VAST Data has snagged a team of NetApp veterans to spearhead its hyperscaler and multi-cloud strategy with the acquisition of Red Stapler, a barely months old startup.
The move means Jonsi Stefansson, founder and CEO of Red Stapler, becomes general manager of cloud solutions at VAST, leading the data infrastructure company’s hyperscale cloud strategy.
In a statement, VAST said Stefansson “brings decades of experience developing strategic partnerships with infrastructure providers and enabling hyperscalers to deliver differentiated, large-scale services.”
The appointment, “Underscores VAST’s commitment to deepening alignments with the world’s leading hyperscalers, ensuring the VAST AI OS delivers consistent, intelligent infrastructure across public cloud, hybrid, and neo-cloud environments.”
It’s understood that Red Stapler, which has six developers, has developed a cloud control plane and service delivery platform which spans SaaS delivery at scale, API and billing integration, monitoring and observability. This complements VAST’s strategy to extend the AI OS into hyperscale and multi-cloud environments, and is expected to accelerate the deployment of the AI OS.
In a statement, Stefansson said, “VAST’s unique ability to provide a unified global namespace across on-premises environments, neo-clouds, and all the major public clouds creates an unprecedented opportunity to empower customers building the future of AI and enterprise applications.”
“The Red Stapler team brings a proven track record of designing and launching cloud-native services with leading hyperscaler’s,” added Renen Hallak, Founder & CEO of VAST Data in a statement.
You’ll have to take Hallak’s word for it, as there’s little evidence of Red Stapler out there.
Red what?
Until May this year, Stefansson was CTO and SVP of NetApp, where’d he’d been since its purchase of his previous firm GreenQloud back un 2017.
Two months ago he wrote on LinkedIn, “ I have decided it’s time to embark on a new chapter and start another company with my friends, my ultimate and forever dream team. Here we go again!”
He described his time at NetApp as a “profound learning experience” and cited “pivotal” projects with Azure, AWS, and GCP.
“Mistakes were made like always, when you dare to run fast and innovate, but embracing the ethos of learning from failures has been instrumental in personal and professional growth. No regrets.”
Other Red Stapler crew members include co-founder Tryggvi Larusson, formerly technical director at NetApp, and CTO and cofounder of GreenQloud.
And Red Stapler cofounder and CPO Eirikur Hrafnsson, was formerly CTO Cloud Innovation at…NetApp. He was previously cofounder and COO of GreenQloud.
A few weeks ago, he wrote, “I’m happy to share that I’m reuniting with longtime friends and co-founders to launch Red Stapler ehf, where we’re building the next big thing in cloud.”
Larusson and Hrafnsson studied at the University of Iceland around the turn of the century. As for the Red Stapler? That could be a trope drawn from the film Office Space, in which just such a piece of desk furniture was central to an oppressed worker’s eventual destruction of their employer. Or maybe it’s just a name.
