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In this podcast, I talk to Kit Colbert, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware, about his career path.

In his role, Kit is responsible for driving technical strategy and innovation for the vSphere, VMware Cloud on AWS, and VMware Cloud on DellEMC product lines.

Previously, Kit was GM of Cloud-Native Apps, CTO for End-User Computing, the Chief Architect and Principal Engineer for Workspace Portal, and the lead Management Architect for the vRealize Operations Suite. At the start of his career, he was the technical lead behind the creation, development, and delivery of the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in vSphere.

Kit holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Brown University and is a recognized thought-leader on Cloud-Native, End-User Computing, and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure trends.  He speaks regularly at industry conferences, on the main stage at VMworld, and is the Hybrid Cloud voice for the VMware Office of the CTO.

I got to know Kit while at VMware. Kit has always been someone that I had an easy time connecting with. He is technically very deep but is able to simplify concepts in order for others to understand. For me, this proved to be incredibly valuable when Kit and I talked about challenges that we were facing or working on opportunities to work together. Many of these brief conversations happened in the VMware gym while we were stretching and cooling down from a workout!

The reason I wanted to have Kit on the show, other than that he is incredibly smart and very articulate, is that he has moved in and out of management. His experiences in doing this have been both energizing and exhausting. The lessons that have come from these experiences will be valuable to any technologist struggling with whether to go into management.

I really hope you enjoy!