At the front door to our house in DC is a mirror, over the little butler’s table where we sort the mail and incoming packages. In the corner of the mirror is a postcard from an internet celebrity, part of a crowdfunding campaign more than a decade ago. It’s a reminder that the world is small, if we make it so. When I walk out the door, it’s the last thing I see, and the first thing I see when I come back home again. We live in a massively connected world, and for the last four years, I’ve sought to build those connections, think big, and be 1% better every day. I think it’s worked out. Maybe not as I expected, or as I planned, but for the best.
This is my last full week at JumpCloud, the end of a four year stint in the Product team. It was a transformational time for JumpCloud, growing the company through major milestones, internal and external. It transformed me, too. We built a lot of great things during my time — iOS and Android management to become a full UEM; JumpCloud Go for passwordless and phishing resistant identity; Identity Federation to connect JumpCloud to more place, Patch Management to keep your OS (and now your Apps) up to date.
JumpCloud’s world was smaller in 2021, we were less than 300 when I joined, and mostly limited to North America. In the time since then, the company has expanded its reach to new places. Now, I have coworkers and friends in the UK, Lebanon, Greece, Türkiye, Dubai, India, Singapore, and Australia. We have partners in Brazil, the EU, and Africa that I’ve talked to a lot over the last year or so. In my time here, I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people in a lot of different parts of the world. My travel map for the last few years criss-crosses the globe:
I’ve learned so much here, and that makes it harder to go. I want to say a huge thank you to Raj and Greg for taking a chance on an unknown quantity four years ago, and giving me an opportunity to try something different. It has been an opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m forever in your debt. To Joel, who saw the incredible potential and decided to come here with me, I could ask for no better mentor and friend, and I cannot wait to see what you do at the helm of this magnificent org.
To my fellow Leaders in Product, Engineering, and UX – Pons, Subha, Lindsey, Piyush, Serhat, Tej, Dave G, Mulley, Jake, Abhijeet, and Gretchen – thank you for your years of collaboration, fellowship, and exploration; you were often my shelter in the storm. To the team – Sergey, Derek, Sam, Juergen, Karthick, Scott, Neeraj, Josh, Trevor, Rob, Hari, Baris, Mathan, and Urvashi – no one could have asked for a better team, and you inspired me to better every day. You’ve got the stick now, time to go run with it.
As this posts, this I’ll be 30,000 feet in the sky, heading home from the office for the last time, JumpCloud’s 2025 plan in order and ready.
My work is done here, but the work is not done. As I leave JumpCloud, I’ll leave you with the words that came from that postcard, and the video it helped make:
I’ll find my way home on the Western wind,
to a place that was once my world, back from where I’ve been.
And in the morning light I’ll remember, as the sun will rise,
We are all the glowing embers of a distant fire.
Thank you, friends. Onward. Forward. The baton is yours.
As for what’s next: A break. My first. New challenges await.
Cannonball 