4 ms·

Nat is a mogul in SV. Everyone knows him, many even before GitHub. Simply walking away from GitHub without much of a speech would make it seem like he didn't ca

by junon 5y ago

Nat is a mogul in SV. Everyone knows him, many even before GitHub. Simply walking away from GitHub without much of a speech would make it seem like he didn't care or left on bad terms, optics-wise. That would have a potentially serious effect on perception and thus shareholders would be affected. This clearly isn't his intent. I offer a contrary point of view: why does it bother you so much? Simply do not read it.

lexapro 5y ago
>thus shareholders would be affected Why not just tell it like it is then? Dear shareholders, I'm leaving because I'm rich / bored with Github and not because there was a falling-out. >why does it bother you so much? Simply do not read it. So you're suggesting people should just not read or listen to anything that they don't like? And just keep quiet?
- junon 5y ago
  > Why not just tell it like it is then? Because what you suggested is extremely impersonal, arrogant, harsh, cold, and dismissive of the work of all the employees working under you.
  - kodah 5y ago
    A little off-topic, but why does the CEO even need to say goodbye? I'm not really concerned with listening the words of most CEOs of companies I work at. It's just another job at the company, albeit, probably one with a bit too much power and influence.
- oaiey 5y ago
  Because most likely he is already somewhere and this other company is not ready yet to share the change of CEO. This case has more than 50% likelihood.
tgv 5y ago
> shareholders It belongs to Microsoft, doesn't it?
- joshmanders 5y ago
  Microsoft has shareholders, don't they?
  - est31 5y ago
    In 2018, MS had 110 billion USD in revenue, while Github had 200-300 million USD. So the Github business is <0.5% of MS's revenue.
    - junon 5y ago
      Money is not the only part of any large acquisition such as GitHub. Given Microsoft's history, GitHub was the perfect acquisition for their goals.
      - est31 5y ago
        Sure it was, and for MS there is definitely strategic value in owning Github. But I even if you factor in that strategic value, Github is not as important to Microsoft as, say, Instagram is to Facebook.
        junon 5y ago
        I don't see how that's relevant. Github is a huge asset to Microsoft, regardless of its revenue streams. That's my point.
        skinnymuch 5y ago
        Instagram is likely the greatest acquisition of all time in terms of synergy and mainly financial gains. Instagram is worth hundreds of billions now. Bought for $1B. It is an actual unicorn situation of being incredibly rare. There’s no point bringing up something so rare. For example, the only other [tech?] acquisition that I can think of even sniffing IG is Priceline (now Bookings Holdings) acquiring Bookings.com for a couple hundred million. Now being the core of the business. — Beyond that. Just to be geeky about this stuff. The only other general financial deals in this ballpark are SoftBank, Yahoo, and Naspers investments. Copy pasting previous comment: SoftBank and Yahoo bought around 40% stakes each in Alibaba. SoftBank spent $20M in 1999, the year Alibaba was founded. Alibaba owned 34% as of the mid 2010s. Now own 26%. Yahoo, because of Jerry Yang, invested $1B in 2005. Naspers invested $32M for almost 50% of Tencent in 2001. Probably the best investment ever. Naspers split into two companies. Prosus owns the remaining close to 30% stake now. Though Naspers and Prosus both own around one half of one another. All three investing companies have had issues with their own valuations. They’ve all had their own market caps be undervalued. Their one investment alone usually was close to or even exceeded the entire market cap of the company. Still the case for SoftBank and Prosus.
BoorishBears 5y ago
You need to read enough to be sick to realize what it is. In part because even the title is clickbait. Even the tl;dr manages to inject some platitudes before getting to the point. - And you're arguing a strawman. The comment you replied to never implied he shouldn't say farewell. They're complaining about how utterly insincere it comes across being blasted full of every trite corporate saying in existence If anything they're arguing for more of a farewell than this, and it would have taken less effort too. I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat?
- junon 5y ago
  > I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat? Please point to where I implied I was at all upset.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    That last sentence alone "if it's so bad why read it?" is clearly something an upset person would say. - But this is HN where inferring tone is apparently a step too far in terms of speculation, so here. Have an ML model tell you how upset you sound: https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg
    - e0a74c 5y ago
      I have no dog in this race but it sounds like you're assuming that a sentence with a negative sentiment (whatever that actually means) must have been created by a person who's upset. A bit of a stretch, no?
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        A tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact HN users act like basic social skills like the ability to infer tone are voodoo gets dissected like this? You can't make up this stuff up. To the reply: > would not be acceptable in any social setting otherwise You're close to getting it! In a normal social setting if someone says "If you don't like X don't interact with it!" that can reasonably understood as a negative statement. Going "show me where I said I'm upset!!" instead of just clarifying is not acceptable in a social setting. Busting out an ML model is just holding up the mirror. - > I am not responsible for how the voice in your head portrays what you read. I'm not responsible for teaching people how basic social interactions work, yet here we are...
Drblessing 5y ago
Yeah, why is everyone so mad, you don’t get to decide how someone writes their farewell letter.
- xxs 5y ago
  mostly b/c it's rather unlikely that someone has decided, themselves, to do that. There is no human behind the pen (or the keystrokes). I suppose some might have been in a similar position and resent it.

