Philip Soffer

So the money that was put in, uh, the previous year was designed to, uh, to, to underwrite a us expansion.

So test IO originally is a German company, uh, based in Berlin.

But obviously, the biggest market for software testing services is going to be in the U.S.

because we develop a lot of software here.

And so the board understood that it would be valuable to have somebody with some Silicon Valley or U.S.

experience.

And so that was the.

auspices under which I was hired.

And the company didn't actually have a CEO at that time.

No, no, no, no.

It wasn't?

Okay.

The money came in before I was hired.

This is actually an interesting story.

I don't know how far back you want to go, but if you go back to 1999, I worked for Plumtree, which was basically sort of a talent factory.

Our philosophy at Plumtree was you go and you hire the smartest people that you can possibly find, regardless of how much or how little experience they had.

And so we did a lot of college recruiting out of the local colleges.

And I was at Berkeley recruiting people.

And I recruited a guy there who, at the age of 21, was already incredibly mature and sophisticated in his understanding of markets.

ended up doing M&A for Plumtree, then ended up doing private equity.