FareWell Done Hasso Plattner!
Aiaz Kazi
You can go your own way! Last month Hasso Plattner was given a fitting farewell (that i had the good fortune of attending) to this theme song that was both a farewell and a hat tip to one of the pioneers of enterprise software. A lot has also been written about Hasso, the unofficial H in HANA (ok SA
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You can go your own way!

Last month Hasso Plattner was given a fitting farewell (that i had the good fortune of attending) to this theme song that was both a farewell and a hat tip to one of the pioneers of enterprise software. A lot has also been written about Hasso, the unofficial H in HANA (ok SAP HANA), and his impact on the software industry. I am not going to add to those stories or comment on HANA as a product.

All my best memories come back clearly to me…

What follows is purely my opinion and experiences with Hasso, perhaps limited, perhaps not as extensive as some of you reading this. But I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with him during my decade long adventure at SAP!

He built this city, he built this city…

He was SAP’s first ever product manager. Yes I know, calling someone instrumental in building Europe’s largest and most successful company a product manager may seem a bit odd, but that is intended as a full-on compliment. Hasso looked past the IT gatekeepers in corporations and spent time understanding the end users in accounting and finance. And set about building software for them. WHO will use the software mattered the most. WHAT & WHY came close behind.

Baby remember my name…

My first memory of interacting with Hasso was before the HANA days when I drove the product marketing for SAP Netweaver Composition Environment around 2006/2007. I was standing outside a board meeting in Walldorf waiting to demo the new product with the product manager Prasad Kompalli. As luck would have it Hasso passed by during a break when I was manning the station alone (like that German coastguard video). He screwed his eyes up and squinted down at my makeshift handwritten nameplate. “Your name is A1A2?” he asked. My immediate deadpan response was “Yes R2D2 was taken.” He stopped for a few seconds and then guffawed all the way to the restroom I think. Thank you Hasso for giving me an easy way to remind people how to spell my name. (Although today, with the same deadpan tone i would say I am AI from A-Z, just to yank the chain of all those AI gurus out there)

Wanna be startin' somethin’...and Don’t stop believin’...

Hasso was very keen to spend time with startups who were part of the SAP Startup Focus program (startups using SAP HANA). For every SAPPHIRE and TechEd we would curate a few startups from the program and have its founder meet Hasso. And unfailingly Hasso would open with a very frank - “Be careful, don’t get too close to us, we are a big tank, we will make one left turn and possibly crush you, mostly unintentionally”. Seemed like a line straight out of The Office. Another group he was fond of meeting was the SAP Mentors. With both these groups he brought a childlike curiosity, seeking feedback, explaining why we did some things the way we did and acknowledging areas where things could and should be better. Hands down these meetings with Hasso, the startup founders and the SAP Mentors were my favorite SAPPHIRE and TechEd moments. It was a “no BS” zone, and the founders and Mentors just lapped it up. I heard from so many of them that this was the highlight of the event for them.

In the end, only kindness matters…

Hasso was very gracious when you were in his space. I remember 2010, when it was my first time traveling with him on his jet, along with Vishal Sikka, Sam Yen, Abdul Razack and Sanjay Rajagopalan, on the way to SAPPHIRE, to the “surprise” launch of SAP HANA. It was both terrifying and reassuring. Terrifying because I did not want to drop anything on the pristine white upholstery and reassuring because of the doting smile Hasso had on his face when he viewed most of the 27 video testimonials we had from early access customers who had seen the power of HANA in their environment. I also saw his caring side come out, when I was in a meeting with him and Vishal in 2012 shortly after news of the Nirbhaya case (a gruesome rape and murder in Delhi.) He asked Vishal why I was in a somber mood and Vishal responded that I was really disturbed by the news coming out of Delhi.

I can't keep it in, I can't keep it in, I've gotta let it out…

And perhaps my most favorite moments with Hasso were during the Think Like A Startup panels that I had the honor to moderate. I did one for SAP Select in Berlin and one at SAPPHIRE in Orlando. A couple of startups like Celonis were also on the panel. (I wrote a blog about these panels that is still in the SAP archives - will put a link to that below) I had asked Hasso a question how a large enterprise can deliver new innovative products and the first 2 points he made were to ring fence the team and to keep the f@#$&!^g controllers out. Quite funny and edgy then, quite ironic now!

Memories bring back memories…

Hasso’s farewell made me reminisce about my favorite memories of my interactions with him and of my time at SAP. I also enjoyed reconnecting with so many old friends and colleagues, and making new friends! I take these memories as lessons as I build my startup, rtZen, which brings finance operations automation to the office of the CFO in mid-market and enterprise companies. Hasso’s resonating words in his farewell speech were a reminder that great companies are built on spending time with end-users, rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work and putting in the long hours to build a successful company. Ironically, I’m building something for controllers to use, so I have to embrace them and not keep them out ;)

(Great to catch-up/meet around the event Sam Yen Jonathan Becher Jim Hagemann Snabe Geoff Scott Joshua Greenbaum Bernd Leukert Cafer Tosun Paul Kurchina Victor Lozinski Gerhard Oswald Henning Kagermann Werner Brandt Michael Kleinemeier Amogh Umbarkar Fredrick Chew (Zhao) Stefan Sigg Christian Klein Juergen Mueller Muhammad Alam Thomas Saueressig Matthias Uflacker Jan Gilg Jan Schaffner Klaus Heinrich Franz Faerber Laura Lazzarini Elena M. Ordonez del Campo Dana Rösiger Phil Loewen Michael Redford Thomas Iseler Tom Pfister Klaus Kreplin Kristina Plattner Stefanie Plattner

cc Amit Sinha Vishal Sikka Bill McDermott Abdul Razack Sanjay Rajagopalan Steve Lucas Sanjay Poonen Alexander Atzberger Thomas Otter Rahul Sood George Mathew Ganesh Bell Scott Bolick Simon Paris R "Ray" Wang Bastian Nominacher Hasso Plattner Institute Hasso Plattner Ventures Hasso Plattner d-school Afrika at the University of Cape Town SAP SAP Bay Area Alumni Network