5 ms·

When Spolesky brought on this guy, I was shocked. He had no profile or activity on Stackoverflow. He wasn’t even a developer and his resume indicated he was jus

When Spolesky brought on this guy, I was shocked. He had no profile or activity on Stackoverflow. He wasn’t even a developer and his resume indicated he was just generic management talking head. Given how much Spolesky emphasis “product person” to be in charge as opposed to white label MBAs, none of that made any sense. I’d to only imagine he was cashing out and part of the deal from investors was to place this guy who they trusted to grow “enterprise” business. Just why every beautiful startup must make their owners billionaires while getting ruined?

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> Just why every beautiful startup must make their owners billionaires while getting ruined? That's literally there in the definition of a VC-backed business model. You get a lot of money now, in exchange for some amount of ownership and expectation that the business will grow, whether it makes sense for it or not. The investors want a return on their investment, so they absolutely will push the business past the point of breaking; if they can extract their return before it burns down, then they win. Or, in short, from investor PoV, startups are cattle, not pets.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  I feel like putting a talking head in charge of SE risks limiting growth. SE is a business that benefits greatly from leadership that understands their core demographics. I'm sure they still still grow, because SE is an incredibly useful product. But I think a bad leader poses a serious risk of constraining natural growth by pushing monetization too hard and driving away organic growth.
gregd 6y ago
I'm shocked that people continue to be shocked that this happens under Capitalism.
lonelappde 6y ago
It's quite clear that Spolsky simply cashed out and went home. The best way forward is for someone with a good reputation to take the content and launch a new server, as Spolsky himself always said should happen when SO one day jumps the shark.
matt_s 6y ago
Maybe people (Spolsky, others) want to work on other things? Or retire? Or focus on family? Or angel invest? So they find a buyer for the business, transition things, cash out and go find something else to do.
hkai 6y ago
I think he was very clear about the reasons why he is looking for a new CEO, in his blog post announcing that search. The investors set a goal and Joel executed it.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> Just why every beautiful startup must make their owners billionaires while getting ruined? That's literally there in the definition of a VC-backed business model. You get a lot of money now, in exchange for some amount of ownership and expectation that the business will grow, whether it makes sense for it or not. The investors want a return on their investment, so they absolutely will push the business past the point of breaking; if they can extract their return before it burns down, then they win. Or, in short, from investor PoV, startups are cattle, not pets.

mywittyname 6y ago
I feel like putting a talking head in charge of SE risks limiting growth. SE is a business that benefits greatly from leadership that understands their core demographics. I'm sure they still still grow, because SE is an incredibly useful product. But I think a bad leader poses a serious risk of constraining natural growth by pushing monetization too hard and driving away organic growth.

gregd 6y ago

I'm shocked that people continue to be shocked that this happens under Capitalism.

lonelappde 6y ago

It's quite clear that Spolsky simply cashed out and went home. The best way forward is for someone with a good reputation to take the content and launch a new server, as Spolsky himself always said should happen when SO one day jumps the shark.

matt_s 6y ago

Maybe people (Spolsky, others) want to work on other things? Or retire? Or focus on family? Or angel invest? So they find a buyer for the business, transition things, cash out and go find something else to do.

hkai 6y ago

I think he was very clear about the reasons why he is looking for a new CEO, in his blog post announcing that search. The investors set a goal and Joel executed it.