by junon 5y ago

lexapro 5y ago

>thus shareholders would be affected Why not just tell it like it is then? Dear shareholders, I'm leaving because I'm rich / bored with Github and not because there was a falling-out. >why does it bother you so much? Simply do not read it. So you're suggesting people should just not read or listen to anything that they don't like? And just keep quiet?

junon 5y ago
> Why not just tell it like it is then? Because what you suggested is extremely impersonal, arrogant, harsh, cold, and dismissive of the work of all the employees working under you.
- kodah 5y ago
  A little off-topic, but why does the CEO even need to say goodbye? I'm not really concerned with listening the words of most CEOs of companies I work at. It's just another job at the company, albeit, probably one with a bit too much power and influence.
oaiey 5y ago
Because most likely he is already somewhere and this other company is not ready yet to share the change of CEO. This case has more than 50% likelihood.

tgv 5y ago

> shareholders It belongs to Microsoft, doesn't it?

joshmanders 5y ago
Microsoft has shareholders, don't they?
- est31 5y ago
  In 2018, MS had 110 billion USD in revenue, while Github had 200-300 million USD. So the Github business is <0.5% of MS's revenue.
  - junon 5y ago
    Money is not the only part of any large acquisition such as GitHub. Given Microsoft's history, GitHub was the perfect acquisition for their goals.
    - est31 5y ago
      Sure it was, and for MS there is definitely strategic value in owning Github. But I even if you factor in that strategic value, Github is not as important to Microsoft as, say, Instagram is to Facebook.
      - junon 5y ago
        I don't see how that's relevant. Github is a huge asset to Microsoft, regardless of its revenue streams. That's my point.
      - skinnymuch 5y ago
        Instagram is likely the greatest acquisition of all time in terms of synergy and mainly financial gains. Instagram is worth hundreds of billions now. Bought for $1B. It is an actual unicorn situation of being incredibly rare. There’s no point bringing up something so rare. For example, the only other [tech?] acquisition that I can think of even sniffing IG is Priceline (now Bookings Holdings) acquiring Bookings.com for a couple hundred million. Now being the core of the business. — Beyond that. Just to be geeky about this stuff. The only other general financial deals in this ballpark are SoftBank, Yahoo, and Naspers investments. Copy pasting previous comment: SoftBank and Yahoo bought around 40% stakes each in Alibaba. SoftBank spent $20M in 1999, the year Alibaba was founded. Alibaba owned 34% as of the mid 2010s. Now own 26%. Yahoo, because of Jerry Yang, invested $1B in 2005. Naspers invested $32M for almost 50% of Tencent in 2001. Probably the best investment ever. Naspers split into two companies. Prosus owns the remaining close to 30% stake now. Though Naspers and Prosus both own around one half of one another. All three investing companies have had issues with their own valuations. They’ve all had their own market caps be undervalued. Their one investment alone usually was close to or even exceeded the entire market cap of the company. Still the case for SoftBank and Prosus.

BoorishBears 5y ago

You need to read enough to be sick to realize what it is. In part because even the title is clickbait. Even the tl;dr manages to inject some platitudes before getting to the point. - And you're arguing a strawman. The comment you replied to never implied he shouldn't say farewell. They're complaining about how utterly insincere it comes across being blasted full of every trite corporate saying in existence If anything they're arguing for more of a farewell than this, and it would have taken less effort too. I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat?

junon 5y ago
> I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat? Please point to where I implied I was at all upset.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  That last sentence alone "if it's so bad why read it?" is clearly something an upset person would say. - But this is HN where inferring tone is apparently a step too far in terms of speculation, so here. Have an ML model tell you how upset you sound: https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg
  - e0a74c 5y ago
    I have no dog in this race but it sounds like you're assuming that a sentence with a negative sentiment (whatever that actually means) must have been created by a person who's upset. A bit of a stretch, no?
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      A tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact HN users act like basic social skills like the ability to infer tone are voodoo gets dissected like this? You can't make up this stuff up. To the reply: > would not be acceptable in any social setting otherwise You're close to getting it! In a normal social setting if someone says "If you don't like X don't interact with it!" that can reasonably understood as a negative statement. Going "show me where I said I'm upset!!" instead of just clarifying is not acceptable in a social setting. Busting out an ML model is just holding up the mirror. - > I am not responsible for how the voice in your head portrays what you read. I'm not responsible for teaching people how basic social interactions work, yet here we are...

Drblessing 5y ago

Yeah, why is everyone so mad, you don’t get to decide how someone writes their farewell letter.

xxs 5y ago
mostly b/c it's rather unlikely that someone has decided, themselves, to do that. There is no human behind the pen (or the keystrokes). I suppose some might have been in a similar position and resent it.