Erik Carlin

"Capitalism created the possibility of the win win win. It used to be a zero sum game where somebody won, somebody else lost. The biggest mistake people make, intellectuals in particular, they still think we're in a zero sum world. They're obsessed with some billionaires because Bernie Sanders thinks that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk somehow stole the money from the people. They don't understand that it's this prosperity machine that's creating more, not just for those billionaires, but for everything that they're touching. They're creating value for their customers, they're creating value for their employees. Their suppliers are flourishing, their investors are seeing their capital go up. It can be reinvested and compound. All philanthropy ultimately comes from business. That's where the profits are. Where does all the taxes come from? It ultimately comes from business as well. This is the engine that's lifting humanity out. The entrepreneurs are the drivers of that engine. Somebody like Elon Musk, he gets a very, very, very tiny sliver of the value that he creates for the whole world." —@iamjohnmackey

Today, ProsperOps announced that they are being acquired by @flexera . This is an incredible outcome for ProsperOps and a seminal moment for us at Active Capital. ProsperOps has been a special company for me and our firm from the very beginning. I worked with the founders for many years at @Rackspace. We weren’t especially close at the time, but I had deep respect for their work. In 2018, after two of the founders left Rackspace, we met quietly in New Braunfels to talk through the idea of starting something new. A few months later I led their pre-seed round at Active Capital. I loved their vision. From my time in the cloud world, I knew how massive cloud spend was becoming and how painful cost optimization was for businesses. Most tools at the time focused on reporting. ProsperOps had a very different idea: automate savings and optimization directly. Even before AI was fashionable, the company was built around automation, intelligence, and outcomes rather than dashboards. From there, the company took off. What stands out in hindsight is how intentionally ProsperOps was built. Under their leadership, this became one of the best-run companies I’ve been involved with. The culture was real and durable. You could see it in employee tenure, public sentiment, and consistent execution over time. These guys built the company from first principles, and I have incredible respect for that. For example, the company started generating revenue quickly, and as growth accelerated, there was pressure to raise more capital. They resisted that. It simply wasn’t necessary. In fact, ProsperOps never raised another venture round beyond our initial investment yet was always one of the fastest growing companies in our portfolio. Then came early acquisition interest. When you’re only a couple of years in and someone offers what feels like life-changing money, it’s hard to turn down. There was understandable temptation. But instead of selling early, we provided secondary capital so the founders could take some liquidity off the table and keep building. I’m not sure how many pre-seed venture capital firms would do that. But it changed everything. By staying independent, ProsperOps continued to compound. Over time, the company became far more meaningful and far more valuable. This is the biggest outcome for our firm to date. I feel incredibly proud and privileged to have been the lead investor alongside this team from the very beginning. Watching a group of former Rackers go on to build one of the most successful companies to come out of our ecosystem is something I’ll always be grateful for. I want to specifically thank the three founders: - Chris Cochran, an incredible leader and CEO. - Erik Carlin, a product savant who could see around every corner. cc @ecarlin - Chris Kuehl, whose technical vision was remarkable to watch play out at scale. Congratulations to the ProsperOps team and to Flexera. And thank you to everyone involved in the ProsperOps journey.

My interview with the @elonmusk and the @DOGE team tonight on #SpecialReport