Sean Lee and his son Trystan with The Minions.
Sean Lee, Appointed CEO at OpenDrives
Our society is based on telling stories, and that storytelling goes as far back as cavemen drawing pictures on walls. Modern-day moviemaking may be considered the pinnacle of human beings’ ability to carry forward the story of the human condition in really powerful ways. In Media & Entertainment, there is a constant drive to leverage technology to tell more immersive and engaging stories. From George Lucas’s Star Wars to James Cameron’s Avatar to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, these directors have pushed the limits of technology to bring their stories to life for all of us to enjoy. At OpenDrives, we empower creatives to push the boundaries of storytelling on our platform and bring their artistic visions to life.
I am a storyteller, technologist, and member of the Media & Entertainment community. At age 19, I accepted a role at Universal Studios, working with the motion picture group and marketing teams. My dad had passed away a year earlier, and working at Universal Studios was a way to help support my family. My role was to collaborate across groups and solve the day-to-day problems and challenges that they faced creating marketing material. It was through this first job that I realized that if I could remove the technical barriers, it would unlock enormous creative freedom.
After a very transformative 15 years with Universal Studios, I transitioned to Illumination Entertainment as Director of IT. Working for these iconic studios, leading teams, and pushing the technology envelope to deliver boundary-breaking, renowned creative projects like Despicable Me and The Lorax has allowed me to observe a recurring theme — unblocking the creative workflow so individuals can do their best work.
A Vision Shaped By Expertise and Hands-on Experiences
Before joining OpenDrives, I was a customer. The firsthand experience with the people and products provided me with a deep understanding of how to solve real-world challenges for our current and future customers. Knowing the “why” behind the technology, from both a customer’s and a collaborator’s perspective, fuels my drive to innovate and continuously create better solutions.
As CEO of OpenDrives, my vision is rooted in building a sustainable technology company that truly empowers creatives to be unlimited in their vision and execution. My first order of business is to break the traditional software storage model by ushering in a new era of composable software-defined storage that takes a customer-first approach. This new approach will allow customers to compose their storage software needs to their creative workflow rather than settling for industry norms.
One of the big challenges I see in the industry is constraining budgets. Macroeconomic factors have created cost pressures, making it very difficult for our customers to thrive because infrastructure and technology continue to remain a cost burden while their budgets continue to get constrained. This is where composable software-defined storage can make a huge impact. By decoupling hardware and software, we can enable our customers to only pay for what they need and easily scale as their needs grow.
Software needs to enable flexibility; monolithic solutions are a thing of the past. The old days of mainframe solutions, all-in-one, don’t work in today’s dynamic environment. The idea of an open ecosystem, collaboration between applications, accessible infrastructure, and data must be table stakes to empower the creative workflow. Applications need to be interoperable, flexible, composable, performance-oriented, and eliminate data silos while keeping everything within a flexible consumption model that allows companies to adopt technologies in a way that supports their budget.
My approach to making this vision a reality is simpler and more straightforward than one might think and is encapsulated in one simple sentence:
Enabling people to do their best work.
This ethos is composed of two key elements:
- Build technology that allows customers to be unlimited in their approach so they can grow their businesses.
- Stay focused on removing any internal barriers that compromise our ability to service and support the M&E industry.
By centering our efforts on these two foundational pillars, we pave the way for a future where creativity and innovation know no bounds. OpenDrives is committed to being more than just a technology provider; we aim to be an enabler of our customers’ success, transforming the landscape of the media and entertainment industry.
Our people and culture are at the heart of everything we do. Our support team is our shining star, embodying what we call “technical empathy”. Our deep understanding of our customers, their workflows, and the M&E industry at large differentiates us from our competitors. Long-standing customers have said time and time again that our support is second to none. Technology will always have challenges and failures, but it’s how the team behind these technologies responds in the face of those challenges that truly matters. Our team always takes responsibility and rises to the challenge in service of our customers, even when the failure is beyond our products.
Through our combined efforts, we continue to break barriers and enable the stories that shape our world.
Hollywood DNA Pushing Boundaries
Many people ask us, “Why OpenDrives?” It’s because the people that founded this company come from Hollywood and bring with them that creative appetite of leaning into things that are brand new and never been done before. We are absolutely relentless in our pursuit to continuously improve and challenge the status quo.
This Hollywood DNA is what sets us apart from traditional software storage companies. We understand the unique needs and challenges of creatives, and our solutions are tailored to meet those specific demands. We work every day to push the boundaries that help our customers clear any barriers supporting their path to success because we believe there’s always a better way to do things, and we’re determined to find it.