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On March 31, 1999, just about 25 years ago, I entered a brief but consequential period of my professional career: I joined the company that was then called Ariba Technologies, Inc., as its first Technical Publications Manager. I was Employee No. 245, and I joined Ariba just 3 months before the company executed one of the most successful Silicon Valley initial public offerings of the late 1990s tech boom. My time at Ariba lasted exactly 2 years and one day, ending on April 1, 2001 when that same tech boom collapsed. Ariba had grown to employ 2,800 people, and on the day I was let go, 1,400 of those employees, half the company, were laid off. Three months later, in June 2001, just 3 years after its IPO, Ariba laid off half of its employees again, reducing its workforce to just 700. Remarkably, though, the company would survive what was then the worst implosion of the tech business in history, and would evolve and innovate as a standalone company for another 11 years, until it was acquired by SAP to become the SAP Ariba of today. In 1999, I’d been in the tech industry for 9 years, working in two large companies, Stratus Computer and Sun Microsystems, where steady growth moved along at a reasonable pace. I was therefore not at all prepared for the frenetic world I encountered inside Ariba, and, struggling mightily to keep up, I made frequent missteps and even wondered if I would survive. And, to be very clear, the word survive in startup culture means making it through the IPO and the stock vesting period so you can reap the financial windfall. In the end, I did survive, and even found a place to thrive, and as I’ve reflected on it over the years, I’ve come to one very clear conclusion about that time in my life, and it applies to every moment of my professional career, and life in general: It’s always about the people. I never would have survived at Ariba, and made it to that financial windfall, if it hadn’t been for… The Engineering VP who, in a time of crisis, saw me flagging and built up my confidence. The unflappable Training Director who was always there to lend both a sympathetic ear and wisdom beyond his years. The Director of Professional Services who gave me a new lease, and with it, a new direction for my career. The young Senior Engineer whose calm professionalism gave me an example to strive for. The Director of Customer Advocacy whose public praise helped me hold my head high.
In my novel, The Cyclone Release, which is loosely based on this period in my life, I attempt to capture what it means to work with colleagues of the highest caliber like this: In this new life, there was always work to do, and twenty-four hours a day, there were always people doing it. Even the leadership of the company, the CEO, the CFO, the Chief Strategist, and Gerhard’s own boss, Charlie Knapp, were in their offices past midnight. Engineering managers and technical leads took up every problem joyously, like a child receiving a new toy.
I don’t mean to sugar-coat things. The startup world includes every manner of human foible and frailty: fierce internal competition, failures of leadership, and downright back-stabbing. Ariba had all those things, as any company that size inevitably will. So perhaps it’s more a statement about me than it is about my time at Ariba that I come away, on distant reflection, thinking about the grace and compassion of the humans who enabled me to get through it. Either way, it was most certainly all about the people. And I have to be honest, my time at Ariba afforded me a financial windfall that changed my life. I was very lucky—some would even say, one of the lucky ones. But I truly believe that the even luckier break was the opportunity to work with and learn from a team of truly amazing people who I continue to admire. March 31 fell on Easter this year, and for me, this time around, it was a time of reflection, affirmation, empathy, and gratitude.
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