DEEP DIVE
WE ‘DEEP DIVE’ WITH DAVID FRIEND, CO-FOUNDER
AND CEO OF WASABI TECHNOLOGIES, WHO
TELLS US ABOUT LIFE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICE.
Wasabi Technologies is a hot cloud
storage company that delivers reliable and
efficient cloud storage solutions. David Friend
tells Intelligent Data Centres how he landed
his role and how he likes to relax and unwind
outside the office.
What would you describe as your
most memorable achievement in
the data centre industry?
Our most notable achievement was
being chosen as NTT’s global cloud
storage partner. NTT is one of the
largest corporations in the world and
could have partnered with anyone for
storage and it chose us. I will never
forget the day we shook hands with
NTT. There are many companies like
NTT around the world that are trying
to figure out how to compete with
Amazon and the other hyperscalers.
Offering cloud services like storage
is a good start.
What first made you think
of a career in technology/
data centres?
I’ve been interested in tech
since early childhood. I was a
science fair kid through and
through. As for data centres,
in my previous company, Carbonite,
we used dozens of co-location data
centres around the world. As I walked
down the long aisles of these co-lo
facilities, I realised that every cage
had its own storage solution. It made
me think that someday all the tenants
would be able to buy storage from a
third party, just like they buy space,
electricity and bandwidth.
What style of management
philosophy do you employ with
your current position?
Very open and congenial, but importantly
every member of the management
team has to be an A+ at playing their
positions. We expect high performance.
In the early stages of a company’s
growth, I believe the whole management
team needs to understand the big
picture rather than just worrying about
engineering, marketing, or whatever. As
the company grows, functions naturally
become more siloed.
What do you think is
the current hot talking
point within the data
centre space?
As more and more companies
move their IT infrastructures
to Amazon, Microsoft and
Google, where will that leave
data centres? I believe that
data centres are going to have
to be able to offer more valueadded
services such as storage
and bare-metal compute, in order
to survive. Data centres have
to decide whether they want to
simply be real estate companies or
whether they want to become true
technology partners.
How do you deal with
stress and unwind outside
the office?
I rarely feel stressed, so I don’t feel an
urgent need to ‘unwind’. Nevertheless,
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