'Unprecedented' Transparency, and a 'Top Secret Exploratory Mission'

Kevin Geary’s pre-sale slide for Etch, the product he was asking you to pay for, made this promise:

“Etch’s development will provide an unprecedented and historic level of transparency and openness.”

Unprecedented. Historic. His words.

What you get is a priorities page that “should not be treated as a fixed roadmap”. Go looking for a roadmap at etchwp.com/roadmap/ and you get a 404.

And then there’s the announcement of version 1. It told customers they “should no longer tolerate software being developed behind closed doors”.

The same post has a “What’s Next?” list, and that list includes “A Top Secret Exploratory Mission”. His words on that mission: “We’re working on something we’re not ready to talk about yet.” So one post tells you to stop tolerating closed doors, then announces a secret project.

He also said “I’m going to personally host monthly progress and feedback calls”. Those calls would be in private spaces. If you paid for them, you know whether they happened.

What happened to the advisory board?

One slide was headed “Outside Leadership: The Etch Advisory Board”. It listed eight names: Mark Westguard, Dave Foy, Brian Coords, Patrick Gallagher, Adam Preiser, Dave Bloom, Sunny Trochaniak and Mark Szymanski.

Eight respected names on a slide, right when you’re being asked for money.

Two of them said at the time they’d taken the role on, and that it was unpaid. Coords said “I agreed to advise the project because I want to see it succeed”. Foy said “I’m part of the ‘outside leadership’ advisory board for Etch”.

Now try to find that board. It isn’t on Etch’s home, features, pricing or Why Etch? pages. I can’t find one published decision, meeting or word of advice from it, or any notice that it ended.

Nothing I’ve seen says any of those eight left or fell out with anyone. So the missing board is on Geary. His slide called them “Outside Leadership”. Two years on, show us what they’ve led.

The full list is here.