In four years, a US president can complete a full term. Within four years, 63% of start-up companies in the information industry fail and close their doors.

For four years now, I’ve worked on the vision of Lift9. We’ve continuously strived to deliver useful insights from mining conversations of people on social media, as well as creating a challenging, innovative and intimate work environment.

During this four-year journey, our startup company Lift9 was merged once (Intrepid) and acquired twice – first by Alterian, then by SDL. Despite the interruptions our stated mission remained unchanged.

In the past four years, I’ve flown more than 400,000 air miles. We’ve hired amazing people and developed fun, agile and collaborative work environments throughout the world. In my four years, I’ve had countless coffee sessions getting to know new team members. I’ve also enjoyed happy hour drinks bonding with people in the different offices.

During these four years, I’ve built emotional bonds with many people even while making difficult business decisions. I’ve had to shut down our London office, and I oversaw series of layoffs as we changed ownerships of the company several times.

Yet, our mission stayed constant and we controlled what we could control for our product and our work environment. And by staying loyal to this mission, I was able to lead the team for four years with a consistent resolve.

Now, it is time for others to take the vision to the next level and for me to step aside. I’m confident of the eventual success of our mission.

I will hold onto the special bonds and friendships with many of those who shared this journey with me. In the end, I treasure these relationships the most from my experience over the past four years.