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> Also, what is "success"? Taking $350MM in investment and not showing profitability That's an odd thing to say. Most companies that take investment aren't pro
by holman 8y ago
> Also, what is "success"? Taking $350MM in investment and not showing profitability
That's an odd thing to say. Most companies that take investment aren't profitable- that's kind of the point of taking VC: you want the cash in order to greatly grow the business more than if you were sitting within profitability the entire time. There's a difference between "unprofitable" and "choosing not to be profitable".
What's more, GitHub wasn't profitable the last ~5 years or so, from the day they took VC. But they sold for $7.5B, so it doesn't seem that Microsoft has a problem with their "unprofitability". That's how many solid, foundational companies are created.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoTaking investment is not success though. Maybe one day Gitlab will exit (most likely outcome). Maybe one day they'll be profitable. Those days are not here, and that would be success. That has not occurred yet.
- irq11 8y agoAlso, their business model is “GitHub, but cheaper”. We now know what GitHub was worth, and it puts the lie to inflated valuations in this space. When $8Bn is a huge deal for your industry, it gets hard to sell higher valuations with a straight face.
- williamchia 8y agoI'm curious how you came to this conclusion about GitLab's business model? GitLab is pretty clear on the homepage. The business model is to compete in 9 different categories, only one of which is GitHub. (GitLab pricing is also higher than GitHub which makes sense when the offering provides more the functionality.)
- irq11 8y agoGitlab is absolutely not higher than GitHub, unless you ignore all of the people who are running self-hosted Gitlab for free. GitHub makes most of its revenue from the self-hosted market. GitLab is burning this market to the ground.
- richardwhiuk 8y agoI doubt that - GitHub makes most of it's money from SaaS market I'd have thought.
- williamchia 8y agoGH Enterprise pricing is $21 /user/mo [1] GL Ultimate pricing is $99 /user/mo [2] [1] https://github.com/pricing/enterprise https://github.com/pricing/enterprise [2] https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed