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DigitalOcean S-1

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Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#271

Post by [deleted] »

gist wrote: post #260
kevinoconnor7 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember interviewing with DO back in late 2014 and it was nuts! The entire interview process took ~3 months and it was clear that they were defining the process as they went. The entire process was basically: 1. initial call with recruiter 2. homework project 3. call with engineer to discuss said homework project 4. two phone screens with engineers 5. onsite interview with 6 engineers Finally I had was at the fina…

> 2. homework project > 3. call with engineer to discuss said homework project How much time does it typically take (or should take) to complete a 'homework' project? > 4. two phone screens with engineers > 5. onsite interview with 6 engineers This seems very 'camel is a horse by committee' to me. Reminds me a bit (know it's different) of dating where someone wants you to meet their family for approval. I immediately…

[deleted]

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#272

Post by tekno45 »

jmull wrote: post #206
emgo wrote: post #165

The biggest threat to DigitalOcean is that AWS, Google, and Microsoft are all going vertical by designing and manufacturing their own chips. Over times they'll be able to get hardware for cheaper, and also more specialized hardware that uses less power. DigitalOcean will have to buy CPUs from Intel or Nvidia/ARM at a higher cost, and eventually maybe even from AWS or Microsoft, essentially giving money to their compe…

I think there's a lot of doubt whether, in the long run, doing your own hardware makes sense for a cloud provider. If you work yourself into a performance dead-end, you can spend billions and end up with a chip that isn't particularly competitive. Whereas if your supplier does that, you can switch suppliers. You could spend $X billion, end up with a chip that isn't particularly competitive and just have to eat those…

All the cloud providers also USE their huge infrastructure for other purposes as well. So when they do hit, it has a big effect.

make a chip 2% more efficient in your public cloud AND your private cloud, that is also generating money? You've got BIG savings.

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#273

Post by Graffur »

sofixa wrote: post #135
Graffur wrote: post #25

There's already a lot of positive comments in here but I'll throw in another one. Tried DO out recently and I like how it set up. I feel like the biggest competition is specific, tailored services from the bigger players - Amazon Lightsail for example.

> I feel like the biggest competition is specific, tailored services from the bigger players - Amazon Lightsail for example. Nope, the biggest competition is in the same niche - Linode, OVH, Scaleway.

Is that what you think?

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#274

Post by kevinoconnor7 »

gist wrote: post #260
kevinoconnor7 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember interviewing with DO back in late 2014 and it was nuts! The entire interview process took ~3 months and it was clear that they were defining the process as they went. The entire process was basically: 1. initial call with recruiter 2. homework project 3. call with engineer to discuss said homework project 4. two phone screens with engineers 5. onsite interview with 6 engineers Finally I had was at the fina…

> 2. homework project > 3. call with engineer to discuss said homework project How much time does it typically take (or should take) to complete a 'homework' project? > 4. two phone screens with engineers > 5. onsite interview with 6 engineers This seems very 'camel is a horse by committee' to me. Reminds me a bit (know it's different) of dating where someone wants you to meet their family for approval. I immediately…

> How much time does it typically take (or should take) to complete a 'homework' project?

I was still in college at the time but I maybe spent 5-10 hours over the course of a week or so. I do remember it took a very long time for them to respond after I had sent it in though. I believe the project was to implement a basic web crawler in Go.

> Now yes I do understand programming is not the same but my point still stands why so many chefs in the kitchen?

After the homework problem I think that's where they were defining the process as they went. They seemed to be growing quite a bit at the time (IIRC when I was onsite they had just rented two more floors of office space) and I had bounced between a few contacts that were brand new to the company. The real struggle is that I never knew how many more steps were to come, and I'm not sure they knew either.

Though after the onsite they e-mailed me almost immediately to setup the call with Ben so I think everything had gone well up to that point. I don't think the call with Ben went poorly so my best guess is that they went with someone that had experience rather than a new grad.

FWIW I'm not actually bitter about this. I just found it to be an interesting snapshot of a particularly chaotic point in the company's history.

