HCP wasn't any prize when they got bought, though, right? HashiCorp Cloud was more like a fog in terms of growth. A bunch of products got lost a long the way (Boundary? Waypoint?) HCP lost 50% of its IPO value by the time it was bought. Yes, I know IPO's are high and always go down, but it went from around a $14bn valuation to being bought for something like $6.5bn.
I never quite figured out why IBM even bought them. Terraform? Wasn’t there an open source clone by that point?
Not to mention HashiCorp bled talent before the acquisition was even announced (BUSL started it) and it didn’t really stop as far as I’m aware.