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Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

jlericson.com

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Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#31

Post by chx »

JimDabell wrote: post #4

I have a hard time feeling sorry for Stack Overflow. They had most developers in the world visiting frequently. They have detailed information on exactly which languages, libraries, toolchains, and platforms those developers use and their pain points. All of their content is given to them for free by volunteers. All of their moderation is done for them for free by volunteers. The only thing they have to serve is text…

Having a lean and mean company doesn't make for happy investors.

The company was finished in 2020 when they raised $85M in a Series E. The fall after that is inevitable. Even the $40M they took in 2015 is a questionable decision for the very reasons you detail. What did they need tens of millions in investments for?

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#32

Post by 0dayz »

While reddit's failure with the whole strike was fruitless it does I think highlight that at the end of the day you cannot treat the community in a community oriented products as a second thought.

With stack overflow it's very odd how chasing some flavor of the year is seen as preferable than expanding and enhancing the community aspect of stack overflow.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#33

Post by Dah00n »

yard2010 wrote: post #27
bloopernova wrote: post #14

If I were the semi benevolent dictator of the world, I'd make a law that said: all middle managers up to the CEO must spend 20% of their time doing entry level work in the company. Same with politicians. If you are insulated from what your company does, or constituents do, you can't effectively wield the power granted to you. Which leads me to an even more unpopular "authoritarian" opinion: the richest people are the…

How do I join the party where do I sign?

Lots of similar ideas exist in politics. Look for Socialist or Communist in the party name.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#34

Post by starbugs »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #7

The author is wrong. The CEO perfectly understands Stack Overflow. What the author of this blog doesn't understand is that the CEO is pursuing a perfectly valid strategy: maximize its short-term gains by squeezing it unsustainably with the latest hype, and take the money, and run. The good of the community and the well-being of the users are completely irrelevant in this strategy.

I think it's about time that we no longer accept this strategy as valid.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#35

Post by chmod775 »

janalsncm wrote: post #3

> In May I wrote about Stack Overflow's business, which lost $42 million over 6 months and had just laid off 10% of its employees. Since then, the company's fiscal year-end results came out. Despite growing revenue, it lost $84 million over the year ending on March 31, 2023. Thank god Wikipedia isn’t run like Stack Overflow. As an end user, they have pretty much the same value proposition: user generated answers to m…

Yeah, I'm surprised that a company whose core product could be run by three people for less than a million USD per year with room to spare for lavish company cars, somehow manages to lose $84 million USD.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#36

Post by hathchip »

nolok wrote: post #15
janalsncm wrote: post #3

> In May I wrote about Stack Overflow's business, which lost $42 million over 6 months and had just laid off 10% of its employees. Since then, the company's fiscal year-end results came out. Despite growing revenue, it lost $84 million over the year ending on March 31, 2023. Thank god Wikipedia isn’t run like Stack Overflow. As an end user, they have pretty much the same value proposition: user generated answers to m…

While I mostly agree with your point, I want to point out that on a financial level Wikipedia is really not that well handled. They keep increasing expenses into project that are not core to the experience, or that will never see the light of day (like when they had two different teams working on two different new text editor for the site). I have a belief that they're caught in a very bureaucratic "we need to use yo…

You're giving them money, for your own reasons, when it's well established that they don't need your donations for their core mission. They spend it on things other than their core mission. Isn't this just a problem which you have created yourself?

Just stop giving them money, give it to some other project which is also doing something valuable but which needs it more. If it ever turns out the Wikipedia needs your money urgently to keep the servers running, start giving to them again.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#38

Post by Dah00n »

qwertox wrote: post #18

I'd be fine with SO turning into the place where effectively useful AI based answers get posted, where humans have worked together with AI to obtain a valid result, proven to be correct. In that case I wouldn't care if someone posts an AI answer, as long as it is guaranteed to be valid. That's the place which SO can take in a world with AI assistants. SO should not use AI to generate content, but to organize it and m…

I wouldn't use it if it means AI will be trained on my code unless they pay me per answer or vote. I already removed everything from GitHub etc. AI on SO smells like how Google's business strategy is advertising first, search second. SO will be in the same position soon.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#39

Post by hathchip »

janalsncm wrote: post #23
nottheengineer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, stack overflow is the place where we stop to find an answer to a question. They should stay focused on that instead of adding useless features. But I don't entirely agree on LLMs being useless. An LLM could help with avoiding duplicate questions. It could analyze the content of the question and point out stuff like missing logs before the question is submitted to guide beginners through the basics. If someone…

I just hope they understand the core value proposition of SO is that answers come from people. That is their product. If you want answers from a computer, you can get them from chat GPT. The best SO is going to do with that is spend a lot of money to repackage it into a feature people probably weren’t looking for on SO to begin with. I agree there are other indirect applications of ML models than just generating answ…

It's doubtful that ChatGPT would be able to answer so many tech questions, if it wasn't for the existence of SO.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#40

Post by lvncelot »

palata wrote: post #13
mrweasel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything needs to be a damn unicorn. More people needs to understand this. It's fine being a small(ish) business that turns a profit and provides a service that's beneficial to society. You don't need to be a billion dollar company to be important or do great work. DHH talked about this 15 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

> You don't need to be a billion dollar company to be important or do great work. And importantly: because you are a billion dollar company doesn't mean you bring good to the world. At all.

I'd even argue that the burden of proof is reversed. There might be billion dollar companies which bring good, but I'll be skeptical of that fact at first.
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