Is "silly rich" now defined as "bloated with VC money"? That's a bit like contending that you're silly rich because you've got a $1M credit card limit (though the comparison is admittedly imperfect because debt and equity aren't the same).
To me, "silly rich" would suggest they're immensely profitable, which is rather unlikely since they probably wouldn't seek more investment if they were.
The article says they made $1000 on their first day. And they've been around for 5 years (pretty sure the article has the timing wrong, I was putting stuff on GitHub in 2008) without taking any funding, which is pretty hard if you're not profitable.
My guess: they're gearing up for an IPO. Maybe not for a couple years, but they see their market size as being big enough to go public, and they want a prominent financial backer in their corner when they do. That's the usual reason why profitable companies take investment. Microsoft famously eschewed all venture funding until a mezzanine round right before they went public, which was a.) so they could vet their investment bank and develop a relationship with them before it really mattered and b.) so said investment bank would have an incentive to hype up the stock and get the highest possible price at IPO time.
What's really silly is debating exactly what "silly rich" means.
How about discussing this?
> A big chunk of the $100 million has been earmarked
> for... [opening] its collaboration tools up beyond the
> software kingdom. The company has already seen
> designers, legal teams, and public relations pros using
> its technology. "It has not been optimized for those
> things yet, but it works for them," says Preston-Werner.
I agree but I think the author may have been pointing out the it was a sudden move, since GitHub had turned down VC money in the past. More pointing out the sudden change from their past record of turning down VC's
I was pretty critical when I saw this on reddit 4 years ago. I'm not really a fan of git and didn't understand what the point of this site was that we couldn't get from sourceforge. The same has been said many times about Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. I still don't really understand most of them, but I guess that's why I'm not a millionaire.
I posted this quote here because I thought it didn't need explanation as a criticism of the blog post. But perhaps I need to point it out...
"He".
We should not, implicitly or explicitly, promote the idea that to be a coder you are a man. Even if it is the case that more men are in CS than not, it is not causal to success in CS. However, creating fake self-doubt and questioning on issues that are not material to success in CS is causal to people dropping CS.
[+] [-] otterley|12 years ago|reply
To me, "silly rich" would suggest they're immensely profitable, which is rather unlikely since they probably wouldn't seek more investment if they were.
[+] [-] nostrademons|12 years ago|reply
My guess: they're gearing up for an IPO. Maybe not for a couple years, but they see their market size as being big enough to go public, and they want a prominent financial backer in their corner when they do. That's the usual reason why profitable companies take investment. Microsoft famously eschewed all venture funding until a mezzanine round right before they went public, which was a.) so they could vet their investment bank and develop a relationship with them before it really mattered and b.) so said investment bank would have an incentive to hype up the stock and get the highest possible price at IPO time.
[+] [-] jere|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jt2190|12 years ago|reply
How about discussing this?
[+] [-] coreyja|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askimto|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stupendous|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aqueous|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derrida|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derrida|12 years ago|reply
"He".
We should not, implicitly or explicitly, promote the idea that to be a coder you are a man. Even if it is the case that more men are in CS than not, it is not causal to success in CS. However, creating fake self-doubt and questioning on issues that are not material to success in CS is causal to people dropping CS.