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Github Raises $100 Million

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Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#211

Post by marshally »

jbarham wrote: post #124

I can't help but think that this investment marks the Pets.com point in this investment cycle. GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. The switching costs to using another DVCS such as Mercurial (which I personally prefer) or another Git hosting provider are minimal. There are no barriers to entry since Git is and always will be free. There are very few network effect benefits to using Git…

Saying that Github's switching costs are zero ignores the vibrant community that is in place. It is in effect like saying that Facebook's users have zero switching costs to jump over to Diaspora.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#212

Post by jbarham »

statictype wrote: post #209
jbarham wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. Maybe I'm missing something, but does GitHub support something other than Git? > The switching costs to using another [...] Git hosting provider are minimal. $ git clone git://github.com/jbarham/stathat-line-counter.git $ cd stathat-line-counter/ $ git remote add bitbucket ssh://git@bitbucket.org/jbarham/stathat-line-counter.git $ git push -u bitbu…

> GitHub is essentially a web interface to a single open-source DVCS. Maybe I'm missing something, but does GitHub support something other than Git? The wrong part of that sentence is the word essentially . GitHub is essentially a social/collaboration app for people who spin code. The fact that it uses the git distributed version control system is an implementation detail. The essence of GitHub is in the network of p…

> GitHub is essentially a social/collaboration app for people who spin code.

I'll admit that I'm unenthusiastic about social media in general, so this aspect of GitHub is the one I use the least. I've always found their slogan of "Social Coding" to be a bit of an oxymoron as programming for me is primarily a solitary activity.

Generally I find the design of GitHub to be more refined than Bitbucket (e.g., the README's look better) but it's not something I'd pay for.

I'd argue that the real action for "social collaboration" on open source projects is where it's always been: on mailing lists. The project I've followed most actively the past couple of years has been Go, which is hosted on Google Code, but I very rarely need to go there since I'm on the mailing list.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#214

Post by nfm »

atirip wrote: post #195
jammur wrote: post #61

I have to imagine that a chunk of that money is to provide liquidity to the founders, which they very much deserve. I don't really see how this is a bad thing. They were very much profitable, and were likely able to dictate the terms of the deal. Also, the money came from one of the most, if not THE most, reputable and respected VC firms.

"I don't really see how this is a bad thing." They were independent and profitable company. Now they are virtally deep in debt. Everything they do now will be focused on one thing only - how to pay back that debt. They have people on board who's only goal is to get that loan back in multiples. Every decision from now on will be waged against the question "will it pay back the loan". Independency is lost, now we have…

They aren't in debt. They sold something like one seventh of their company. That's not enough to lose control of the company in any meaningful sense.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#215

Post by abalashov »

bcambel wrote: post #206
atirip wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't really see how this is a bad thing." They were independent and profitable company. Now they are virtally deep in debt. Everything they do now will be focused on one thing only - how to pay back that debt. They have people on board who's only goal is to get that loan back in multiples. Every decision from now on will be waged against the question "will it pay back the loan". Independency is lost, now we have…

I think you're not talking about GitHub. Because I see A company which started from zero, revolutionized SCS, socialized coding. Makes a lot of cash, not from advertisement, but from an actual useful product. A Product that people love to use. I think A16Z is a very clever firm that invested in a very solid product. GitHub has 102 employees. Which means they're already paying around $10M wage in a year and they're pr…

$10M/year in wage? That would imply $100k per employee per annum. I understand that it was just a budgetary figure, and I understand the premium that employer-side payroll taxes and benefits add - it is very non-trivial. Still, do you suppose the median wage at GitHub is that high? For everyone? Salespeople, receptionists, accounts payable clerks? Are you sure? I should hope they are spending a good bit less on payroll, even gross and with overhead.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#216

Post by [deleted] »

bcambel wrote: post #206
atirip wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't really see how this is a bad thing." They were independent and profitable company. Now they are virtally deep in debt. Everything they do now will be focused on one thing only - how to pay back that debt. They have people on board who's only goal is to get that loan back in multiples. Every decision from now on will be waged against the question "will it pay back the loan". Independency is lost, now we have…

I think you're not talking about GitHub. Because I see A company which started from zero, revolutionized SCS, socialized coding. Makes a lot of cash, not from advertisement, but from an actual useful product. A Product that people love to use. I think A16Z is a very clever firm that invested in a very solid product. GitHub has 102 employees. Which means they're already paying around $10M wage in a year and they're pr…

[deleted]

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#217

Post by micro-ram »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #134
blhack wrote: post #31

Okay, a question: I have a github ( http://github.com/blhack -- nothing too interesting there), but only use it in the "free" way; saving my javascript stuff, and keeping track of some arduino projects. "Github" and "money" in the same thought here triggered me wondering about maybe buying a monthly plan from them, and letting them host all of my code for work, play, etc. (stuff I'm too embarrassed to release, ha) Ma…

Nobody should pay for GitHub just because they need a place to dump their code. If you want free, unlimited, private git repos, just sign up for https://bitbucket.org/ GitHub is what you might choose if you need to work on projects with a team, and want best-of-breed collaboration and code review. I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects, and Github for all my open source code. I work with a startup, and we…

> I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects,

Exactly. We are forced to split our code base because of the lack of free private repos on GitHub. Free private repos for 1 or 2 users would allow us to post ALL of our code on GitHub and give us the ability to sort it out and clean it up It will then be extremely easy to open-source it from there. Until they offer something free, all of our projects will remain locally stored or split between GitHub and Bitbucket and that code will NEVER get promoted to open source.

Free 'limited collaboration' private repos are the key to GitHub dominating the DVCS world.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#218

Post by rabidsnail »

SharePoint makes Microsoft billions of dollars per year of revenue (the only concrete number I could find was $2B, but it was from a blog that didn't cite sources). If github can pivot from code sharing to general work sharing, $100M doesn't seem like quite so much money.

Edit: $800M/yr in 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2007/jul07/07-26SP...

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#219

Post by infinite8s »

abalashov wrote: post #215
bcambel wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're not talking about GitHub. Because I see A company which started from zero, revolutionized SCS, socialized coding. Makes a lot of cash, not from advertisement, but from an actual useful product. A Product that people love to use. I think A16Z is a very clever firm that invested in a very solid product. GitHub has 102 employees. Which means they're already paying around $10M wage in a year and they're pr…

$10M/year in wage? That would imply $100k per employee per annum. I understand that it was just a budgetary figure, and I understand the premium that employer-side payroll taxes and benefits add - it is very non-trivial. Still, do you suppose the median wage at GitHub is that high? For everyone? Salespeople, receptionists, accounts payable clerks? Are you sure? I should hope they are spending a good bit less on payro…

Yes. 100k for developers is definitely on the low end (not even including overhead), and for others it might be on the high end, so assuming most of their employees are developers, 10M is a pretty low estimate of their payroll.

Re: Github Raises $100 Million

#220

Post by jabits »

jbooth wrote: post #144
mseebach wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes some cash can help you execute faster on the plan you already have. As illustrated by the scene form "The Social Network" where Zuckerberg says he wants to expand to 100 schools, and Parker says "'I'll put you on two continents."

So, with this $100M, they can really dominate the code hosting market? There's a reasonable case to be made that they're either going to or already dominate the code hosting market anyways, depending on how big you define it. The only way $100M makes sense is if they're expanding into one or multiple other things.

Not sure why an enterprise would want to host their source code at a separate company when it is just as easy to host their own source control system (git, mercurial, tfs, whatever) with their other cloud services (S3, Azure). I do not think enterprises see their source as a "social" connection, and do not see any benefit to thinking of it as such.
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