Cover Interview
From Steel to Silicon: David Richards, Founder of WANdisco tells Entrepreneur Country his story
BY KELLY DOLAN, EDITOR E 8 entrepreneurcountry
very year, Entrepreneur Country founder Julie Meyer holds the Follow the Entrepreneur summit, welcoming 150 of some of Britain’s greatest entrepreneurs to
explore how the future looks with entrepreneurs at the centre of society and how firms can have the biggest impact in the world of tomorrow.
Speaking at the event this year is David Richards, founder of WANDisco, which stands for “Wide Area Network Distributed Computing.” Born in Sheffield in 1970 to a family with a deep-rooted history in the steel industry, Richards took a different path to his father and grandfather and can now boast more than 15 years of executive experience in the software industry, as well as starting and running several companies in Silicon Valley.
“My grandfather ran
one of the biggest steel companies in Europe and my father ran a steel company too. I like to call Sheffield the ‘Silicon Valley of the Industrial Revolution’ because so many things were invented in Sheffield at that time.
“You can draw parallels between what is happening now with the digital revolution. Perhaps my Sheffield roots were destined to send me to Silicon Valley to pursue a technology career. I wanted to move on and find something.”
David’s career in software began imminently upon graduating with a BSc degree in Computer Science from the University of Huddersfield, with his first job being at fast growing software consulting business, Druid Systems. “The great thing about that first experience was that I thought all businesses were like Druid. I was one of the first employees, we were on the stock exchange and I genuinely thought all companies went from start up straight to IPO. It was useful seeing that happen – sometimes you only know something is possible if you see it for yourself.”
Druid Systems was to become a great training ground before David’s move to Silicon Valley – particularly when at a drinks party in Palo Alto in 2005 David bumped into Dr. Yeturu Aahlad, who discussed a
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