Stepping Down

Last April, Tyler Technologies acquired Socrata, the company I founded in 2007 and led from inception to acquisition, through integration and beyond. Socrata became Tyler’s Data & Insights division, an autonomously operated business unit with its own P&L. Our charter expanded from the solely direct to market model we operated as an independent company to that, plus an indirect go to market motion, offering our products and services through Tyler’s five other operating divisions. Tyler is an $8B (market cap) public company with $1B in annual revenue generating $250M in profits. As division president, I report to Tyler’s CEO. The acquisition has been a huge success. Socrata’s cloud-based Data-as-a-Service platform is strategic to the company, undergirding the company’s Connected Communities vision. Socrata is bringing operational intelligence to all Tyler products, like CompStat to Tyler’s New World public safety clients and Assessor Intelligence to Tyler’s Appraisal & Tax clients. Socrata products are being successfully sold and delivered by Tyler’s other divisions, accelerating our organic growth.

I founded Socrata in 2007, hired hundreds of exceptional individuals, raised $54M of venture capital across three rounds, grew annual recurring revenue (ARR) in excess of 100% year-over-year for more than four straight years, resulting in mid eight-figure ARR and a strategic, 9-figure acquisition by Tyler. But what I am most proud of is expanding the impact and accelerating the adoption of open data around the world. Virtually every democratic government in the world, and many quasi-governments like the World Bank and United Nations, have embraced the concept that governments should make their data freely available in a variety of machine readable and human comprehensible formats. Between 2008 and 2016 I wrote white paper after white paper, gave speech after speech, and met with government leader after leader explaining, educating, evangelizing and advocating for open data. Our hypothesis that open data would lead to data-driven government has turned out to be accurate, too.

But after 12 years at the helm as either CEO of a venture-backed company or divisional President of a publicly-traded company, in January of this year I started the deliberate and methodical process of stepping down as the president of Tyler’s Data & Insights division, choosing and mentoring my successor. Earlier this month, I officially and successfully passed the baton to the Data & Insights division’s new president, Franklin Williams, whom I hired into Socrata five years ago. Franklin has grown in ability, scope and impact and has ascended rapidly during his tenure at Socrata and Tyler. He’s an optimistic and excellent operator in whom I have enormous confidence. He has deep product roots and strong business acumen.

Not only did I step down, I stepped all the way down. I’m an individual contributor once again, like I was immediately after Microsoft acquired my last company in 2005. I don’t have an ego tied to the size of team or organization I lead. Being the CEO of a venture-backed company is exhilarating but exhausting. While the hours are shorter, being a division president of a company that consistently delivers great operating results quarter after quarter is no walk in the park. After 12 years, I am ready for a break. I want to become more directly involved in our products. My energy comes from talking with customers about the problems they face and how our products and solutions might help. I get energy from going into the field with our sellers and evangelizing a future state of what success looks like for our customers. I love helping sellers articulate our value proposition and points of differentiation in the market. I enjoy opening new markets. I like working with partners. I’m a great recruiter and enjoy doing it. I’m going back to my roots as an evangelist for data-driven government.

So that’s what I’m going to do for a while. I’m going to continue my work articulating and espousing the benefits of data-driven government. I’m going to provide feedback and inspiration to our product team. I’m going to go into the field and talk with customers and partners and help our sellers. I’m going to help bring in some great people to help us continue our torrid growth story. And, of course, I’m going to be a resource to Franklin as he gets his legs under him as our new president. And I expect at some point, Franklin and I will recognize that the founder sticking around and picking and choosing where to contribute is more a distraction than a benefit and I’ll reinvent myself again.