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Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

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Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#181

Post by dangoor »

> The Prague-based startup, whose programming language last year became Google’s preferred development tool for Android, is worth about $7 billion,

Am I the only one bothered by articles describing companies like Jetbrains as a startup?

The definition that Google gives from Oxford Languages is: "a newly established business." Investopedia says "The term startup refers to a company in the first stages of operations."

This is a well-established company (founded 20 years ago, according to Wikipedia!) that has grown organically for years by offering products their users love (I'm a GoLand user myself!). Why use the "startup" term where it really doesn't belong?

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#182

Post by coldtea »

speg wrote: post #135

Love the idea, but could never get into their software. It always felt very alien, especially on OS X. I figured it was due to whatever Java UI framework they were using. Has that changed it recent years? Does it feel more native? I just set up a new machine, maybe I'll give it a whirl.

>Does it feel more native?

No, it feels like a good app. Doesn't have to feel native, same way Photoshop or Vim doesn't have too, they just have to be good pro tools.

Of course native is better, but only if all other things are equal.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#183

Post by katbyte »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #171
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

pg wrote a rebuttal to this in 2008: http://paulgraham.com/prcmc.html It seems generally correct, i.e. VC works because the alternative sucks.

Seems jet brains managed so there is an alternative that doesn’t suck?

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#184

Post by staticautomatic »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #171
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

pg wrote a rebuttal to this in 2008: http://paulgraham.com/prcmc.html It seems generally correct, i.e. VC works because the alternative sucks.

Have you entertained the idea that both could suck?

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#186

Post by NikolaeVarius »

leetrout wrote: post #73

I canceled all my personal jetbrains products a few years ago after meeting some of their team at GopherCon. I vote with my money and I was a 5+ year subscriber up until that point. I visited their booth with same enthusiasm as other posters here and lavished praise on their tooling and talked about how excited I was for their Go IDE and they just stared at me and said “Ok, thanks”. Something so empty and almost a pr…

Well this is pretentious as hell

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#187

Post by vonmoltke »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

> Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion.

I have noticed that, to some people, "VC startup" is almost considered redundant. That is, if your company is not seeking outside investors, not seeking rapid growth, not seeking an "exit", then it isn't a real "startup". So, in addition to what you mention about user focus (or lack thereof), I feel that this hurts ambitious entrepreneurs by making them think the VC/outside investment/grow-or-die treadmill is the only way to get big and escape the "lifestyle business" stigma. Many of them likely could succeed, albeit more slowly, without the treadmill.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#188

Post by thu2111 »

mcv wrote: post #34
xwdv wrote: post #4

I don’t get it though, why not just go public now and get tons of money? The IPO may never fetch as high of a price as it would now, even if the company gets more valuable in the future.

The cool part is, they don't need to. The founders are in control, not the VCs or other investors, so the company isn't obliged to put generating money over all other concerns. And being billionaires, the founders are probably doing fine. They'd apparently prefer to keep the good thing they've got going than to ruin it by selling it off. There's more in life than getting even more money.

I think they aren't technically billionaires. Rather, JetBrains is valued at over a billion dollars. So if they sold their entire stake, then they'd be billionaires.

I'm sure they pay themselves well but I don't think they will be sitting on a billion dollars in either cash or shares.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#189

Post by FpUser »

I tried to use their CLion IDE for C++ development but had numerous problem preventing me from working. The company was responsive and tried to help me, no complaints in this department, but I lost my patience pretty fast as I was not willing to invest significant time into making things work that should've worked right out of the box.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#190

Post by silexia »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

I have seen this firsthand. I was a finance major fifteen years ago and for the last ten years I have run a completely bootstrapped agency.

If you have to live off your own revenues, it means you don't do any premature scaling... You have to focus on the needs of your customers to reach the next level. VC backed companies have to reach the VC exit goals which means they are forced to scale immediately even if things are broken.

Your business idea could work really well if you were given a few extra months or years to work on it, but with the VC fuse burning you can't wait.

VC's generally don't care about your passion, they care about maximizing returns over the shortest time period possible. If you don't do it their way, you will be forced to leave. I have been a member of a tech Vistage group and have seen over half of the VC backed CEO's forced out by their investors. It's really sad.

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