Today I put in my notice at work. My now ex-employer, Datto, got bought out by Kaseya a few weeks ago, and holy crap, has it ever been a shit-show. I'll explain below. A lot of this is public information already as various people have leaked info on social media about what's been going down. I didn't know much about Kaseya before the acquisition, and thus felt pretty neutral about the whole thing, but that quickly changed. The day before the acquisition, our then-CEO, Tim Weller called the entire company in a very short "all-hands" meeting to announce the company sale had closed, and that he and the CTO Bob would not be part of the post-acquisition company. And just like that, the deal was done, and they were gone. It felt a little weird at the time, that his last 'all hands' meeting was so short. No joking around, no light-hearted goodbyes. An all-business peace-out. Some colleagues jokingly commented that it seemed like he had a gun to his head. He explained that Datto would continue to operate as an independent entity under Kaseya, and nothing much would change. Day 1 of the acquisition, we were all greeted with a series of mass-emails saying kaseya was getting rid of our gsuite stuff and replacing it with o365, similarly slack/zoom was being replaced with Teams. This might not sound like a huge change, but it kind of is, given that there's many integrations with these things like automated alerts, etc,... that all would have to be transitioned over. They only gave us a week to do the o365 migration. Given the earlier communication of 'no changes' this was kind of a red flag for many. On day 2, things started turning...weird. Very weird. They had removed the 'pride' colors from the Datto logo, which lead to someone asking the new CEO about the future of the ERG's. Datto's ERG's (or, employee resource groups) were groups that would provide information/organize events/etc... for various things. There was a datto 'culture' ERG, a 'pride' ERG for lgbtq+ things, a Women-in-technology ERG, and so on,... The question got dismissed with a "we don't want to be political" which is kind of an odd statement, given that these groups are not exactly political. This caused some people to have a closer look at the kaseya website, leading to someone pointing out in the company-wide general chat that kaseya had nothing on their website pertaining to inclusiveness like Datto did at the time. This started a thread in which someone looked up, and found, and posted the political campaign contributions of the Kaseya CEO (1). It turns out these include donations to alt-right and anti-lgbtq+ causes. This led to everyone getting really nervous, and trying to get more information from leadership about the future of the ERGs. All questions were stonewalled. In the end (after about a week or so) the clearest answer we got was that ERGs would not be dismantled but also not receive funding any longer. On day 3, it was announced we'd be losing our flex fridays - when asked about the future of our benifits, again wishy washy fuzzy words, and stonewalling. Ultimately what came out of the CEO was a tirade of words worthy of a Trump-ramble where he'd say we are "stuck" with Datto benifits until the end of the year, which is unfortunate because Kaseya's are so much better. When we looked up Kaseya's benifits, they are of course, much much worse. In the next few days some of this stuff started leaking on social media. The founder of Datto who has long since left actually released a statement of concern, because many people had been reaching out to him with what's been going down. Around this time I stopped paying attention and just too 2 weeks of PTO - every time I'd glance at slack out of curiousity there would be some other horrible thing going down. Some teams got laid off even though CEO Fred's first meeting included him saying there wouldn't be layoffs. Etc,... I thought it over, and there's basically no way I can morally stay employed there, knowing that it's making the CEO money, who then funnels it into causes that make the planet a worse place in very real ways. I was burned out of working for corporations a long time ago and I certainly am now. I'm done. I'm going to just work on my own stuff for a while, hopefully I can figure out some way to survive. Maybe I'll stream my coding or something, or make some games to sell - unlikely I'll be able to live off of any of that, but I have to try. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there's little or nothing any big corporate software companies make that benefits humanity. No, I think I'll try the life of a digital hobo for a while. [edit] Oh, and I left out the worst part, the day they announced the ERGs were too 'political' was the same day Roe v. Wade got overturned here in the USA. A colleague had this to say in general chat: "I'll just say I've spent the better part of the past 25 years fighting these same fights for basic human rights, dignity, and respect, and it breaks my heart that I'm still fighting those same battles I fought in the 90s, both nationally and at work. I came to datto because of Datto's strong inclusive reputation, and having that ripped out from under me feels terrible. I'm so tired of fighting for basic rights, dignity, and respect. I have too many scars, literally and figuratively." Imagine being a woman, and have both your right to be boss over your own body taken away and your employer turning hostile the same day. (1) https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=frederick+voccola&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022 (2) https://gist.github.com/amcchord/36539ae9af323ed97755e35895dda6ed (3) https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/vw8zwv/datto_employee_here_things_were_f (4) https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/vunyr6/founder_of_datto_shares_thoughts_ (5) https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/viwsgz/datto_is_now_a_kaseya_company/ ▂ ▄▀▔▚▖ ▂▃▄▄▄▄▂ ▗▞▔ ▕▖█ ▀▙ ▁▂▔▀▅▁ ▟▚▌ ▍▐▎ ▝▙ ▔▀▄▜▖██▌ ▗▘█▏ ▝▜▄▁▜█▆███▀▛▇▆▟▘ ▔▀▜▇█▛▜▖ ▝▗▃▟▙ ▕▍ █ ▔█▎ ▗▀▅█▂▂▃▅█▌ ▃▘▟▉▔█▀█▙ ▜▄ ▞▘▞▚▛▐█▎▐█▙ ▀▇▃ ▗▞▗▛▗▛ ▐█▍▝▜█▎▖▔▜█▅▁ ▃▀▗▛▗▛ ▋▝▀ ▃▞▘ ▔▜█▅ ▞▘▗▘▟▀ ▝▘▝ ▂▝▜█▖ ▗▀ ▟▘▟▛ ▝▇▄██▖ ▁▞▘ ▞ ▗█ ▖▅▃ ▀███▖ ▄▀ ▗▛ ▟▊▝▋▔▐▃▄▖ ▐▖ ▜█▋ ▗▞▃▘▄▘ ▕█▌ ▜▃▅ ▐█ ▐█▍ ▄▘▞▗▞▘ ▕█▌ ▚▃▖ █▉ ▟█▏ ▗▞▚▀▗▛ ▜█ ▔▚▃▄▖ ▁▂▄█▛▘▁▟█▘ ▗▛ ▟▘ ▜▙▖ ▝▔▔█▏ ▀▛▀▘▃▆█▀ ▟▘ ▗▛▘ ▝▜▆▄▂▁▗▛▀ ▁▁▃▄▆█▀▘ ▗▛ ▟▛ ▔▀▀██████▀▀▀▔ ▟▘ ▟▘ ▃▛ ▗█▘ ▗▟▘▃ ▗▛ ▟▛ ▟▘▟▛ ▗█▘▗▟▚▟▘ ▄▛ ▗▛▗▛▘ ▗▞▔▞▗▀▟▛ ▗▟▁▄▀▄▘▟▘ ▗▞▀▀▀▙▞▚█▘ ▝▍▘▏▋▐▙█▘ ▝▙▂▂▟▛▘ ▔▔▔