Startup Acquisition: The Humans Behind the Headlines

When we learned that Zoomin had entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by Salesforce, I felt two things at once: excitement, and a good measure of nerves. I had never worked in a corporation anywhere near that size, and I honestly did not know what it would mean for the ordinary shape of my days, for my role, or for the team I had grown up with as an engineer.

Some of the surprises were wonderful. My compensation rose significantly, more than I had reckoned on. That was no abstract figure. It is what let my wife and me buy our house and mend it before we moved in. It is hard to say plainly enough what it means to watch years of work at a growing startup turn into a home for your family.

The harder part was watching people go. In time a few of my coworkers at Zoomin chose to leave, each for their own reasons and on their own timing. There is a particular sadness in that, when you have come through global crises and long nights beside people and then the circle begins to scatter. But I am deeply grateful for the ones who stayed, and for the new teammates I have gained since. I love working with all of them.

None of this went the way I would have drawn it up, and yet it landed somewhere good. That is the pattern an old proverb names, that we make our plans but the direction of a life is not finally ours to set:

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
Proverbs 16:9

The same book presses further, into how I am meant to walk when the road bends in ways I did not choose. To submit to God here is not a passing nod; it is to yield every part of it to Him, the plans and the fears and the goodbyes alike, letting His will lead over my own understanding, and to trust that He is ordering the path even where I cannot see its shape:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6

An acquisition looks, from the outside, like a headline: a number, a change of logo. From the inside it is far more human than that, a mingling of gratitude and grief, of new opportunity and real goodbyes. I am thankful for where it has set me down, and for the people I get to build alongside now.