Steve

Bro,

I’m just now starting to come to grips with the reality of you leaving, and I’m filled with so much of so many emotions — super sad because I’m gonna miss getting to see you most days, scared that Statuspage is not gonna be able to replace your laid back wit and your quiet product observations, and so incredibly grateful that I got so lucky asking you to start learning web dev one unremarkable night in college. I think we’re going on over 10 years of working together and I feel like the luckiest dude on the planet for having been able to spend that time with you. I don’t know if we’ll get to do it again some day, but I sure hope that’s the case, so long as we always make time to go on ski trips and hike around Vail during the summer (of course finishing up with nights of Catan).

It’s impossible to catalog all of the memories beginning back in the summer that we were building SoundAround, but every single one of the major ones, no matter big or small, for me is fittingly attached to some song in the background. The Plans album kicking things off, windows open and warm rain pitter-pattering outside the window, a flow state I’m only seldom able to return. Burst Apart walking under an overwhelming NYC skyline, the brightest summer night of our lives. Motion City Soundtrack and The Weepies driving through an Indianapolis summer on the way to move out to Colorado. Hillary, John, and Taylor keeping us on a solid rotation of nostalgia, wanderlust, and angst during YC. Live on Red Rocks giving us a rallying call for years as a founder pod.

Spending time with you and Danny for these past 6 years has taught me that there’s no shortage of things to do or achieve in life, but getting to be with amazing people on a journey that’s new for all of us is a privilege I think I’m still not able to fully appreciate. Even amidst lots of on-the-job training for both of us, it’s a special thing to know the brotherhood is still intact. I wish you nothing but gratitude and kindness toward yourself and others when you look back on your time here. Thank you for forgiving me where I stumbled as a leader or we stumbled as a team.

I wanted you to know that even though I’ve always tried to come across as having things figured out, I’ve learned so much from you, and I never told you that enough. Where I can be a loud blowhard, you quietly observe and speak with such consideration for other people. Where I can be judgmental of others, you have an accepting and compassionate approach to whatever their situation is. Where I can be a little boring and buttoned up, you taught me to relax and not take things so seriously all the time. We may have never had conversations about any of these, but your presence was enough to move me little by little.

We’ve also both picked up new identities as husbands and fathers since Statuspage started, and I’m glad the tables got turned to let me walk in your footsteps as you set an example of what it means to be a good provider and loving partner. Big- and little-brother titles are with us for life, but you and Mike have been blazing your own trails now for a long time, and I’m excited I get to continue to follow you both down some of those for many years to come.

Our actions may be small, and may be done in private, but their effects ripple through whatever connective fabric exists between us all. They make life here better one little connection at a time. Don’t ever forget this.

In the end I think the Statuspage you’re departing from is one we never imagined would be possible when we first got started, but I’m glad we stayed the course and let the journey take over. There’s a lot of things we coulda done better, but I think we got most of the big things right, and it’s been an adventure I wouldn’t give up for anything else.

Whatever may come next for you, I’m so confident that you’re going to care deeply for the people you work with, that you’ll continue to spend time on the things you care about and that are important for the world, and that you’ll have fun doing it.

You bring so much joy and enthusiasm to teams, especially in the early days as they’re finding their footing, and I hope so many other people back in North Carolina get to have even a fraction of what my experience has been working with you through two projects going from nothing to something. That’s your gift to give to the world, and you should give it as often as you get the chance. Commit to the journeys and let them take you where they may. The results will be what they’ll be.

I want to point out that for some brief moments in your final weeks we were afforded a special opportunity to see this amazing and terrible human condition at war with itself in a rewinding of time in our heads. People will say or think we had a great experience because of the money and the Techcrunch headlines and the number of hearts we got on Instagram, yet here we are talking about the small moments that we were able to feel like we had found our tribe and were safe in its arms. Fame and status are just bugs in our brain software; I hope that’s as clear to you as it is to me right now.

My final wish is that you spend this upcoming year being gentle to yourself. You’ve been on this journey to discover more about who are you, and we can only get better at that when we find some quiet and compassion in which to be immersed. Do as much of that as you need, then go get energized about whatever is next. Whoever gets to work with you next is a lucky bunch.

Love you dude. Here’s to hoping there’s a next time we work together, but also know that this time with you has been more fulfilling than I ever could have fathomed. I’ll miss it dearly, and I’m excited for whatever life brings you next.

-Scott