Looking Back, Looking Forward

As you’re likely aware, IBM recently acquired Dialexa, an IBM Company . When I was hired as employee number three, I never guessed this would be our journey.

At my initial interview over a decade ago, I nearly quit Dialexa before I even started.?I flew from my then home in Michigan to meet the friends-of-a-friend-of-my-professor,? Mark Haidar ?and Scott Harper . I woke up at 3 AM to arrive in Dallas by noon and they gave me a two-hour tour of the office and an intro to Dialexa before they asked me any questions. Then they spent the next three hours grilling me about… everything: topics covered languages, coding, databases, networking, math, algorithms, security, assembly… the list goes on. After my interrogation, a client walked in and they had me speak with him directly to see how I would go about requirement gathering. The client asked me what I thought about his ideas and I was honest. I said “If I told you what I truly think of your idea… I won’t get this job.” Incidentally, this is exactly why I got the job. Scott and Mark saw they could trust me to be honest.

The early days were not like the Dialexa we know today. The pay wasn’t the best, to say the least. We had no health insurance. Our main employee benefit was a “fountain” of Topo Chico that eventually ran dry when hard times inevitably hit.?There were sacrifices only Scott, Mark, and? Moe Haidar ?knew about and kept it to themselves not to stress the team and me and so we stayed focused on our client work. Although every day was fun, it was hard. Our culture of fun and trust is the reason Dialexa has come out of every setback stronger than before. If it weren’t for the struggles, I wouldn’t be where I am today.?Scott and Mark trusted me to grow, and I’ve extended that trust to new hires. The way I see it: if you manage to get through our doors, I operate with the assumption that you are trustworthy. You don’t need someone hovering over your shoulder. Once you’re in, you’re in, and that trust is only yours to lose.

Honesty is the cornerstone of trust, so I’ll be honest with you now: Will this acquisition change Dialexa? Yes. We will still operate the same, but our culture will evolve. The reason for this change, however, is that we always have and always will change. The notion of “preserving culture” is an unrealistic expectation. Culture comes from people, and people change on an individual level year after year. Cultural changes are inevitable and necessary for growth. The trick is not to preserve things as they are, but to ensure we are maturing in the best way possible.

Think of any business as a rollercoaster—there will be ups and downs for any company, whether you’re a startup or a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. You must ask yourself: “What do I think of the people sitting next to me on this rollercoaster?” and more importantly, “Do I trust them?”

The truth is that I was dubious of IBM in the beginning. Was Dialexa going to become just another blip in their timeline? Why were they interested in us? My opinion changed after having conversations with IBM’s leaders. I discovered that IBM did not want to acquire Dialexa to squash the legacy we worked so hard to build. IBM had the vision to launch a service offering with the mission to focus on digital product engineering with Dialexa serving as a foundation! They recognize the incredible work we do and want to scale it.

All of this came together in my head during a recent conversation with Mark Haidar. He asked me, “Who founded IBM?” To be honest, I had no idea. He then told me that IBM was technically founded by merging four companies into one. Acquisitions are a crucial part of IBM’s DNA; throughout history, they acquired companies, and there was the inspection of a new stronger IBM afterward. That’s when I realized IBM is genuinely interested in what Dialexa has created and believes in moving our vision and mission forward.

Perhaps one of Dialexa’s biggest strengths is that we’re not so much a company led by individuals but rather a company led by great ideas. This collective mindset is why we are such a highly capable team under stress. No matter what you throw at us (say, a global pandemic or a massive scale at a moment’s notice), we will always find a way to make our team and company stronger because we take care of one another. So no, we don’t know exactly what the future holds, but… do we really need to if we’re certain we trust the people sitting next to us on this rollercoaster?

To my Dialexa family: I trust you all. Let’s do this.

#ibmconsulting #dialexa #letscreateit