What would the exit strategy for a company like Github be? Get acquired by a big co like say, Google or IPO? An IPO and the accompanying scrutiny of a public company sounds like an unlikely strategy for a Github. Thoughts?
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GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
81–90 of 416 posts
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#82Both this piece, and most commenters, seem to miss the point about where Github's value comes from. It's not for being a social identity for programmers, or hosting open-source libraries. Those are worthy pursuits, but from a business perspective mostly serve as marketing. Github is basically Microsoft Word for programmers, and is an essential part of their workflow. Companies that need enterprise functionality aroun…
Microsoft Word became a valuable monopoly because it was a proprietary standard. But git hosting is a commodity service. There are already a number of players doing exactly what GitHub does, for less money, and it's trivially easy to migrate a repository away from GitHub to those other providers. Something tells me that the "facebook for programmers" angle is essential to selling the dream here. The so-called "networ…
Except for all the things that Github builds on top of git to keep users coming back (wiki, issues, stars, etc.) which seem to be working.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#83The most interesting thing about all these massive fund raisings is why. It is almost as if the managers of these companies think we are about to enter a period where raising funds will be impossible, revenue from servicing the startup economy will dry up, and they will need a massive war chest to survive.
Sometimes fundraising is to get cash to founders, early investors.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#84“We want to make really big investments,” expanding internationally and investing in new products, he said. Any speculation? Also, anyone know if they are currently profitable?
A Slack type service would be my first guess for a next product. (rememeber that Slack was already valued at $2.8B ten months ago)
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#85Both this piece, and most commenters, seem to miss the point about where Github's value comes from. It's not for being a social identity for programmers, or hosting open-source libraries. Those are worthy pursuits, but from a business perspective mostly serve as marketing. Github is basically Microsoft Word for programmers, and is an essential part of their workflow. Companies that need enterprise functionality aroun…
I'm not aware of Microsoft Word or any editor I've ever used or heard of forbidding me from using the word "retards" or any other. Heck, Gnu Emacs allows me to write proprietary software, a user freedom RMS is no doubt not entirely happy with. I require that general freedom of expression in my tools and do no tolerate vendors who engage in these sorts of damaging stunts. I suspect I'm not alone, and I note GitHub has…
Could you explicitly state what it is you are referring to? I'm not familiar with github's content restrictions.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft Word became a valuable monopoly because it was a proprietary standard. But git hosting is a commodity service. There are already a number of players doing exactly what GitHub does, for less money, and it's trivially easy to migrate a repository away from GitHub to those other providers. Something tells me that the "facebook for programmers" angle is essential to selling the dream here. The so-called "networ…
Except for all the things that Github builds on top of git to keep users coming back (wiki, issues, stars, etc.) which seem to be working.
The thing that GitHub has right now is the userbase - the network effect keeps people interested in their service. The technical value they provide is pretty trivially replicable (see: GitLab, BitBucket), but you can't code up a (real) community.
It's worth noting that 10 years ago, this same statement was true of Sourceforge.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to say, but any time I need a private repo I just head to BitBucket. GitHub provides tremendous value, I hope they find a good way to capture some of it.
I get that when it's just a personal project, but the Github workflow is also very nice to have. When I want a buddy to access my private repo, I just add his/her GitHub user name, I don't need to have them create a BitBucket account. I don't need to figure out how issues and PRs work with BitBucket, etc. It's the network effects and UI that I'm paying for - one UI private or public. Plus, it supports a service I val…
My agency is considering switching to bitbucket from github because bitbucket's pricing per team member would cost us 10 times less than github's pricing per repository.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#88Github has already stumbled, and will fall soon. Their gaffes in conduct[1] and content[2] policies are already dividing the community. For a company that has thrived on being a monoculture, this spells doom. [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3e5c6f/why_the_... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118
You seriously think censoring the word "retard" will harm their business?
What if I put other expletives in code comments....? Will I be banned too?
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to say, but any time I need a private repo I just head to BitBucket. GitHub provides tremendous value, I hope they find a good way to capture some of it.
Really? I trust a private repo I am paying for to be there in a few years. Perhaps I am still of the "buying a cd" generation but someone somewhere has to pay for a saas service. It's just more real this way.
The beauty of DVCS is that it really doesn't matter if your "main" repository suddenly vanishes. As long as you've got it checked out locally, just push it somewhere else.
Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
So it seems that the true test will whether a shop like HP would adopt Github Enterprise and pay $20/mo/programmer for 50,000 programmers and pay $1mm/mo to Github.
Probably not. No deal at that scale is done at list rates. But it'd still be a very lucrative deal for GH if it happened.
Good point on the list rates. Then again contract terms will probably be longer right, so both sides sort of "win" there.