Diane Greene

“I'm pretty transparent and clear about things. The things I do and the way I act are no different than I would expect of others. Mostly it's about being very clear about what we are trying to do and communicating a lot and showing absolute consistency and integrity about what I say and do.”

“At VMware, we did the virtualization, which is now used extensively across the cloud. Virtualization layers - and containers - are what facilitated the cloud originally.”

“When you race a sailboat, the selection of your crew is just completely paramount. It's impossible to be an effective skipper if you don't have the right people working harmoniously in the right roles.”

“I've never been in the enterprise where your customers are your partners. It was always, you had customers, and you had partners.”

“More than anything, I think my connection to the sea has really helped me develop my independence and a sense of the importance and value of my own vision.”

“We believe that cloud will be based on significant open-source components that are offered as services. People don't want to be locked into a single provider.”

“If I had to have my druthers - the best technology, the best cloud... if I had to choose between that and building out a sales force and building out customer support... I would pick the latter.”

“Now we're in an environment where women are increasingly having a huge impact and adding a lot of value to our industry. And women are celebrated if they raise their hand and say, 'Hey, you're missing my value. You're not recognizing what I'm doing.'”

“Almost every customer that I talk to is talking about how they're using APIs, and what a step function they are for their business.”

“I have a lot of help to do chores so I can be with my family, and I never have any help over the weekends.”

“If you had a hobby, family, or wanted to do things besides work - you should join VMware. We didn't have nearly as long hours as Google given our customers worked normal business hours.”

“To sail successfully, you need to observe with great care. You need to identify what the wind and the water are telling you and then find a way to execute, to reach whatever goal you've set, be that simply making it home or winning a race.”