Can you fall in love with a company?

I won’t hesitate to admit that it was love at first sight. We were traditionally using Unix or Linux at whole IITK but in 2000 after the launch of Windows 2K some of us got interested in Windows too. I, though being a big fan of Bill Gates, never liked Windows especially Windows 95 and 98 but Windows 2K seemed to be bit more stable i.e. didn’t crash that much. I wanted to try it but not at the cost of HP Unix or Red Hat Linux (RHL 6). What alternatives did we have - install either one of those operating systems and forget other one or install dual boot operating systems but use only one at a time? Both options wouldn’t work for us. We couldn’t afford to have two computers with different operating systems either and we needed Windows for multiple things such as writing report using MS Word or using multiple software tools which were designed only for Windows. Sometimes we would use VNC to connect to Windows PCs available at computer center but Windows didn’t support multiple desktops so only one person could use that computer.

Then one of our friends (don’t remember who) came up with one software tool called VMware Workstation which allowed us to install Windows on top of Linux which means you could use Linux and Windows both at the same time. Though it required more RAM but still worked with charm with only 128MB RAM. It was one of the most innovative products I had ever seen. Imagine you can test your product on multiple operating systems (virtual machines) using only one machine. I instantly fell in love with the product and the company VMware. I also started reading more about the company and its CEO Diane Greene and her husband Mendel Rosenblum. Till now I haven’t seen many companies which are so unique in their products that you can’t think of any alternatives.

When I met Rhea (fictional name) I found her beautiful and intelligent. There were at least hundred reasons I got attracted to her but apart from those, there was one more reason that she was working at VMware, a company I was fond of. Every day she would talk about the work culture at VMware, how good her manager was and an array of food options including fruits, juices, salads etc. When your love talks about something you love, she appears to be the most loving person in the world. Her manager would often ask her whether she would like to continue at VMware after internship. And she would say, yes, of course, and why wouldn’t she? VMware paid the most competitive salary even at the level of interns. It was quite evident that she would get an offer to continue there as a software developer. It was a big shock when she didn’t get a job offer at the end of her internship. Her manager was on leave that whole month as he was getting married. The only option was to check with HR and HR politely told her that it won’t be possible to offer her job.

Anyway, Rhea continued with her life. It was recession time and jobs had dried up. Little did she know that her manager wasn’t there with VMware any more. Was he fired too? He had joined another company. Was that the reason she couldn’t get an offer? She had many questions unanswered for a long time. After a few months she got news that almost everyone at higher management level including Diane was fired from VMware. Oh my God! How could you fire someone who had founded that company, who had put her heart and soul to build that company? How could you fire founder of a company that was the largest initial IPO when it was launched? And the company wasn’t doing bad either at that time. Rhea was shattered to hear this news and I also felt very sad. I learned a big lesson that nothing is irreplaceable in this world. Recently when I read Diane’s interview by Jerry Chen on LinkedIn I went back in time and started remembering those good times. This was one of the best interviews I had read recently. Now there are many companies which offer virtualization but VMware is still unique in its products. I am glad to see that it is doing well especially after introducing Cloud services. 

I remember that one of my colleagues (bored of me talking about VMware all the time) had asked me once, ‘If you love VMware so much, why didn’t you try for it?’ And I don’t know how to tell him that most beautiful love stories don’t end up in marriages.