Eight years ago, his software company, AppDynamics, was on the doorstep of a blockbuster initial public offering. A day before the offering, Cisco swooped in and bought the company for $3.7 billion.

Jyoti Bansal knows about weird acquisitions. Since 2020, Bansal has been running two startups as co-founder and CEO: Harness and Traceable. The former's technology helps companies manage code and the ...