More generally, I have always believed that the choice between work and parenting is broadly a false dichotomy (especially in our domain and age, which affords quite a bit of flexibility). In my role as a parent, I served on the board of the kids preschool (hello, SOMACC!); I was the president of the elementary school PTA (originally called the Mothers' Club!); I led the kids' Cub Scout Den (hardest parenting job no question); I coached baseball several times over; and I have been (and still am!) the scoutmaster of the kids' Scout troop.

These experiences were all time consuming (and truthfully, there were moments with each of them when I wondered what I had signed up for!) -- but they also made my life richer, and that very much includes my professional life. There are many dimensions of this, but to take one very concrete example: anyone who is familiar with scouting will see an echo in Oxide's values[2] -- but a subtler influence can be found in our hiring materials[3], the open-ended questions of which coming from an adult training that I did in 2017.

I won't profess to the quality of my parenting (it's... really hard), but it's something that I've certainly spent a lot of time on -- and it has paid surprising dividends to my professional life.

[0] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2019/12/02/the-soul-of-a-new-co...

[1] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2008/11/10/fishworks-now-it-can...

[2] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0002

[3] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0003

[0] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0026

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41515447

In any event: from the beginning, we have always been targeted at the enterprise buyer who is looking at annual public cloud bills in the tens, hundreds or (in some cases) thousands of millions of dollars per year. We love the enthusiasm that Oxide engenders among the home lab set, but that's not how we have geared the business (for lots of good reasons).

Also, for whatever it's worth: people do want to buy them, it turns out.

[0] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0001

[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/rfds-the-ba...

[2] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/rfd-site

In the "Background of the Merger" section of that document, there is an incredibly detailed (and interesting!) story of three companies: Party A, Party B, and Oracle. (As was well-known at the time, Party A is IBM and Party B is HP.) As that narrative makes clear (and contrary to your assertion), it was Sun that rejected IBM's definitive agreement, not the other way around. You can certainly argue that IBM's acquisition of Sun would have failed to complete for other reasons (regulatory and so on) -- but your assertion that "IBM did an offer that was shortly thereafter withdrawn" is simply (and demonstrably) wrong.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/709519/0001193125091...

To answer these questions (or accusations?): Yes, I was at Joyent for the acquisition by Samsung -- but I also was not a founder, did not have a board seat, etc., so the involvement that I had, while substantial at some level (working with the Samsung team when they were doing their significant due diligence, for example) was also ultimately limited. My job was to make the acquisition work, not to determine the fate of the company for which I was ultimately an employee.

It's also absurd to call the sale a "sellout" -- the company was not for sale when Samsung came calling. The deal that Samsung proposed was a good and fair one, and if I HAD been on the board, I would have absolutely voted for the acquisition. (It should be said that Samsung themselves had a very high threshold to close the deal -- 97% of shares IIRC?)

And all of THAT said: while I was supportive of the acquisition by Samsung of Joyent (and worked hard to make that acquisition work), when we started Oxide, Steve and I had (and have!) zero interest in building a company to be acquired. Oxide is our life's work (and I mean that "our" broadly, as many at Oxide feel that same calling), and our objective with Oxide is to build an independent, generational company. Indeed, this Series D is all about advancing that objective!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVkIKm9pkPY

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_XqNYt0cY0

In terms of the cap table: that's a bit of an odd request? On the one hand, there are no real secrets hanging out on our cap table -- but on the other, based on your tone, it doesn't feel like the request is terrible earnest? (And, I hasten to add, transparency is a value -- not a principle.[0])

[0] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0002

To state clearly what I feel we have said many times: Yes, it's hard to get a job at Oxide. Yes, we get a lot applicants. Yes, we ask a lot of applicants upfront. But the payoff (and the reason it's worth the risk and the work for the right person!) is an extraordinary and uplifting team -- one that I daresay each of us counts as being of unparalleled breadth and depth in our careers.

And as long as I'm elaborating on IQT, let me add that they have been a terrific partner for us -- and we have found the individuals we have worked with there to be of exceptionally high character.

It sounds like we're not a fit for you either, though, so maybe just as well!

As an aside on Sun Ray, it played a very important (if incidental) role in the development of DTrace in that one of the first truly production systems we used DTrace on was a Sun Ray server inside of Sun that was in a huge amount of pain. (I described this in the DTrace USENIX paper[0], and also in my "Dtrace (sic) Review" talk at Google ca. 2007.[1])

[0] https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgmA48fILq8

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhSL-5GtmQM#t=1h9m57s