John Hayes, Founder & Advisor at Pure Storage — Verified Quotes & Interview Transcripts

“Our strategy was come out guns blazing because fundamentally our product is really simple and we had to break through the idea that products could be much better than they are. It took a lot to explain that much more than you would think because expectations say 10 times better, but everyone says that, so the question...”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“We hired a CEO because I'm not qualified; I'm a tech person. My co-founder is also a tech person. We knew we could build the products, but we needed much more talented people to run the company, drive sales, and all the functions to make our vision work.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“One of the differences with enterprise products is there's a great deal of trust involved because if you fail, you can take out their entire business. So you can't fail and you have to earn a reputation for actually working, and that's just a slow process to build up with no way around it.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“We actually test skills and then fit; it's a very abstract process, more like an SAT than looking at someone's resume. Being in the middle of a technology change means everything is new, so we didn't want people with lots of storage experience because they have too much of a sense of the status quo being okay.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“Enterprise and consumer are a lot more like each other than there used to be. The big change in enterprise is it is now fundamentally more of a bottom-up type product. Purchasers of enterprise technology are 54% through their purchasing decision before they engage with a salesperson.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“We designed our product so people should be able to set it up themselves without requiring a sales engineer. There's a joy in having control over your own consumption experience, similar to how the first iPhone could be activated on your own without someone in the store.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“CEOs that are growing in influence are thinking offense with software, not defense. They can't be thinking about cutting costs; they have to think about empowering frontline people to be as productive as possible. Those thinking only about reducing costs won't have jobs in five years.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“I have a short attention span and can't sit in long meetings, so I don't go to meetings unless legally required. I hire great people who can handle operational planning and administration. I'm passionate about innovation, telling our story, and attracting great people to the cause.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“Pure flash storage is super simple: you plug it in and storage works well. We market simplicity because ultimately that's more important than speed. CIOs spend 90% of their time just trying to operate what they have; we want to reduce that so they have 30% of their time on innovation instead of 10%.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

“Traditional software companies will continue to consolidate or decline. At least half of the top 10 software companies five to ten years from now will be Salesforce or newer cloud companies with a mindset of delivering amazing products people love to use. We want to be one of them.”

— From Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia, Collision Conference (January 04, 2016)

John Hayes

Selected quotes

Recent appearances

Collision 2015 - Lew Crine of New Relic, John Hayes of Pure Storage with Diane Brady of DBMedia