UPDATED 12:00 EDT / JANUARY 17 2013

VMware’s Former CTO Stephen Herrod on Software-Led Infrastructure: Fodder for His New Gig

General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage tech startups,  nabbed VMware CTO and SVP of research Stephen Herrod. The Stanford-educated executive joined the virtualization giant in 2002, helping to spearhead his company’s development efforts while quickly climbing the corporate ladder.

“Over the last 11 years, Steve Herrod has helped to drive the adoption of virtualization technologies for the industry and strategy inside of VMware.” says Wikibon Sr Analyst and vExpert Stu Miniman. “While Herrod’s departure isn’t surprising, as VMware management has been going through a refresh starting with CEO Pat Gelsinger and recent departure of CIO Egan, Herrod’s energy and thought leadership will be difficult to replace. Herrod is a strong proponent of community development including social media and as a VC he’ll be even closer to the next-generation of ideas.”

TheCube had the pleasure of hosting Herrod several times in the past few years. Most recently, he attended VMware 2012 and took some time to discuss the software-defined data center with John Furrier and Dave Vellante. He went over SDN, data-led infrastructure and several other topics during the interview (see below).

Herrod is the second C-level executive to have left VMware this month.

Less than two weeks ago, StrataFusion hired chief information officer Mark Egan for the second time in 6 years. Egan originally joined the consultancy in 2006, and left in 2009 for an academic teaching position. The executive was picked up by VMware the following year and served as the company’s CIO until December 2012, which is apparently when his old firm made an offer he couldn’t refuse.

VMware could very well be facing even more brain drain down the road: the virtualization software maker has already committed 600 engineers to a joint cloud venture with EMC.


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