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Nutanix CEO Came To The U.S. With $900 In His Pocket. This Is What He Calls The Genesis Of Entrepreneurship

Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey weighs in on the mind-set that drove his success as his company marks 10 years in business at Nutanix Next 2019.

It’s been nearly 10 years since Nutanix made its mark in hyper-convergence and CEO Dheeraj Pandey says the company is just getting warmed up.

Nutanix got its start with an integrated hardware/software appliance to deliver y[er-converged infrastructure, later expanding that model so that customers can deploy the software on the hardware of their choice. Today, the company is publicly traded with over 12,000 customers. In an interview with CRNtv at Nutanix Next 2019, Pandey described why the company is now at a “new zero.”

What are your thoughts on the 10-year anniversary of Nutanix?

I always look at 10 years as the new zero for us. We’ve reset the clock, built a lot in the last 10 years, employed in 60 countries, customers in 150 countries. The fact that the customers have to take a journey with multiple clouds and our partners have to go on this journey. They have to be transformed as well. I think we are at the new zero.

What are your goals and how are your partners helping you to achieve them?

The best part about Nutanix is that we are a good at a few things and we do them really well. I call them the three Ds: The first is data. We are really good at data, managing data at scale, distributed site, things like that. Second thing is design. We are really good at design. There’s a lot of complexity. The idea of multiple clouds is that it will become even more complex. The third is delivery. The fact that we do a really good job of delivering our technology in every location on multiple servers, multiple hypervisors, multiple partners, great customer support, great customer success, great customer services. And then working with our partners to deliver this to our partners. So, data, design and delivery is the way we differentiate with the partners and help transform our customers.

You came to the U.S. with just $900 in your pocket from India in 1997. What were some of your biggest lessons learned on your journey to success?

Look, this is a land of opportunity, where we are in this country, and the fact that entrepreneurship is celebrated, failure is celebrated, which is unique in this country. Silicon Valley in particular. It’s OK to fail. You learn from those mistakes and you take them to the next level and I think in the last 10 years we had some failure with our products but we quickly recovered, and I think that’s the genesis of entrepreneurship: taking that $900 and really figuring out staying power. What does it mean to think of the next 10 years? What does it really mean to make cloud and procure software? What does it mean to take this software and really become cloud providers?

For more of CRNtv’s interview with Pandey, watch the video included in the article.