goodbye(“Gremlin”) // Hello world
Goodbye Gremlin
After a little over six years, today will be my last day as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Gremlin. It has been an incredible period of both professional and personal growth, for which I will always be grateful. I’ve learned more in this time about what it means to build a company, a culture, and a career than I could have ever predicted.
Reflecting on my initial decision to start this company at the ripe age of twenty-seven, I remember proclaiming proudly that I would “write beautiful code.” It has been so much more than just that. Building a company is not only about building a following, or a product. It is about building a place people can come to work and feel proud about how they are spending their time. Ultimately, I am leaving Gremlin because I feel as though I have done just that.
Early Days
In the early days, I built the product. A product that would allow our customers to simply, safely, and securely test their own products against the rigors of the real world. To be honest, a lot of the memories of the first few years of Gremlin are a blur. A whirlwind of interviewing engineers crazy enough to want to join us, sixteen-hour coding stretches, and riding motorcycles around Silicon Valley hawking the practice of Chaos Engineering. It was all about survival then. It always is in the startup world, but in those early years, the looming specter of failure was especially relevant.
Initially, we met with opposition, and the phrase “why would I ever introduce more chaos into my systems, I have plenty already” will forever be burned into my being. But instead of interpreting these sorts of statements as stumbling blocks, I saw them as inspiration. Why introduce chaos? Because ready or not, the development of software and the world at large introduce chaos. So why not introduce it on your own terms? Why not test in a controlled environment during normal working hours when the caffeine is already coursing through your veins?
Over time a pattern of need emerged among folks on the frontlines, who were plagued by pager fatigue and firefighting. These people were suffering. They were losing sleep, missing family dinners, and having to respond to incidents at all hours as they pushed code and iterated on their own products. Their pain was my pain, and it resonated deeply with everything I had experienced. I wanted more than anything to lessen that pain.
The People Make the Place
When the initial product started gaining traction we knew we had to start growing the team and my attention turned more toward finding amazing people and convincing them to join Gremlin. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found, hired, and worked with such incredible and dedicated people in those early days when the company was nascent and malleable. People like Phil Gebhardt, Tammy Butow, Fred Bull, Harshita Karande, Cory Barnard, Matt Jacobs, Daryl Allen, Kye Hohenberger, Zach Schnackel, Jayme DeDona, Ana Medina, Matt Schillerstrom, Leah Padgett and Sam Rossoff. These folks, and so many more, contributed significantly not only to building a world-class product but to building an enduring culture.
During my time at Gremlin, I have filled many roles and worn many hats from Architect to Head of Product and back again, which meant interacting with an incredible array of executives and ICs, and everything in between, all of which have taught me something. Sometimes it was a lesson about their craft, and sometimes it was an insight into their lives, but all of it was absolute gold and I am appreciative of the candor and camaraderie I experienced in those conversations.
They say that the people make the place, and I could not agree with that statement any more strongly than I do right now.
All the Feels
A mentor of mine recommended, insisted really, that I take a moment to write down exactly how I am feeling on this day. They did not recommend I share it publicly, but I figured it fit the tone and message of this post, so I wanted to include it.
Sadness — It is no small thing to step away from something you have built, nevertheless something that you have poured six years of your blood, sweat, and tears into. I am undeniably sad to be closing this chapter of my life and I will miss so many of the people I got to work with.
Excitement — Closing one chapter means opening another and while I do not know where my immediate path leads, I could not be more excited to dive in and fully immerse myself in something brand new.
Humility — To put it nicely, I was a much different person when I started this journey. I have learned an immense amount about having patience, offering empathy, and integrating feedback, largely from lessons imparted to me by those around me. Thank you all for making me a better version of myself.
Gratitude — My deepest and most sincere gratitude to everyone who has made this dream a reality. Gremlin has some of the best investors, employees, and customers I could have ever asked for and to all of them, I just want to say thank you. You all have my appreciation and gratitude in perpetuity.
What’s Next?
As I said my goodbyes over the past few weeks I was met with the same question time and time again. “What’s next?” I find this particular question challenging not because I do not have an answer just yet, but because of how our society thinks about and prioritizes “work” as a concept. When I decided to undertake the “work” that would eventually turn into Gremlin I did so with the full force of my conviction, but without the understanding of exactly what sort of toll doing so would command. Starting a company consumes. Wholly.
Now, I am very fortunate to have the luxury of taking some time to consider what the next chapter will entail. I plan to take some indefinite amount of time to read, think, and ensure that the next measure of my life will be dedicated to something I deeply and defensibly believe in. My initial thoughts are that this will be somewhere in the climate-tech world (and if you’re in that space please feel free to shoot me an email at mattforni@gmail.com), but I am dedicated to remaining open to all opportunities.
Final Words
Be intentional.
Gremlin’s mission has always been to “build a more reliable internet.” While in general, I think the internet is a good and powerful feat of brilliance, it has its issues. Over time I have grown wearier and wearier of how particular sites have been engineered to take your time and have personally witnessed the erosion of my own. Please, I urge you, be aware and explicit about how you spend your time and consume the unending offerings of the internet age, lest they consume you.
Regardless of where I land, I plan to be more intentional in how I engage with technology and my espousal of the concept of digital minimalism. I believe an equilibrium of time in front of and away from screens is paramount to our sanity, especially as technology continues to accelerate at a dizzying pace.
And with that, I will end these thoughts with a quote from Edward Abbey that has slowly but surely become my north star:
“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
