My thoughts on GitHub...
Microsoft in 2018 isn't an evil monopolist anymore. They've actually invested heavily in open source, recently becoming the #1 contributor on GitHub including to many projects that are not their own (e.g. @electronjs) but there are some downsides. 1/10
Microsoft in 2018 isn't an evil monopolist anymore. They've actually invested heavily in open source, recently becoming the #1 contributor on GitHub including to many projects that are not their own (e.g. @electronjs) but there are some downsides. 1/10
Downside 1: One less independent tech company. GitHub used to be an independent advocate for open source. Now, it'll be yet another service of Big Tech Inc. Historically, companies use acquisitions to push users into their ecosystem to sell more products and services. 2/10
Acquirers often make it slightly annoying to use the acquired product with competitor ecosystems, letting integrations with competitor services languish to the point that they stop working or are removed entirely. They also might start pushing Microsoft Azure in some form. 3/10
Downside 2: Incompetence might ruin it. Microsoft has botched acquisitions in the past. For example, they took a beloved product like Skype and managed to completely ruin it to the point that basically no one uses it anymore. And when they do use Skype, it's not willingly. 4/10
Despite this, I'm not too worried. Microsoft has changed and I know many amazing humans who work there today. Competitors have GitHub data exporters, so if they mess it up there's an escape hatch. Would be unfortunate to fork the community onto multiple websites, but 🤷♂️ 5/10
Last thought: I always thought it was refreshing that GitHub bootstrapped itself to profitability by building something that people loved. But then they raised $100M (at $750M valuation, giving away 13%) a few years ago with no real plan. I don't really get that. 6/10
They hired a ton and started losing 10s of millions per year, then raised $250M again (at $1.8B, giving away another 13%) with seemingly no viable plan to get off the VC treadmill and become profitable again. Maybe there was a grand plan, but there was little to show for it. 7/10
Engorged on all that VC cash, they became sloppy with hiring (IMO) and went from profitability to losing $66M in 9 months in 2016, for example. They weren't content just being the best code sharing website, they wanted to vaguely "go bigger" somehow. 8/10 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
My question: Why take a beloved, bootstrapped, and profitable open source company and ignite a ticking time bomb in in the form of VC money and tons of hiring? It was inevitable that they'd eventually have to sell or keep giving away the company until there was none left. 9/10
I wish more startups would just Do One Thing and do it better than anyone else. Instead, they metastasize into unfocused conglomerates. Maybe this is my inner craftsman just wishing things could be different. I *really* admire co's like @1Password, @culturedcode, @stripe. 10/10
tldr; I'm cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will tread carefully to avoid spooking the many folks who are a bit suspicious. GitHub will probably be fine, and I'm not moving my repos. Profitable startups with no real competitors should avoid VC. Cheers, have a great Monday! ✨
