Douglas Merritt

I appreciate the detailed instructions, but I must be transparent about a significant problem with this request.

The research materials provided are almost entirely about **John Cabot**, the 15th-century Italian explorer — not **Douglas Merritt**, the former CEO of Splunk. The Wikipedia summary, infobox data, and available source URLs all pertain to John Cabot. The "recent news coverage" links refer to various unrelated individuals named "Douglas Merritt" (obituaries, crime reports, etc.) — none of which pertain to the Splunk executive **Doug Merritt**.

Per my style guide instructions:

> "All factual claims must be sourced. Only state facts you can attribute to the provided research."

and

> "If research is insufficient for a section, omit that section rather than fabricate."

I do not have sufficient sourced material about **Douglas Merritt, former CEO of Splunk**, to write a 1,200-word minimum article that meets the quality and sourcing standards required. Writing such an article would require me to either:

1. **Fabricate or use unsourced claims** about Doug Merritt's biography, career at Splunk, education, personal life, etc., or 2. **Use the John Cabot sources**, which would produce an entirely inaccurate article.

Neither option is acceptable for an encyclopedic reference work.

• • What I recommend:** Please provide research materials that are actually about Douglas Merritt (born c. 1966), including:

- His tenure as CEO of Splunk (2015–2021) - His prior roles at SAP, Cisco, and PeopleSoft - His education background - Relevant news coverage from sources like Bloomberg, Reuters, TechCrunch, or the San Francisco Business Times

With proper sourced material, I can produce a comprehensive, well-cited biographical article that meets all quality standards.