Live data from Hacker News

New Year, New CEO for GitHub

github.com

31–40 of 98 posts

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#31
post #25

Github PLEASE work on some kind of 'Proof Of Activity' 98% of my work is private and all employers get to see is about 100 open-source commits when I have roughly 4,000 commits throughout several private organizations. I know I need more open source contributions but I should be able to prove to an employer that I am a heavy Github user and have more experience than 100 commits. Sometimes I've been asked to send a sc…

Stats like commit count could easily be juked with a bot. Can you get testimonials and references from the people you work with instead?

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this type of chart a GANTT chart without the "R" character?

(He was making a joke. GRANTT -> R&D Grant) #jokesAreLikeFrogs

And when you poke it with a stick, it falls apart. GANTT isn't an acronym, the chart was invented by Henry Gantt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gantt

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who wasn't following GitHub as a company, I have to say I quite appreciated the gif. Sums it up in all of 2 seconds. Bravo.

You're absolutely right. They say a picture is worth a thousand words - animated gifs even more so. I could almost imagine a world where animated gifs replace all kinds of communication. Press releases seem particularly ripe for change as they are usually wordsmithed to the point that any impression given is likely false.

Just pictured in my head a modern day "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" moment where Picard instead has to learn to speak in animated gifs.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#34
post #11
post #7

I don't understand how a company could operate for a few months without publicly acknowledging who is really the CEO. I hope they use a "fork the CEO role" button.

I'm curious: to whom does this matter? The title is a formality, their organization is notoriously flat and being co-founders they probably don't make major initiatives without the other's approval anyways. If anything they're probably just swapping "who sits in the spotlight for this year". And when you head a tech-oriented company, the difference between CTO and CEO is probably negligible anyways.

I think Tom and Chris are doing a fantastic job running and growing github. I'm just curious how this idea of trading CEO roles without making it public for a while works in practice. I think it could potentially matter to their employees, along the lines Ben Horowitz discussed in his post, "Shared Command" [1] - different situation, but analogous potential muddling of the chain of command.

Obviously some companies with both a CEO and a President can be amazingly successful [2], but tend to still be clear about who is ultimately in charge. It's not that I doubt Tom and Chris share a vision for github and clearly communicate and execute on that vision together; I just wonder when and how that model might hit its limits.

1. http://bhorowitz.com/2013/07/03/shared-command/

2. http://www.spacex.com/about/leadership

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#37
post #25

Github PLEASE work on some kind of 'Proof Of Activity' 98% of my work is private and all employers get to see is about 100 open-source commits when I have roughly 4,000 commits throughout several private organizations. I know I need more open source contributions but I should be able to prove to an employer that I am a heavy Github user and have more experience than 100 commits. Sometimes I've been asked to send a sc…

Having the bulk of my Github commits all going to private repositories, I can empathize with this.

For me, in 2013, I made close to 800 commits to private repos. When I'm logged in, I can see the activity in the "Your Contributions" section of my private profile. Last year, I also switched employers and because I don't have any public projects I contributed to, my profile looks barren. However, that's far from the truth.

It would be nice if Github would allow me a setting to display just the commit activity, but not link to the private repos. I wouldn't be surprised if this is far off.

For those that would say "you should be contributing to more OS projects then", just remember that there are some of us who can't code 14 hours a day (anymore). We have families and/or lives out side of coding. This doesn't make our effort any less valuable than those that do it for the public. We just have a different set of constraints and responsibilities.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#38

For those of us who are business ignorant, what is the difference between President and CEO? What are the typical responsibilities of each and such?

That's really the question when it comes to having a separate president and CEO role (and often times having a separate CEO and chairman role). Who's really in charge, and what does the person who's not in charge do? There really isn't a good way to tell. Generally, it's either a sign that:

1. The President is being groomed for the CEO position once the "real" CEO leaves (such as Tim Cook).

2. One of the two needs to give up their position, but isn't because either nobody wants to force them out or they're too powerful to be forced out.

3. The company is so huge, the CEO needs to delegate some of their authority.

My money's on #2. Tom Preston-Warner clearly doesn't need training to be the CEO, and github clearly isn't big enough to need separate CEO and president roles.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#40
post #21

Why are they using GIF for video, instead of a proper video file in the video tag?

It's not worth invoking a flash container for 4 seconds of video.

Did I say anything about Flash? I was talking about a video tag. And are you saying that a 4 seconds video in the video tag will be less efficient than an img tag with an animated GIF?

Personally I see no point in using GIFs, unless on a site which allows embedding images, but not videos. On a site which you control, video tag works just fine.

Post reply on HN