> FWIW I have heard that IBM used to force their management style on acquisitions in years past

Definitely wasn't like that for Red Hat. We had a CFO with an IBM past which was a really nice guy and never ever felt like he was parachutes from IBM.

Now after 6 years legal, HR and finance will move to IBM starting next January; but my perspective from engineering is that after the acquisition it's been and remains business as usual.

I have no idea how it was for Hashicorp.