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#275

Post by toast0 »

pqdbr wrote: post #265

If someone from DigitalOcean is reading this, PLEASE, we need a datacenter in Brazil.

Brazil is really expensive to operate in. A DC in Miami would reduce latency noticably, but should be reasonable costwise.

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#276

Post by [deleted] »

hobs wrote: post #120
jiofih wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is saying that your perspective as a Linode employee might not represent how others saw Digital Ocean at the time. Which for me is glaringly obvious from your comments. EDIT: s/general public/others

Well a non-DO employee (and someone who ran things on linode and then on DO) I would say its a fair read and what the mindshare at the time was. Linode had decent service but honestly the irc channel was pretty toxic to noobs (one of the reasons I left!) and finding a "cheaper linode option" was great. That might have switched quickly, but it was definitely a thing.

[deleted]

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#277

Post by smarx007 »

vinger wrote: post #220
jamroom wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - really? I use both Linode and DO extensively and Linode is better on almost all fronts in my experience. Faster servers, better network, Linode's Object Storage is way better than DO's "spaces" and Linode's support is hands down the better of the two. If you're going to spend $5 on a server why would you go with DO unless you're already there?

Last time I provision on linode and do at the same time a created a ubuntu box. I found I had to setup a few additional things in linode. Linode never felt as polished which is fine. The one thing that made do better was they had a datacenter in my region. No one mentioned vultr killer $2.50 which is where I would go if I wanted a dev box to play around on.

I remember something being off in Vultr $2.50 offer which made me stop halfway during sign-up. Had to go to https://www.vultr.com/products/cloud-compute/ again to remind myself: $2.50 VPS does not come with an IPv4 address. At least today they openly mark it and I think 5 years ago you'd only find it after a few clicks.

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#278

Post by berniemadoff69 »

jtdev wrote: post #105

I was really considering moving from AWS to DO until I noticed this: https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/#abuse So anyone who's offended by content you might host on DO can report your site and some identity politics obsessed bureauocrat decides if you're cancelled or not...? The public cloud has turned into an Orwellian nightmare.

If you are worried about 'offending people', moving away from AWS sounds like a good idea. AWS's 'Acceptable Use Policy' [0] states: You may not use [...] the Services [...] to [...] display [...] content that is [...] offensive.

However, moving to D.O. is a bad idea, because they have virtually the same policies. They can pull the plug if they want to, because it's their service.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/aup/

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#279

Post by [deleted] »

kevinoconnor7 wrote: post #274
gist wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. homework project > 3. call with engineer to discuss said homework project How much time does it typically take (or should take) to complete a 'homework' project? > 4. two phone screens with engineers > 5. onsite interview with 6 engineers This seems very 'camel is a horse by committee' to me. Reminds me a bit (know it's different) of dating where someone wants you to meet their family for approval. I immediately…

> How much time does it typically take (or should take) to complete a 'homework' project? I was still in college at the time but I maybe spent 5-10 hours over the course of a week or so. I do remember it took a very long time for them to respond after I had sent it in though. I believe the project was to implement a basic web crawler in Go. > Now yes I do understand programming is not the same but my point still stan…

[deleted]

Re: DigitalOcean S-1

#280

Post by jjav »

jiofih wrote: post #93
yte14 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember Linode being hesitant to dip below $20 because the thinking was that it would diminish the quality of support. That thinking was reinforced when you started with $10 (if I recall, it’s been nearly a decade) and we started getting large numbers of refugees burned by experiences with your support organization. Neighboring comments tell me it’s still a problem. We consciously didn’t want to grow $5 fast becau…

> it was a product that looked remarkably similar to ours As a developer, DO never looked anything like it. Linode was expensive and on the same playfield as Rackspace and a ton of other cloud hosts, very different from the instantly-spin-up-a-tiny-vm-for-five-bucks model. Their web UI also has always been miles ahead. The competition also didn’t have SSD as an option until much later, and that was a HUGE selling poi…

> Their web UI also has always been miles ahead.

I'd strongly disagree (been on DO since about 2012 and on Linode a few years earlier; I still use both). DO UI is ok these days but years ago Linode UI was far better in every way.

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