Former Chief Executive Officer & Director, Western Digital
Search every verified David Goeckeler interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. David Goeckeler, former CEO of Western Digital, has been focused on navigating the company through a period of significant market volatility and product transitions. In fiscal Q2 2023, he reported revenue of $3.1 billion and a non-GAAP operating loss of $119 million, with the company expecting further revenue declines in the next quarter. Goeckeler stated that the company was managing for profitability and noted that its 22-terabyte drive had shipped in significant volume. He also announced that Western Digital had secured $900 million in convertible preferred equity investments from Apollo Global Management and Elliott Investment Management, and an additional $875 million in financing, to provide financial flexibility during its strategic review. Goeckeler said the company had reduced capital expenditures, cut wafer starts by 30% in flash, and idled certain hard drive production lines to moderate supply. Earlier in his tenure, Goeckeler emphasized the company's focus on innovation and debt reduction. He stated that Western Digital had paid down $2.7 billion in debt over three years and was working to settle a tax dispute. He described the company as a diversified storage provider, with hard drives serving as a proxy for cloud growth and flash storage addressing endpoint markets like gaming consoles. Goeckeler noted that the company's next-generation 3D NAND node, Bix8, had entered the productization phase. He also commented on industry challenges, including supply chain disruptions and demand softness from major customers, and described the pandemic as having accelerated the adoption of cloud-connected devices.
“We reported second quarter revenue of $3.1 billion; our non‑GAAP operating loss was $119 million and non‑GAAP loss per share was $0.42.”
“Western Digital has entered into agreements with Apollo Global Management and Elliott Investment Management for convertible preferred equity investments totaling $900 million; Reed Raymond, a partner at Apollo, will join our board starting immediately.”
“On January 25th we secured access to $875 million of financing through a delayed draw term loan; when combined with the actions we undertook to structurally lower our cost structure these financings provide valuable financial optionality and flexibility to Western Digital as we continue our strategic review.”
“Regardless of the outcome of the strategic review, our goal is to ensure the business is in a solid financial position to invest in innovation and create long‑term shareholder value; given the ongoing nature and confidentiality of the process we will not be answering any questions about the strategic review or making c...”
“Over the past three years we have worked continuously to reinvigorate innovation and bolster business agility... we paid down $2.7 billion in debt and arranged for settlement of a long‑standing tax dispute.”
“We have further reduced our capital expenditures across Flash and HDD to moderate our supply — our projected cash capital expenditure for fiscal 2023 has declined nearly 40% from six months ago; in Flash we reduced wafer starts by 30% in January and in HDD we idled certain media production lines, reducing client hard d...”
“Our next generation 3D NAND node Bix8 has entered productization phase; Bix8 incorporates several groundbreaking 3D NAND architectural innovations to deliver a major leap in performance and cost‑effective solutions, demonstrating the benefits of Western Digital's strong partnership with Kioxia.”
“For the fiscal third quarter we expect revenue to be in the range of $2.6 to $2.8 billion and gross margin to be between 9% and 11%, which includes under‑utilization charges in Flash and HDD totaling $250 million; we expect operating expenses to be between $600 million and $620 million.”
“If you are a leader, you need to be in charge. Take it seriously — you have an organization that looks to you for leadership. If you don't tell people what you want and express the value system of the organization, everybody is confused.”
“My first week in the job, very first decision to send everybody to work from home — all the professional employees. We are a fully integrated company with manufacturing facilities in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and keeping all of those running and getting people into work was amazing to watch.”
“Not many times supply side shock and business side shock simultaneously. Trying to keep everything in balance — the team did a tremendous job.”
“If you are going to do anything at scale, you're going to have to do device development. The real trick is being able to innovate all the way down to devices and build the right system.”
“If you are a professional software developer, you think about security, maintainability, reliability and availability. If you are not willing to do those things, then you are not a professional.”
“At Western Digital, % of the world's data is stored on one of our devices. You have to think about this — when you build software and systems the whole world relies on, you must treat security and reliability as professional responsibilities.”
“We are very far away from SSD overtaking HDD for mass storage. Hard disk drives are the foundation of the cloud — a large percentage of cloud storage remains on hard drives and I expect that to be core of the cloud for a useful planning horizon.”
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