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Farewell Stack Exchange

• MrFoof 15y ago
  Jeff's presence will be missed, but the man can't be faulted. His priority is his family, and he's sticking to his guns. Good for him -- seriously! Honestly I had been on the fence about changing jobs until recently. I'm single and I realized that I haven't been on a date in a long time. Wolfram Alpha places it at about 3300 days (just over 9 years). I've made a good chunk of money, but all in all it's not worth the sacrifice of everything else I care about. I'd rather be at home trying to make video games and start dating again while I'm still (barely) in my 20s, so that's what I intend to do.
  • bluekite2000 15y ago
    What is stopping you???
  • jc123 15y ago
    Your sacrifice may be worth it. I only have a tiny glimpse into your situation, but you may want to reflect more on what you'd like medium and long-term, to avoid short term decisions that might not help. Life involves tradeoffs and sacrifices, and the best time for some of them is before relationships, children, family. The money you've made could very well help you spend time with your relationships and family.
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• sriramk 15y ago
  I feel like all of us owe a big thanks to Jeff. It's hard to imagine writing any code these days without Stackoverflow. It definitely made the web better for me, and I suspect, any other developer out there.
  • danneu 15y ago
    Seriously. The best case scenario when I google an error is that a Stack Overflow link pops up. I wasn't big into coding when Experts Exchange was consistently #1, but I somehow stumbled into it regardless. I also can't stand mailing lists. Anyone involved in Stack Overflow should rest assured that they made the world a better place for a lot of people.
    • jtchang 15y ago
      The worse case scenario is when you see an experts exchange link. That's when I truly cringe and brace myself for the popups.
      • eru 15y ago
        You should get an adblocker and popup blocker. Unless that was hyperbole.
        • gravitronic 15y ago
          Have you ever visited expert's exchange? It's like the predecessor to StackExchange but you had to pay to get answers. Not even an adblocker and popup blocker would solve that problem.
          • bryanlarsen 15y ago
            For the last few years now you can just scrawl to the bottom to read the answer. They had to put that in otherwise Google wouldn't index them.
            • Spoom 15y ago
              Yes, but only if your referer indicates that you're coming from Google, otherwise you only get the offer to buy the answer, with no indication that it's available for free. Slimy. This is why I avoid ever linking to them, because anyone who is unfortunate enough to follow a link to EE gets a question with no answers.
• Kiro 15y ago
  The Stack Exchange podcast will not be the same without Jeff.
  • finnw 15y ago
    I will be surprised if it continues at all.
• georgieporgie 15y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this was uninteresting for the same reason that the Stack Exchange Podcast is uninteresting: it was just a guy talking about himself (SE Podcast occasionally has interesting shows, sooo much of it is just them ruminating about themselves, with a bunch of background racket). I didn't learn anything from this post, except that a Nerd Celebrity is leaving somewhere, with no technical information, no insight, nothing.
  • mountaineer 15y ago
    Exactly. Is he taking 6 months off to do nothing? How is he doing that? Did he cash out something during the last investment round? Retainer? Sell some SE stock? How's he paying the bills?
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    • CWIZO 15y ago
      What is this celebrity gossip channel?
      • mountaineer 15y ago
        I was just looking for a little more practical insight. If he's in the bay area, with a family, surely it takes significant personal capital to take a mini-retirement. PG has written before about startups being a compressed career, so I see Jeff executing that here and it's something in the back of my mind too as I toil away at day job and personal/startup projects.
    • solutionyogi 15y ago
      Knowing Jeff, he would have posted those details on his blog if he wanted to share them with everyone. If he hasn't, let's assume that he is not interested in discussing his financials and respect that choice. I am sure we will hear from him whenever he is back with his new adventure.
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• droz 15y ago
  I think this is the right move for Jeff. It's good to see someone with such a high profile, putting family (and life in general) over working.
