amount of really cool stuff: our first integrated data warehouse offerings, our emergence on the cloud, Big Data, our push into analytics, and more.

Most of the things I'm proudest of having worked on you had a big part in creating.

So, you leave a large set of shoes to fill, even for a company with as many talented employees as IBM.

But beyond your technical leadersihp it's your sense of fun and humor I'm going to miss the most.

Hopefully our paths will cross again sometime soon.

Best of luck to you.

-Woz

[David Watson]

Good luck Anant. I was surprised to hear you'd left IBM but when I read your blog I understand why. I always enjoyed the times when I worked with you.

[Anant Jhingran]

wow, that is such a nice thing to say Woz! I am sorry I could not get in touch with you personally in the rush of the last few days. You have been wonderful! Let's keep in touch, do you have my external email address?

[Suraj Subramanian]

Anant,
Your "lofty" presence in the world of Data@IBM will be missed. Wish you the very best on your API endeavors. Appreciate all your guidance and mentoring over the last few years !!.

[Furrier]

Congrats Anant on the new bold move!! Keep in touch please I would like to track your progress

[Padmanabhan Krishnan]

Hi Anant,

It has been an pleasure working under your organization for MashupHub and it was fun. You have been a source of inspiration to me and many of us. Wish you all the best!

-Padmanabhan Krishnan