from Hacker News

Don Valentine has died

by gatsby on 10/25/19, 9:05 PM with 26 comments

  • by ChuckMcM on 10/25/19, 11:14 PM

    Don was a pretty amazing guy. He was the chairman at NetApp when I was there and told me I was crazy to be pushing NetApp to use an untested AMD processor (Opteron) for the high end filer of the time.

    What resulted was a solid discussion that ranged from how reliable AMD was to how important Intel was to Netapp, and how to measure the "betterness" of one technology over another. I really respected that he could be opinionated and listen at the same time, always willing to cede to a well reasoned argument about how he might be wrong about something. He was also really good at poking holes in an argument so I found myself on the defensive a lot!

  • by LeonM on 10/25/19, 10:04 PM

    If you want to learn more about Don and how influential his work has been, I recommend listening the recent Acquired episode about Don and Sequoia [0].

    [0] https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/sequoia-capital-part-1

  • by scapecast on 10/25/19, 10:32 PM

    One of his great talks at Stanford: “Target Big Markets” https://youtu.be/nKN-abRJMEw

  • by chriselles on 10/26/19, 2:44 AM

    I first recall reading about Don Valentine in the October 1982 issue of National Geographic on Silicon Valley.

    An excellent snapshot of Silicon Valley and a glimpse of Don Valentine’s role in it.

    http://blog.modernmechanix.com/high-tech-high-risk-and-high-...

    Risk/Venture Capital, despite valid criticisms of it, has had an outsized effect on our world in the last 50+ years.

    And Don Valentine played an outsized role in it.

  • by gumby on 10/26/19, 1:56 AM

    Really a great, supportive guy, and very kind in a pitch meeting, even when you are completely losing it. In general I've found the sequoia folks to be a class act (with a couple of, to me, egregious exceptions)

  • by melling on 10/26/19, 8:25 AM

    “ his high school friend, Steve Wozniak.”

    This can’t be right.

  • by jorgenveisdal on 10/26/19, 5:46 AM

    Rest in peace Don!