• bryanh 15y ago
  Very few things have changed the face of programming as much as Stack Overflow did. I'm not sure that the Exchanges foray into other subjects will yield as successful products, but one can dream. For fun, I even did a quick look at my Chrome history for last month: only 2 days had my not visiting StackOverflow.com.
  • cruise02 15y ago
    I just checked by Stack Overflow profile. I've visited on 986 consecutive days. But then, I am a moderator, so I view it as a bit of an obligation. ;)
  • estel 15y ago
    Stack Overflow are even kind (cheeky) enough to provide a calendar on a user's profile showing the day they've visited (or not).
    • hopeless 15y ago
      Thanks, I never knew the calendar appeared by clicking on the visited value!
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• ORioN63 15y ago
  I can't believe they have been here for just four years... I would take centuries to debug if it weren't for stack overflow... I can only thank you for what you have done Jeff ;-).
• solutionyogi 15y ago
  Whenever I saw vBulletin used for programming questions (the most common option before SO), my heart ached. vBulletin may be good software for discussions, but it sucked as a programming Q&A site. I always wondered why we, programmers, do not have an amazing software to ask questions about our craft? Jeff gave us the answer in Stack Overflow and it was everything I would have hoped for. And then some. I love the fact that Stack Overflow (and sister sites) attracted experts in their field and following their answers, I learned a lot. Thank you Jeff and I wish you all the best for your next adventure. :)
  • cryptoz 15y ago
    > vBulletin may be good software for discussions, You know, I really think it's not. It may have been in the '90s, but the times have changed and it hasn't. Sites like HN and Reddit are much better software for discussions, but I'm sure these forms are just temporal as well.
    • ShardPhoenix 15y ago
      The Reddit/HN style is better when there are small number of most interesting or most correct replies, forums are better when there are a large number of valuable contributions. They're also better for long-running events and the ongoing discussion of broad topics. Basically, Reddit style is better for "New Star Trek Movie announced", forums are better for "Let's talk about Star Trek".
      • whichdan 15y ago
        I get where you're coming from, but I really don't think this is the case. I can churn through 400 reddit comments quickly, but 20 pages * 20 threads/page with [bulletin board software] is nothing short of a pain - not to mention the quote within a quote within a quote and tons of wasted space for avatars/signatures, which can only be disabled on some forums. I can see the benefit for long-running events (a reddit thread over the course of a few weeks would be hard to read chronologically) but I think there's a lot of room for improvement, much of which is probably up to the designers as much as the developers. Also, I think the barrier to entry in a 400 comment thread is largely different as well - with reddit, the issue is whether your comment will receive any visibility, whereas, IMO, in a [bulletin board] thread, catching up on 400 comments of discussion seems daunting and almost pointless.
• spjwebster 15y ago
  As a relatively recent parent myself (with another on the way) I can definitely relate to wanting to put family first. It's terribly cliché, but little people really do grow up quickly, and it's all too easy to assure yourself that next year is the year you'll slow down. Good luck Jeff, and thanks for heping to rescue us from experts exchange. P.S. Am I the only one that found the accidental relevancy of the post footer amusing? > [advertisement] What's your next career move? Stack Overflow Careers has the best job listings from great companies, whether you're looking for opportunities at a startup or Fortune 500. You can search our job listings or create a profile and let employers find you.
• Codhisattva 15y ago
  Thank you Jeff. Rock the future and I hope you find the balance that eludes too many of us.
• staunch 15y ago
  > It's been almost exactly 4 years Funny how often you read that in resignation posts. Four years is typically when one's shares become fully vested. At this point there's no way for him to make significantly more money from working at Stack Exchange. It's perfectly logical to quit now, to either 1. Relax (maximizing family happiness) or 2. Start a new company (maximizing economic opportunity). Considering how recently they pivoted into a VC-backed company it seems rather too soon for a co-founder to be jetting though. Wonder if Spolsky regrets backdating their vesting schedule (if that's what they did). Might be a bit of a cautionary tale for founders.
  • jfarmer 15y ago
    It's common to re-up soon-to-vest employees with additional options, especially founders.
