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I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

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Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#101

Post by IncRnd »

whalesalad wrote: post #17
emilsedgh wrote: post #14

Microsoft should just make Github open source. It would be a great PR move and an amazing build of trust. I don't know why Github was not open source to begin with. Why do companies still think source code is a big deal? This is not Google Search or some advanced AI.

Great PR move? Amazing build of trust? Microsoft bought GitHub for over seven billion dollars. You don't buy something for that kind of cash unless it has that kind of value . Saying they 'should' do something as though there is a problem is silly. Engineers here on HN are so quick to say what someone "needs to do" something... but in response to what? What problem are you identifying? A vocal minority of engineers h…

> Microsoft bought GitHub for over seven billion dollars. You don't buy something for that kind of cash unless it has that kind of value.

That is NOT what happened. Microsoft is in the process of purchasing GitHub, which likely won't happen before the end of the year. The agreed price was $7.5B in stock not cash.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#103

Post by IncRnd »

mikece wrote: post #91
kartan wrote: post #6

Nat is being really smart here. It should not backfire unless he acts pedantic or insults Redditors intelligence. I think that both are unlikely. Maybe Nat is trying to counteract any PR damage to GitHub, or maybe he just wants to see how much can skyrocket his account's karma. If I was in his situation I will be happy doing it for both reasons.

How long is it going to take Redditors / HN readers / open source advocates to realize that Nat is one of them and that being an employee of Microsoft or Microsoft's designee to lead GitHub doesn't diminish this?

From now until the end of the year is his job interview. Microsoft wins either way.

If Nat doesn't gain developer and corporate traction, Microsoft replaces him in a smash move of hiring a well-liked CEO. However, if he is lauded by developers, then he stays as CEO.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#104

Post by overcast »

notatoad wrote: post #48
jameslk wrote: post #11

> That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week. It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.

My sense is that any projects willing to move from GitHub to gitlab on a Sunday evening because of a rumour that GitHub was going to be sold were not really serious projects and losing them isn't a big loss for GitHub.

I'd consider Gnome a pretty serious product.

https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/05/gnome-moves-to-gitlab-2/

ok. so they weren't on github. GOSH!

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#105

Post by minimaxir »

darzu wrote: post #79
minimaxir wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes less sense as Microsoft has done some excellent AMAs with the Excel team: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3rid26/we_are_the_mic... https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/777mb6/we_are_the_mic...

You might be overestimating the coordination between different teams at Microsoft :) It's a big company. I doubt there is any overlap between the people involved in the Excel IAMAs and Nat's

That is true; when I looked, I thought MSFT did more AMAs than just Excel.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#106

Post by cornholio »

ezekg wrote: post #83
atupis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github value comes from userbase not the platform which could copied pretty easily.

Yeah, good point. You could probably do that in a weekend I bet.

Ironic perhaps? Cloning the Github interface would take thousands of man hours at least. Still completely negligible compared to $7.5 billion, but certainly not a weekend project.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#107

Post by austenallred »

jameslk wrote: post #11

> That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week. It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.

Using HackerNews reaction as a main source of information will almost always drastically skew reality. It reminds me of people shorting Facebook because of the #deletefacebook campaign, when in reality getting a few thousand people to delete Facebook in protest is offset in a few minutes by growth.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#108

Post by jsgo »

alxlaz wrote: post #97
jameslk wrote: post #11

> That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week. It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.

It's not unexpected. Serious projects need more than a few days to move off Github; and there's some overlap between HN users and users who would move their tiny projects off Github on a Sunday afternoon. That being said, it's way too early to tell how this will evolve trust-wise. Microsoft has a tremendous deficit of trust in the open source community. Younger folks probably don't realize how deep it runs; most of m…

Has Gitlab finished their hosted migration from Azure to Google's cloud yet? They announced they were starting in April, but those things take time.

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#109

Post by [deleted] »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #78
notatoad wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sense is that any projects willing to move from GitHub to gitlab on a Sunday evening because of a rumour that GitHub was going to be sold were not really serious projects and losing them isn't a big loss for GitHub.

This is exactly right. However, just because some projects can't up and move on a moment's notice doesn't mean the ball isn't rolling.

[deleted]

Re: I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA

#110

Post by exolymph »

Shank wrote: post #45
alexwebb2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that's just an embarrassing mistake on the part of Github's PR team. There's really no reason that a CEO currently making headlines should be on /r/AMA instead of r/IAMA (70x more users).

It's worth noting that until the deal closes, Nat isn't actually part of GitHub. That would make it the Microsoft PR team or his deal -- not GitHub's.

Eh, I wouldn't be surprised if they're already working together. PR teams are used to cross-company collaboration.
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