GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016 • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by nine_k » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:34 AM UTC

camus2 wrote: post #305

nine_k wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives you a future market share via so many people using your software for free. They won't pay if it weren't free anyway, but would use a competing piece of software. That is, without the free (as in freedom) version, few would even consider paying for a commercial license. Did you ever think why Microsoft is so lazy about enforcing the end-user Windows licenses on non-business customers? Maybe they want kids get…

> Did you ever think why Microsoft is so lazy about enforcing the end-user Windows licenses on non-business customers? Microsoft doesn't need to, AFAIK pirated copy don't get upgrades and genuine HOME copies only work on the first computer they are installed on.

Note how many people still happily run Win 7, and before that happily ran XP, and before that happily ran win2k — while being very reluctant to upgrade.

It's corporations that need upgrades and support. With corporations, I'm sure, MS is not lax and enforces the licensing policy.

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

#312

Post by whywhywhywhy » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:47 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #63

drchiu wrote: 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.

think people in the industry are just desperate to try and find justification and sanity where there really is none because it makes them feel the whole system is more stable than it truly is.

The reality is there is no reason for GitHub to have this much funding and spend so frivolously. This should be a warning.

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

#313

Post by woodruffw » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #298

woodruffw wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth nothing that GitHub isn't just a pretty Git frontend anymore. It's also a de-facto CDN and host for projects (Homebrew, CocoaPods come to mind), as well as a blogging and demonstration platform (GitHub pages). In these roles, GitHub is of tremendous value and not immediately replaceable.

It's my impression that they really don't want to be a CDN. One might suggest that as a service that could generate revenue if they charged for it, however none of the cheapskates using GitHub as a CDN would ever consider paying for a CDN...

I can't blame them (being GitHub). Bandwidth and storage can be expensive.

That being said, I think it's inaccurate to characterize the people using GitHub as a CDN uniformly as "cheapskates". Many are just open source developers, often of limited means, trying to expose their work to the largest audience possible.

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

#314

Post by gooserock » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:52 AM UTC

josho wrote: post #102

This is an example of how VCs distort the market for other businesses. I had a recent conversation with a prospect and they took issue with the price of our software. Our app is in a specialized industry (ie. a smaller market). We charge a per use fee of $35. This fee enables our customer to immediately earn nearly $200 (a 5x return with no risk to them). Despite the significant benefit and profitability of using the…

> how we've become accustomed to the quality and price of software that's been heavily subsidized by massive VC investments.

See: Uber

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

#315

Post by stefek99 » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:53 AM UTC

How come such a fantastic product is not massively profitable?

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

#316

Post by forgottenpass » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:57 AM UTC

kumarski wrote: post #9

I always freak about some other country attacking github. The world would crumble/ it's probably some sort of weird national security scenario.

Nobody said everyone had to build systems with single points of failure.

Stop building systems with single points of failure. Doubly so when you don't control them!

Our risk plans should mitigate the immediate and permanent loss of GitHub at any moment, or we should be ashamed to use the title "engineer."

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

#317

Post by Shorel » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:57 AM UTC

Everyone is comparing GitHub with GitLab in the comments, but they are ignoring the other competitor.

I think Atlassian is the company that makes the most out of the git marketplace, even if they have fewer customers. They are simply more efficient, and are ready to take over with Bitbucket if GitHub fails.

Also, many companies pay for Jira+Confluence even if they use GitHub.

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

#318

Post by guy_c » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 4:02 AM UTC

annon wrote: post #96

drchiu wrote: 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.

Except as pointed out in the article, the massive increase in spending was fairly frivolous. They spent crazy money on a new huge office, threw big parties, and sent their employees traveling everywhere. They also doubled their headcount, when I think we can all agree that they haven't had a surge in volume or features that merits that many new employees. There's no reason that GitHub couldn't be run profitably if th…

Some back of a napkin sums would suggest the vast majority is headcount costs. 300 new employees at $150,000 is $45m/year.

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

#319

Post by rexreed » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 4:03 AM UTC

It seemed that Github was doing just fine accomplishing their mission and goals when they were bootstrapping, but things got ridiculous with a massive (and possibly unneeded) VC investment. Or at least an investment of that humongous sum of money.

Can someone explain the rationale behind pumping all this money into firms that clearly don't need such vast amounts of it, which only spurs exorbitant and unnecessary spending? Is it some sort of non-obvious game of unicorn musical chairs hoping for a hyper inflated exit before the music stops?

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

#320

Post by LeonidBugaev » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 4:04 AM UTC

camus2 wrote: post #307

pm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~4000 for Twitter (although I vaguely recall a culling recently, not sure how many they let go).

I'm curious what does these 4000 employees do at Twitter ? let's say half of them are engineers, what are these 2000 engineers working on ? Twitter is mostly CRUD and messaging.

Analytics, Reporting, Ad management and Biding platform, Fraud detection, and way more.

This basic CRUD app is just user-facing thing, and now remember that they are making money not because of you, but because of publishers. This is where main functionality is.