Pat Gelsinger’s Final Message To VMware Employees: ‘Thank You For Believing In Me’

‘Thank you for believing in me. It has truly been an honor serving as your CEO. Now I’m incredibly excited to begin this new chapter of my journey at Intel, returning home after so many years,’ says outgoing VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger in a final message to VMware employees before heading to Intel next week.

Pat Gelsinger, the charismatic CEO of VMware who is stepping down to take the top job at Intel, on Thursday released a video message to VMware employees as a way to say a fond farewell to his eight years at the company before “returning home” to Intel.

Gelsinger, who in mid-January said he was leaving VMware to become Intel CEO starting next week, said in his video that when he started back at VMware in 2012, he took the baton from former CEO Paul Maritz and then walked on-stage to give that year’s VMworld keynote.

“I had never been a CEO, wasn’t a software person, and didn’t really know the products or strategy,” he said. “How little I knew.”

[Related: 8 Bold Statements From Incoming Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger]

Gelsinger in 2012 was indeed new to software, virtualization, and the nascent cloud business that was at the time the heart of VMware’s business strategy.

Prior to joining VMware, Gelsinger spent 30 years at Intel where he served as that company’s first chief technology officer before leaving in the fall of 2009 as senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.

Gelsinger’s departure from Intel to join EMC as president and chief operating officer was at the time quite a shock given that he was widely believed to be the top choice to eventually become CEO once then-Intel CEO Paul Otellini retired. EMC had acquired VMware three years earlier.

Gelsinger in his farewell message said his time at VMware has been a whirlwind.

“We’ve continued to iterate and deliver on our strategy,” he said. “And I’m so proud of our continued incredible progress, almost tripling the company as we evolved from hypervisors to the software-defined data center and now the modern multi-cloud SaaS company. Our values are deeply ingrained across everything we do, and extraordinarily impacting for our customers, families, and communities worldwide. And I look forward to seeing VMware continue to blossom in the years to come.”

Gelsinger said his memories of his years at VMware, from popping into new hire meetings to visiting VMware partners, customers, and offices worldwide, will stay with him forever.

“My time at VMware has been an incredible journey,” he said. “A journey of unimaginable learning and personal growth. I’m eternally grateful to every single employee past, present, and future. Thank you for believing in me. It has truly been an honor serving as your CEO. Now I’m incredibly excited to begin this new chapter of my journey at Intel, returning home after so many years.”