I gleam. I mourn.

Amit Bir passed away yesterday. These words, as I write, unbelievable. June 6, 2025 my close friend, ex-colleague spent his final moments on the tennis court—a sport he cherished. June 6th. Amit was not to pick a nondescript day to call it in.

June 6, 2025, a week before the 13th anniversary of our work together, then and forever, our magnum opus: Amit led the strategy and execution of the acquisition of Psion PLC by Motorola Solutions. At a time when Motorola Solutions was shoring itself up, after separation, and no acquisitions were taking place. Amit Bir led it all—the strategic justification, the synergies, the valuation. Getting it across the high threshold that always existed at Motorola, but even more so in those days as activist clouds hovered in the horizon.

The day we announced, Motorola’s stock went up 2 percent; a fact, that Amit, I remember was especially proud of.

https://www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom/press-releases/motorola-solutions-to-acquire-psion-plc-for-200-million-in-cash.html

Psion brought much to Motorola’s enterprise business. Besides additional revenue and scale, of a high margin kind, incredible talent across the world but as well in Mississauga, Canada—many who remain in the business today.

Thereafter, when we led the divestiture of Motorola’s Enterprise business, that was eventually acquired by Zebra Technologies, Amit played a critical role, in the background, to prepare me for all things required in a multi-billion dollar sale of a multi-billion dollar business. That transaction has served the customers, partners, employees and shareholders exceedingly well over the last 10 years. It forms ~70 percent of Zebra today. Mississauga, continues to be a strategic site for the company, from what I can tell. Amit’s legacy.

Amit’s contributions over the two decades that I knew him go well beyond M&A. His insights, at times nuanced, at times provocative always bolstering the business. Clarity of thought. His natural stride to build trust. Fun. Intellectually sparring, especially on Fridays, we used to laugh about.

Amit stayed with Zebra, enjoyed working there and was proud of what the company had accomplished. He loved the culture and his colleagues.

Amit Bir was born in Montreal, Quebec and was a proud Canadian. He read Philosophy at McGill University and we both agreed over the many areas, that study was who Amit was—an expansive, thematic thinker weaving in history, the classics into the work of a corporation. Amit received his law degree from the University of Victoria and fell in love with Vancouver.

As one of my friends heard the news, he wrote to me: “I have not met him. Saw his details. Interesting background. Philosophy undergrad. Law School. Counsel in Moto, to sales, to corp dev to product development. First time reading about someone with this career path.”

Well said. That is the Amit Bir we knew. Professionally.

Amit was born to parents, both PhDs and educators, who had emigrated to Canada from India. Amit was a Quebecois, Canadian to the hilt. Married an Italian, Claudia and Amit, a loving couple. They lived in Chicago. And those cross-cultural tenets emblematic of his persona. Amit’s proudest achievement—their two boys. For the two decades we were friends, I did not know Amit immersing himself in anything that did not involve his two boys. Matteo and Luca, the pride of his life. Friends, they.

About two years ago, I was in Madison, Wisconsin to visit my son. I informed him on Saturday, as I was to fly out on Sunday from Chicago and suggested the possibility of lunch or a drink. That Sunday, Amit drove to Madison two hours in the morning, we had lunch at Chen’s Dumpling, and then he drove me to Chicago O’hare. We talked much. Mostly about Matteo and Luca; Arjun and Mohan. I shared my own contemplations of each of our boys. Amit’s counsel etched in my mind: The Dolphins live long and gloriously because they incubate for a long time. Let the child take their own time to incubate.

Amit and I spoke almost every month. The last time was May 15, 2025. We had texted the day prior.

Yesterday, I picked up Amit and Claudia’s younger son from his college apartment at Arizona State University and drove him to the airport, barely a couple hours after he had heard the news. I know too well the toil of a child traveling by himself back home, with news of his parent’s demise. I asked him to hold it together, to stay present through the formalities at the airport. In the car, I saw the 20 year old hiding his tears.

Once we pulled in at the airport terminal, I told him to pull himself together and work through getting home. Then we hugged and I cried. Luca Bir consoled me.

On a side road off of Phoenix Harbor airport, I started making calls to friends: Tommy McNeela, Joe White, Elissa Crow, Mike Cho, Suhas Uliyar. Robert Puric called this morning. Anders Gustafsson, the original CEO who acquired our business at Zebra, called as well and we reminisced.

Amit Bir, the father of Matteo and Luca, the husband of Claudia—they, thirty years together, is no more.

Find me a dark Irish pub in Chicago.

I will need whiskey to get through Tess Gallagher’s words.

Now we are like that flat cone of sand

in the garden of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto

designed to appear only in moonlight.

Do you want me to mourn?

Do you want me to wear black?

Or like moonlight on whitest sand

to use your dark, to gleam, to shimmer?

I gleam. I mourn.