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GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

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Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#81
post #19

I can't find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups. The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it's necessary for the running of other ventures. Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.

>I can't find the blog post

You probably meant this:

http://words.steveklabnik.com/is-npm-worth-26mm

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#82
Fortunately it is easy to push the same repo to multiple hosts with git. So people, use mirrors instead of putting all your eggs in the same basket. Git is a distributed CVS, relying only on github means you are using it just like SVN.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#83
post #3

The thought of losing Github to the startup graveyard is kind of scary. It was bad enough to lose Google Code and when SourceForge had their "great purge" of inactive projects.

If they can't stand on their own feet, I imagine somebody would/will buy GitHub at a firesale rather than see it disappear completely. For all their missteps, they have developer mindshare that is the envy of everyone. If we're lucky it would be someone like Google or Microsoft, if we're unlucky it might be Oracle or SalesForce. Whoever it would end up being though, GitHub won't just vanish.

Or we could actually luck out, and settle on GitLab or similar.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#84
post #3

The thought of losing Github to the startup graveyard is kind of scary. It was bad enough to lose Google Code and when SourceForge had their "great purge" of inactive projects.

Fortunately, GitHub Archive exists in the event things go south. https://www.githubarchive.org

I was just trying to collect all issues raised on github, unfortunately anything before 2015 (the now deprecated timeline API) is not very useful.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#85
post #29

>The new digs gave employees a reason to come into the office. Visitors would enter a lobby modeled after the White House’s Oval Office before making their way to a replica of the Situation Room. The company also erected a statue of its mascot, a cartoon octopus-cat creature known as the Octocat. The 55,000-square-foot space is filled with wooden tables and modern art. The Sillicon Valley episodes write themselves it…

Their CEO looks like he comes right from the show.

https://i.imgur.com/s5Bonrs.png

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#86
post #19

I can't find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups. The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it's necessary for the running of other ventures. Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.

Are you saying that VCs are investing because they see companies like GitHub as being public goods? That's contrary to normal investing principles, unless there's some reason to think that a VC investing will result in their portfolio companies having superior access.

The point is more or less, if VC invests (or plans to) in 20 software companies, investing additionally in something like GitHub or npm makes it more likely that the other 20 companies will succeed. They don't invest just in GitHub from the goodness of their hearts.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#87
post #19

I can't find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups. The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it's necessary for the running of other ventures. Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.

In other words, "commoditizing the complements."

As GitHub makes certain parts of the software industry significantly more accessible or cheaper, its complements will succeed commensurately. For example, easy access to, and encouraged proliferation of, skilled talent and robust open source (free) software.

That GitHub provides infrastructure for other startups makes sense, but I'd strongly push back on the idea that VCs will invest in a particular company like GitHub primarily because they think it will improve their investments elsewhere. That's a leap in market forecasting, and the simpler (Occam's Razor) and more rational explanation is that they expect(ed) a good return with some added benefit to "the ecosystem."

I'd be more in favor of this argument if you restated it slightly as, "Investors like investing in companies like GitHub because they can initiate feedback loops with their existing investments that result in mutual prosperity."

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#88
post #19

I can't find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups. The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it's necessary for the running of other ventures. Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.

Is Marc Andreessen's "Software is Eating the World" the blog post you were referring to? http://genius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-software-is-eating-the... Linked to the Genius page because the original WSJ is behind a pay-wall[0].

  On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees.
[0]Pay-wall WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119034809045765122...

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#89
post #19

I can't find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups. The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it's necessary for the running of other ventures. Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.

Whoa. Dumb money, those VCs, if this is true.

A scrappy low-budget startup can do just fine with a medium sized vm on one of the several places renting vms, running a simple source code control system server. Blowing dozens of megabucks to build a palace in a high-rent district to replace something that's close to free seems, well, dumb.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#90
post #29

>The new digs gave employees a reason to come into the office. Visitors would enter a lobby modeled after the White House’s Oval Office before making their way to a replica of the Situation Room. The company also erected a statue of its mascot, a cartoon octopus-cat creature known as the Octocat. The 55,000-square-foot space is filled with wooden tables and modern art. The Sillicon Valley episodes write themselves it…

Their CEO looks like he comes right from the show.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswanstrath

I had never seen him, so I'm posting this in case others were in the same boat.

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