David Christiansen’s Post

A little more than a month ago, I found myself wrestling with a career decision. Not the kind about compensation, title, or technology. Those are easy to analyze. This one was about something harder to quantify: fit, trust, and where I could do my best work over the long term. Like many people in leadership roles, I tried to reason my way through it. I made lists. I thought about the work, the team, the trajectory, and the opportunities ahead. But the clarity I needed didn’t come from a spreadsheet. Interestingly, it came from a very long conversation with ChatGPT. I started by asking it to help me understand a difficult performance review. That led to a deeper discussion about leadership dynamics, trust, team responsibility, and what actually makes work sustainable over time. One observation from that conversation stuck with me: ⚡ 💡 ⚡ 💡 Trust and alignment with the people around you, especially your peers and the person you report to, determine whether hard problems feel energizing or exhausting. ⚡ 💡 ⚡ 💡 That realization helped me see something clearly: it was time for a new chapter. So I decided to move on from Stat. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had there and proud of the work our engineering team accomplished — especially the progress we made in modernizing the stack, building stronger engineering processes, and assembling a talented team. It's hard for me to leave this team behind--they are among my favorite people on the planet, and I love every one of them. As I've already announced, I’m excited to be joining HPE, working with Dustin Deyoung, someone I’ve known and trusted for many years. I’m looking forward to building great things together. And yes — this may be the first time I can honestly say that a thoughtful conversation with an AI helped me make a major life decision. Onward.