Bitwarden is dying...?

Bitwarden has undergone quite a lot of major changes without any single public announcement, all of it being done quietly. The author who wrote about this quiet renovation at Bitwarden, has already migrated everything to Vaultwarden, the self-hosted version from Bitwarden Cloud.

- The phrase “Always free” disappeared from the personal password manager page in mid-April.

- Bitwarden used to define its culture with the acronym GRIT: Gratitude, Responsibility, Inclusion, and Transparency. After May 4th, that changed.
GRIT now stands for Gratitude, Responsibility, Innovation, and Trust. Inclusion and Transparency are out, while Innovation and Trust are in.

- A 2022 blog post by CEO Michael Crandell — “Defining and sustaining value for Bitwarden users” — was quietly edited. The GRIT list in the body now shows the new values: Innovation and Trust.

- Founder/former CEO Michael Crandell was quietly replaced by a new CEO and transitioned to an advisory role in February. The CFO was also replaced in April.

- The new CEO is Michael Sullivan (former CEO of Acquia and Insightsoftware), whose specialty is mergers and acquisitions and private equity.

Private equity firms buy businesses, cut costs, grow revenue, and sell them at a profit. They’re not there to run a software company long-term — they’re managing an investment toward an exit. The people hired to run those companies are hired specifically because they know how that process works. That’s the new CEO of Bitwarden, as he oversaw a $1 billion acquisition of Acquia by Vista Equity Partners in 2019, and a $1 billion investment from Hg into Insightsoftware in 2021.

Follow @TechLeaksZone