dennis.ca

Now that the dust has settled and the news is public, I can safely offer an excuse for my Harry Houdini-calibre disappearing act (both online and offline) over the past six months or so -- the company I work for was acquired. Almost exactly five years to the day that I accepted the position, the company was sold to (what used to be) one of our customers.

Leading up to the sale there was an unbelievable amount of work to churn through, and all of it extremely time-critical. As someone who is involved with all departments in the organization, my time was highly monopolized attending to requests revolving around the due diligence process. The undertaking was, to put it mildly, exhausting.

With the acquisition effort off the table my attention turns to merging two disparate, global IT infrastructures. This will be a challenge, but there are optimistic signs that there is a genuine interest in providing the necessary resources to do it right.

Nearly all of my stock options were vested and I was subsequently paid out after closing. As far as I'm concerned the acquisition is a fantastic development, though employees with less seniority may well have a different opinion. I can't exactly retire, but you won't be hearing any complaints.

So, there you have it. I'm officially 1.5 for 3 with start-up companies (0.5 for selling a small pot of options after leaving a prior company) over the timespan of roughly a decade. Time will tell if I can muster the energy to take another hack at it -- or even worse, get involved with something silly like branching out on my own!