The New Opportunity Vote
The New Opportunity Vote was a KmikeyM shareholder resolution posted on March 6, 2013. It asked shareholders to approve Mike Merrill accepting a job offer without being told what the job was. The vote passed 1,694 to 1. It was the resolution that launched Chroma.
If The Vasectomy Vote represents one extreme of the KmikeyM model (total transparency about an intimate decision), the New Opportunity Vote represents the opposite extreme: a material career change decided in near-total secrecy. Both are foundational to how the platform actually works.
Background
In early 2013, Marcus Estes approached Merrill with a pitch for a new software venture. The real opportunity was a spot in the Nike+ Accelerator, powered by TechStars, a competitive three-month program in Portland. Nike required all accepted companies to keep their participation confidential until the official cohort announcement. Merrill could not simply post a proposal titled “Should I quit Panic to join the Nike+ Accelerator with Marcus?”
He also could not accept the job without shareholder approval. The KmikeyM system required a vote on any major life decision, and leaving a ten-year career at Panic Inc. clearly qualified. The challenge was how to run a legitimate vote on a decision whose central facts were under NDA.
The Resolution
Merrill posted the proposal on March 6, 2013, under the title “New Opportunity.” The description read:
KmikeyM has been offered a unique and exciting work opportunity to develop a K5M research project. Unfortunately the nature of the deal is such that we cannot disclose details until its launch, yet it’s clear we need shareholder approval to move forward with such a big decision. We are able to privately share the details of this great opportunity with our family and close friends before the announcement. As shareholders you have proven to be close and supportive friends, so we will be reaching out to elucidate the proposal before the deadline passes. As time is limited, we will contact as many of you as possible, beginning with active and major shareholders; if questions remain, we are happy to further explain via email. A yes vote supports our participation in this new opportunity.
The structure was unusual. Shareholders were being asked to trust Merrill with an unspecified commitment, with the understanding that he would privately brief anyone who asked. Active and major shareholders were contacted first.
The Vote
The resolution passed with overwhelming support.
Yes: 1,694 shares No: 1 share
The top yes voters included:
| Shareholder | Shares |
|---|---|
| ghshephard (Gordon Shephard) | 480 |
| aaronpk | 329 |
| Douglas Dollars | 302 |
| Marijke Dixon | 147 |
| Matthew Stadler | 100 |
| Marcus Estes | 74 |
| ritchey | 70 |
| Matthew Spencer | 51 |
| Ryan Feigh | 44 |
| Curt Merrill | 38 |
The single No vote was cast by Garrett, a Merrill colleague at Panic Inc. who simply did not want Merrill to leave the company. Merrill’s brother Gene also cast a No vote, though he held no shares at the time, so it did not affect the tally.
Estes, who was both the person offering the job and a major KmikeyM shareholder, voted his 74 shares in favor of his own proposal. This was not a conflict that concerned anyone at the time, and in any case the outcome was never in doubt.
Aftermath
Merrill quit Panic Inc. shortly after the vote passed. Chroma was formally incorporated in Delaware in March 2013. The company was admitted to the Nike+ Accelerator and relocated the founders to the accelerator’s Portland office for the three-month program. Demo Day was held in San Francisco on June 20, 2013.
The structure of the vote, with its reliance on private briefings to fill in the public blanks, set a template that Merrill used for subsequent confidential opportunities. Shareholders who wanted details could ask for them. Shareholders who were willing to trust Merrill on faith could vote without them. Both paths were legitimate.
Significance
The New Opportunity Vote is a useful counterweight to more famous KmikeyM decisions. Where The Vasectomy Vote tested whether shareholders could direct an intimate bodily decision, the New Opportunity Vote tested whether shareholders would grant authority on blind faith. In both cases, the answer was yes.
The vote’s near-unanimous outcome (1,694 to 1, or roughly 99.94% in favor) also illustrates a dynamic that recurs throughout KmikeyM history: when Merrill asks his shareholders for something he clearly wants, they tend to give it to him. Merrill has acknowledged this pattern in his TEDx talk and in subsequent interviews. The platform is not a neutral decision-making system. It is a public accountability mechanism layered over an individual’s own preferences, with the shareholder vote functioning more often as ratification than as direction.
The most consequential No vote came from a Panic colleague who voted against his own co-worker leaving. That one-share dissent is the only recorded opposition to what became one of the most significant career changes in KmikeyM history.
See also
- KmikeyM
- Mike Merrill
- Chroma
- The Vasectomy Vote
- The Privacy and Governance Vote — the 2025 formalization of the confidential-project pattern this vote established