Some of you may have become aware of REvolution Computing, a commercial open source company organized around the R Language, when I joined in March of this year. For the past few months we have been working on a B-Round of funding. It was an interesting process and I was happy to be working in my first startup company after so many years in very large corporations.
We built a small team to work on "Community Engineering", by which we meant developing assets both to benefit the R Language community as well as to entice and inform the "Alpha-Geek" community to learn and use R. We set up an Advisory Board designed to advise REvolution management about decisions relating to REvo and Open Source, and we helped put REvolution R into the Karmic Koala release of Ubuntu. It was really fun to work in a small, agile team and I felt like I was getting a great education in startups and we were rapidly moving the company forward...Why didn't I join a startup years ago?
The funding deal closed on Wednesday last week...
Late the next afternoon I received a call from the new COO notifying me
that my services would no longer be required at REvolution., effective immediately and with no severance. Apparently, the company is moving in a different direction.
I was surprised that the new CEO, wasn't personally handling this unpleasant task...but I guess that might have been distasteful after the many assurances he gave me and my team last July at OSCON that we were "absolutely critical to the company's success" and that he would be "making no changes for at least three months after he assumed control". Personal courage in difficult situations is rare.
What I find most interesting about today's REvolution announcements is the space they spent thanking the previous management team, given nearly all of us, including the Founders and the Board, were just fired. 47% of the company wiped out and nobody left with more than a year of experience...Shit happens...
And so we begin to pick up the pieces and move on. I've spent much of the past few days consoling coworkers, personally breaking the news to the many kind friends who had agreed to help us increase interest in R and Revolution, and working out what I might be doing next. I have some interesting possibilities already, although I'm still open to suggestions...so stay tuned.
Meanwhile I can honestly say that the new REvolution Computing will little resemble the company I was proud to join and represent. I still think the R Language is really interesting, but I'm no longer sure REvo is the one to watch in this space anymore...For the sake of my friends among the remaining employees and shareholders I hope I'm wrong.
Wow. Bizarre.
Posted by: Onno Kluyt | October 20, 2009 at 10:00 AM
bummer! hang in there. maybe it's time to start your own company :)
Posted by: rocky | October 20, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Ghu, I am *so* sorry to hear this, Danese! You have all the positive karma I can send..
Posted by: Rodent of Unusual Size | October 20, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Such a shame. Things will turn out ok for you -- but sorry you have to go through this first.
Posted by: Daniel Steinberg | October 20, 2009 at 10:59 AM
That sucks. What's your anti-compete status? Sounds like you have 47% of a good company looking to use their skills...
Posted by: James Abley | October 20, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Wow, so that makes two of us hitting the bricks! Okay, actually that makes 800,000 of us but you know what I mean. Sorry to hear about this. I know you were excited about what was happening. The good thing is that, unlike me, you are marketable and have an in-demand skill set and a huge network. Best of luck and see you at Dickens?
Posted by: The Lightweight Kid | October 20, 2009 at 01:48 PM
Bummer, but maybe it will turn out to be for the best as I think the community should standardize around www.scipy.org.
Posted by: KeithCu | October 20, 2009 at 01:51 PM
I am sorry to read your post Danese!
I wish you all the best with what you are doing.
Tal
Posted by: Tal Galili | October 21, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Danese I like your attitude. People like you that do good work will never lack job opportunities. Open source analytics will only keep growing and the needs for your skills will grow in demand as well. Best, Jaime
Posted by: Jaime @ Mineful | October 21, 2009 at 01:03 PM
WIth any funding effort, merger, acquisition, etc., the Execs are motiviated to preserve the current value, including the resources. As soon as the deal closes, the new business plan goes into effect and lots of changes can happen including the unfortunate part that happened to you. However, lying is not part of tools of a professional and ethical exec. I've been in this situation several time and lying is not acceptable. The other choices for the exec are to say "i don't know" or to be silent. Those have some risk of you choosing to move on, but most consider it worth that risk. In bigger companies, it is easier to hide what is going on, small ones, everyone knows. So, next time, get ready for anything, no matter what you are hearing, in case you find another liar.
Just remember, that exec has just shown himself/herself as a competent and comfortable liar who is low on ethics to his board, the other execs, the employees....
Posted by: Jenny | October 23, 2009 at 12:17 PM
@keithcu: I hope that R and SciPy both continue to be alternatives for quantitative analysis. Why dump R because one commercial company that was leveraging it does something we don't like? (By all means argue for SciPy over R, but let's argue about the platforms themselves -- if you think that R isn't worth using without the enhancements that Revolution was adding, then your argument would have some merit.)
Posted by: Ben Bolker | October 25, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Unfortunately for you, the Wikimedia Foundation has probably even more political intrigue, financial question marks, and backstabbing than you found in your departure from REvo. Good luck, Danese. You're going to need it.
Posted by: Gregory Kohs | January 29, 2010 at 06:34 AM