1: Yesterday, we looked at the wild story of Opsware’s acquisition of Tangram.
Which saved Opsware.
Because it allowed them to retain EDS as a client.
Which accounted for 90% of Opsware’s revenue.
“During acquisition talks,” Opsware CEO Ben Horowitz writes in his book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, “both sides had agreed that Tangram’s CFO, John Nelli, would not become part of Opsware.”
2: But, then, in the time between the signing of the Letter of Intent and the closing date, John began to experience severe headaches.
He went to the doctor and learned he had brain cancer.
“Because he would not be an Opsware employee and it was a preexisting condition,” Ben recalls, “he would not be eligible for health insurance under our plan.”
Ben asked his head of HR to find out what it would cost to keep John on the payroll long enough to qualify for COBRA and how much COBRA would cost.
The answer: About $200,000.
“The cost of the treatment without health insurance would likely bankrupt his family,” Ben writes.
It was also “a significant amount of money for a company in our situation,” he explains.
“On top of that, we barely knew John and technically we didn’t ‘owe’ him anything. This wasn’t our problem. We were fighting for our lives.”
And . . .
“We were fighting for our lives, but he was about to lose his. I decided to pay for his health costs and find the money elsewhere in the budget,” Ben writes.
3: The acquisition went through as planned. More than a year passed.
“I never expected to hear anything else about that decision,” Ben remembers, “but fifteen months later I received a handwritten letter from John’s wife letting me know that John had died.
“She wrote that she was absolutely shocked that I would help a total stranger and his family and that I had saved her from total despair.
“She went on for several paragraphs saying that she didn’t know why I did it, but it enabled her to continue living and she was eternally grateful.”
Reflecting on why he made the decision he did, Ben says: “I guess I did it because I knew what desperation felt like.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: When my back is against the wall, do I let fear of scarcity dictate my choices—or do I still make room for compassion and generosity?
Action: Think of one person in my world who is quietly in a desperate situation, and choose one concrete, sacrificial way to support them this week—even if no one else will ever know.
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