3 ms·

> Prior to taking on a16z riches, Substack was a cool indie brand. The name "Substack" was co-opted from James "Substack" Halliday [1][2], a well-known hacker

> Prior to taking on a16z riches, Substack was a cool indie brand. The name "Substack" was co-opted from James "Substack" Halliday [1][2], a well-known hacker in the Node.js community. It wasn't an indie-brand-turned-corporate; it's a person. The way substack.com has used VC money to take over someone's identity and feed off their reputation is incredibly scummy. [1]: https://github.com/substack https://github.com/substack [2]: https://twitter.com/substack https://twitter.com/substack

woah 6y ago
Do you really think they intentionally chose to collide with someone’s GitHub username???
- yoshuaw 6y ago
  Sure do. Substack the company was founded in 2017 [1]. At that point Substack the person was already a household name in open source — with 76.000 GitHub stars to his name his projects' popularity were on par with the likes of Mozilla [2]. Naming an upstart company after a household name that isn't protected by copyright is incredibly clever. You get to use an established and trusted name, but can't get sued for using it. [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack#section-overview https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack#section-ove... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170115065014/http://git-awards.com/users https://web.archive.org/web/20170115065014/http://git-awards... — GitHub stars aren't a perfect metric, but it's the best I can come up with to convey the degree of name recognition back in 2017
  - jklm 6y ago
    Anecdotally, I’ve never heard of this person until today (despite having heard of the company). I’d guess I’m not alone.
UnbugMe 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that Halliday's reputation has benefitted Substack (the company) in any way or that this was intentional? I view it simply as a catchy name and nothing more.

3 ms·

> Prior to taking on a16z riches, Substack was a cool indie brand. The name "Substack" was co-opted from James "Substack" Halliday [1][2], a well-known hacker

by yoshuaw 6y ago

woah 6y ago
Do you really think they intentionally chose to collide with someone’s GitHub username???
- yoshuaw 6y ago
  Sure do. Substack the company was founded in 2017 [1]. At that point Substack the person was already a household name in open source — with 76.000 GitHub stars to his name his projects' popularity were on par with the likes of Mozilla [2]. Naming an upstart company after a household name that isn't protected by copyright is incredibly clever. You get to use an established and trusted name, but can't get sued for using it. [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack#section-overview https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack#section-ove... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170115065014/http://git-awards.com/users https://web.archive.org/web/20170115065014/http://git-awards... — GitHub stars aren't a perfect metric, but it's the best I can come up with to convey the degree of name recognition back in 2017
  - jklm 6y ago
    Anecdotally, I’ve never heard of this person until today (despite having heard of the company). I’d guess I’m not alone.
UnbugMe 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that Halliday's reputation has benefitted Substack (the company) in any way or that this was intentional? I view it simply as a catchy name and nothing more.