Good morning everyone.

It’s awfully easy to get caught up in the negative if you’re an avid news reader these days. Whether it’s war in the Middle East, soaring provincial budget deficits like Ontario’s $13.8-billion monstrosity announced Thursday or the latest Alberta procurement controversy, finding the positive isn’t always easy.

(Although, in case you didn’t hear, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said this week that the province’s health authority is going to try to recover tens of millions of dollars it paid MHCare Medical Corp. for drugs the company never delivered. Although, for its part, a lawyer representing the medical supply company says they have every intention of fulfilling their contract.

So technically, if you squint, that could be seen as a good news story...)

Anyway, the point is, it’s often hard to find truly positive news happening. But this week, The Globe’s Matthew Scace got a chance to write about unbridled joy.

On Wednesday, Calgary tech firm CoolIT gathered its 650 employees under a big white tent in the company parking lot and told each of them how much of a windfall they would receive after the company was recently sold for US$4.75-billion.

“I cannot even process it – to set it in my mind this is actually happening,” Kenneth Kong said on Wednesday afternoon, after discovering the size of his payout.

On average, each employee will get US$240,000.

Kong, a quality-assurance specialist, started with the company in 2011 when it had just 22 employees.

At the time, the company’s technology was focused on cooling gaming consoles. Today its tech is used to cool high-powered computers inside data centres.

CoolIT’s 650 employees became owners in the business in 2023, when private equity giant KKR & Co. Inc. acquired the company.

Then last Friday, CoolIT was purchased by Ecolab Inc. based in St. Paul, Minn., for US$4.75-billion in cash.

The newest employees who started in 2026 are set to earn at least $35,000. Those payouts jump to a minimum $95,000 for those who started in 2025 – and soar to at least $490,000 for those, like Kong, who joined CoolIT in 2016 or earlier.

KKR managing director Kyle Matter unveiled the payout amounts from a stage “like a game-show host,” as described by The Globe’s Scace.

“This is a one-in-a-lifetime moment for people. It’s like winning the lottery,” said Jerin Varghese, a test-team lead who started with the company in 2021. People who started that year will receive at least $275,000, or six times their annual salary.

Founded 25 years ago, CoolIT’s value surged as it transitioned from making liquid cooling technology for gaming computers before expanding in 2012 to serve the supercomputer business. It then entered the AI business a decade later.

And with the rapid acceleration in large language models, AI companies turned to liquid cooling for their hot, energy-intensive sites, said Patrick McGinn, CoolIT’s president and chief operating officer.

“The industry really took on a new meaning – a new turn – at that point,” he said.

The firm’s growth has made it one of Canada’s largest privately held technology companies in recent years, and one of at least 25 to surpass US$300-million in annual revenues, according to a recent Globe and Mail survey.

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.