Kelsey Hightower

Before I came home, Luke Kinney is the founder of Puppet.

We sat down in a little coffee shop in Portland, Oregon.

And he was like, you know, would you like to work here?

And I was like, yes, like, of course, 100%.

And of course, there was a nice salary increase and I could work remote.

I didn't have to leave Atlanta immediately.

I remember coming back and my manager really appreciated all the progress I was making over the years.

I kind of made a name for myself.

And I remember he gave me a nice little raise just out of the blue.

And he slid this envelope to me and I opened it and it was a nice number in there.

I was like, oh, that's great.

I was like, but here's the thing.

I'm resigning.

I'm going to go work for Puppet.

And then he said something that was dope because we had a kind of, you know, difficult relationship depending on how it went.

But overall, he helped me mature.

That's one thing I will always say.

He helped me really be mature.

And he was like, I'm surprised you stayed here this long.

as like this ultimate compliment that you stayed here beyond the just getting better or making an impact, you literally changed this culture.