2013–2014: the counter-coup Hare mounted to reclaim his company — and the alliance that ended with his termination from it (S-101).
The counter-coup at Resilient Network Systems: the board packed, the rescuer recruited — and the rescuer's alliance with the captors, ending in the founder's termination from his own company. Vignette 9 of S-101, near-verbatim.
Because this is where WebShield comes from: the spin-out rejected in this boardroom was built independently instead, and everything on this record since runs through that exit.
Hare packed the board with Tauzin, Lewin and Agarwal and recruited Richard Spires to oust Coleman — and in 2014 Spires allied with Coleman and Woodhill, rejected the WebShield spin-out, and Hare was terminated from the company he founded.
The trail exists so that people who were there can reconstruct their own memories, recognize what they helped incubate, and add to or correct the record — or forward the few pages that belong to someone they know.
By late 2013, Resilient Network Systems had reached a severe governance crisis. Investor Louis Woodhill and Alsop Louie Partners had taken control of the board and installed Bill Coleman as CEO. They systematically marginalized me into a figurehead Executive Chairman role, redirecting the company away from its foundational horizontal trust mission and squandering years of accumulated ecosystem capital.
To reclaim the company, I mobilized a coalition of trusted allies: $200,000 from my GSB classmate AJ Agarwal, backing from board member and former Congressman Billy Tauzin, alignment with Dr. Jack Lewin to pack the board. To replace Coleman with elite operational leadership, I recruited Richard Spires — former CIO of the IRS and of the Department of Homeland Security, then consulting for me.
Once inside the boardroom in 2014, Spires, Coleman and Woodhill formed an unexpected alliance. They rejected my WebShield spin-out proposal as unfunded and conflicting, backing instead a restructuring plan centered on Spires' executive control. The fracture led to my termination from the company I had founded and my exit from the board. Left with no alternative, I walked away from the wreckage of Resilient to build WebShield independently, taking the pure architectural principles with me.
The record notes the recurrence without flinching: the same Louis Woodhill of the Evolve coup, fifteen years on — and the man recruited to end the capture completing it instead. The architecture left in the founder's hands was the one asset the board could not restructure.
Episodes are building blocks. The same material appears in more than one where it belongs in more than one, and every claim traces back to a primary source.
IRS CIO, then DHS CIO — consultant, then President of Resilient
Open →In the graphChief executive of Resilient Network Systems
Open →In the graphThe synthetic-fuels Texan whose COO stint lasted from a Bix punchline to an Il Fornaio ultimatum
Open →In the graphGSB classmate; the coalition backer of 2013, the bridge lender of the COVID crunch, and the advisory seat still waiting to be used
Open →In the graphThe PhRMA head and board member who backed the coalition — and bridged Hare to Harvard's healthcare power structure
Open →In the graphThe physician-executive whose reach runs from Aetna's CEO to a $120m statewide transformation
Open →In the graphThe trust network, and the intelligence years
Open →In the graphThe company of the record's middle era: the AMA signature, the inBloom salvage, the Verizon and White House threads, and the estate the foundational patent anchors
Open →