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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

#141

Post by mcdonje »

lawgimenez wrote: post #91
preommr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending a small item like that as a prize for a contest seems reasonable. The design of that keycap on the other hand is ridiculous.

It does not make any sense, I have no use for it. I work only on a MacBook.

Pretty much nobody would use that on a standalone keyboard either. They had to know the design isn't practical for the stated purpose.

However, it does make a nice little trophy/trinket. It's merit based, so getting one could become a goal for contributors. It's branded. It fits on a desk.

If they made it twice as big and called it a trophy, it'd probably make more sense. But then costs would be higher and it'd be more formal.

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

#142

Post by b112 »

chmod775 wrote: post #134
bunga-bunga wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a “Dropbox is just a pretty rsync”-level comment

Plenty of sites of similar scale were run on less or are to this day. SO also is technologically as basic as it gets. They don't even serve big files.

Some can't stand the fact that they have a perfect product.

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

#143

Post by IshKebab »

littlestymaar wrote: post #116

A few years ago, Stackoverflow bragged about how they hosted their entire infrastructure on a dozen of servers. Today I learn that they are losing $80 million a year? What the hell are they doing with that money?

Salaries presumably. Apparently they have 500 employees, probably on crazy SF salaries. Easily $1-200m/year.

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

#144

Post by vouaobrasil »

pwdisswordfishc wrote: post #11
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.

You have a pretty strange definition of ‘valid’.

It was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean valid in terms of morally right. I meant valid in terms of economically rational in today's climate.

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

#145

Post by lifeisstillgood »

mrtksn wrote: post #101
dustedcodes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow that is super interesting (although not very surprising). Do you have any sources for this?

Europe: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/eur/europe/life-expect... USA: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life... I'm sure there are nuances but according to this particular source European life expectancy went from 75 to 79, US life expectancy went from 78 to 79 with a period of a decline between 2013 and 2018.

This has come up before (searching for ref) but the basic explanation is GDP when adjusted for PPP in eurozone is more or less same as USA over that period (ie both economies grew at much same rate).

Basically things in America got more expensive (gas, health, education being big contributors). There is lots of wriggle room in the numbers but the vast gulf by nominal GDP is surprising and so unlikely .

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

#146

Post by read_if_gay_ »

janalsncm wrote: post #79
mrtksn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the whole "Tech" economy is based on the premise that everything must grow indefinitely and indefinitely means that at some point will be a unicorn. Europe is considered economical failure because there are not enough unicorns, there are lists on Twitter with list of unicorns per country that are supposed to show the decline of Europe. No matter if Europe has some of the best living condition for large group of p…

Between 2009 and today, the US doubled GDP while life expectancies fell. In the EU, GDP is stagnant but life expectancy went up. Those who say Europe’s economy is a failure should at least consider what the purpose of an economy should even be.

surely there are no confounders here

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

cornholio wrote: post #107
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

> It's fine being a small(ish) business that turns a profit and provides a service that's beneficial to society. It's fine, but it's no unicorn. And having such a business might be the closest and only chance the people involved have at real wealth and impact - they are 90% there, and only need a little scale, or so they think. If you were in their shoes, you would do the same.

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by jl6 »

p4bl0 wrote: post #89
kortilla wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be no billionaires. This just means, “people shouldn’t be able to own large companies”. You’re going to need strong evidence that relinquishing ownership of any successful company to the government (or whoever you give the absconded shares to) is a way to run a sustainable company. What large country (50m+) has successfully eliminated billionaires without eliminating most of their own economy?

> relinquishing ownership of any successful company to the government Why the government? Why not collective ownership by workers, and maybe partly to users in applicable cases? Also, why would the existence of such big companies be an absolute necessity in the first place?

To your second paragraph…

Big orgs (regardless of public or private) can exploit economies of scale, which makes cheap products possible and available to the masses.

Big orgs have big org problems that small orgs don’t (HR, Legal, Architecture, …), so they need specialist senior leaders who spend their days doing things that rank-and-file staff don’t understand, and usually don’t even know need to be done.

HN loves to rag on the C-suite, but they are real jobs that need real skills. To all the armchair CxOs confident that boards are idiots and are paying their execs for nothing, all I can say is: try it.

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

#150

Post by Joeri »

firstplacelast wrote: post #58
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…

Hard agree, but it’s not actionable for anyone not rich. Bottom up approaches are the only things that will solve these things, so yes you and me have to put our money and talents where our mouths are. This board tends towards believing in democracy yet we spend half+ of our waking hours existing within non-democratic institutions…they’re not even representative republics, the thing we pass off as pro-democracy today…

The book Reinventing Organizations walks through a number of examples of large organizations that tried to have a bottom-up decision-making process, some succeeded for the long haul, some reverted back to top-down.
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