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(1/10) I think it has been long enough that I can share a fun, interesting part of HashiCorp's history: In 2013, Armon and I were offered $50 million for HashiCorp. Note this is pre-Vault, pre-Terraform, and we still owned 80% of the company at this point. We said no. Read on!
(2/10) This seems like an easy yes. $50 million is a flabbergasting amount of money (we were 23 and 21 years old at the time). And we genuinely liked the company that approached us. My immediate internal reaction was: hell yes. 
(3/10) The more time we thought about it, the more torn we felt about it. We had much bigger hopes and goals for HashiCorp as a company, but especially with the products. We hadn't even built Terraform or Vault yet and we already knew we wanted to.
(4/10) At the same time, it felt irresponsible to say no to... the money. I called it "the dream crusher" because it felt like we were selling out on our dreams. The company assured us we'd be free to do what we wanted, but we were more free without the patronage of an owner.
(5/10) Armon and I asked ourselves: would we regret it more if we weren't able to fulfill the ambitions we had for HashiCorp? Or would we regret it more if HashiCorp failed and we said no to this sum of money? What was our "regret minimization" decision?
(6/10) After many, many weeks talking with each other, loved ones, and advisors, we decided jointly that the vision we had for HashiCorp was more important to us than immediate wealth. We'd risk it. We'd say no and continue the company. Continue building.
(7/10) In terms of "regret minimization", we asked for more money (a lot more). We came up with a number that we'd sell out at, but it was completely outrageous. In some sense I think we wanted THEM to walk away to make us feel better. And they did, they said no.
(8/10) This was a rough decision. But we got to build out more of our vision: Terraform was made, Vault was made, then we continued with Nomad and more. We still have more to build to this day and we are more confident than ever in what we're doing.
(9/10) I wanted to share this because "behind the curtain" history is always interesting I think (I love reading stuff like this by others) and because I think it really shows the commitment and passion Armon and I have for what we're doing at HashiCorp.
(10/10) And finally, if you're a founder, its also totally okay to just say yes to the money. I don't want this thread to come off as me looking down on anyone who takes the money and runs. I get it and I 100% respect that decision, too.
(11/10 
) I'll probably write a longer form blog post one day with more details about how this all went down, including stories from "the other side" I learned about years later. Today y'all just get the cliff notes.
) I'll probably write a longer form blog post one day with more details about how this all went down, including stories from "the other side" I learned about years later. Today y'all just get the cliff notes.