  • yarone 15y ago
    From my personal experience, it's not just about vesting. It's about energy. For many folks, after 3-4 years, things just aren't the same. Jeff's baby is all grown up. He's poured his heart and soul into this thing. Time to catch his breath, refocus priorities, and move on to something new.
    • raganwald 15y ago
      Perhaps (I am speculating, not dictating) this is exactly why four-year vesting periods work. If a large chunk of people burn out or get bored after four years, a five year vesting period would create sullen, unproductive boat anchors. A three year period would have people jumping ship to found something new while they are still able to bring their prowess to bear growing the company. But after four years, both parties have maximized their gain from each other.
  • finnw 15y ago
    I've always been slightly surprised that founders accept vesting at all. What is to stop the VC from firing you the day before your options mature? Then you would effectively have worked for them for free for 2 years, and for a low salary for a year and 51 weeks after that, all at 70 hours a week. I would never give anyone the opportunity to do that to me.
• thechut 15y ago
  I never even knew of Jeff, but StackOverflow has helped me more than I can even begin to talk about. Everything from stupid questions about using Linux to valuable conversations that helped me understand $LANGUAGE in a different way.
• jxcole 15y ago
  I deeply respect Jeff's decision to put his family first. I have a general question though. I am an ordinary programmer at an ordinary job working ordinary hours. From those of you who have started their own project full time, is it impossible to run a start up and work ordinary hours? Or is it really necessary to sacrifice all other aspects of your life to be successful?
  • jayferd 15y ago
    I wish I knew the answer to that question. I know that most startups will ask you to sacrifice other aspects of your life, which I think is really unfortunate.
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  • tikhonj 15y ago
    I think the real problem isn't that you have to work long hours, it's that you get so involved in whatever you're doing that you end up working far longer than you planned.
  • ry0ohki 15y ago
    It's definitely possible to only clock in 8 hours at the office and be successful, but I know mentally the startup is with you 24/7 and that alone can be quite draining.
  • benmathes 15y ago
    Startups are marathons, not sprints; It's about making the right decisions most (if not all) of the time when building, hiring, marketing, etc. Fatigue and exhaustion mean bad decisions; There's plenty of research to back this up: http://likesbuildingthings.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-know-many-many-people-out-here-in.html http://likesbuildingthings.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-know-many-... People who are willing to take the risk of founding tend to be workaholics by nature, but you don't need to be a workaholic by nature to be a founder. It's bad for you longterm and it sets a poisonous precedent for your company culture.
• djtriptych 15y ago
  It's amazing how Steve Jobs affected this generation of technologists. I wish I could expand that sentiment beyond tweet-length without fear of starting a flame war, but I'll leave it there.
• TomGullen 15y ago
  I basically learnt how to code c# through stack overflow. An amazing resource that has given me and so many other people so much. It really has impacted a lot of peoples lives. I admire Jeff for getting his priorities right as well.
• ThomPete 15y ago
  There is much to be said about this. Personally the story is extra important as I am about to do probably the exact opposite. I am 38, have a son at 2 and a girlfriend. Co-founded a company in 2005 here in copenhagen and grew it to 60 people in 2008 and now around 30. March 1st I am out of there. I sold my shares in stable company and is going to New York and work with another company there. I will leave my son and GF back in cph and hopefully convince them to move with me later on. Until then its going to be 3 weeks out of every month in NY. It's not a rational choice it's certainly not a 100% a popular choice. But my take on this is a little different than Jeffs and that is perhaps because I still feel I have something to prove :) But I am thinking that even though I want to be around my son I also want to be more than a dad for my son. This I believe is going to be important especially when he grow older. Perhaps if I did a huge exit I would think differently, perhaps I am being selfish. But life is short and complicated and at least for now this seems to be the right thing to do all things taken into consideration.
  • vasco 15y ago
    I know this is highly subjective but I would think that every son would like for his father to be above all, a dad. I wouldn't give a fuck if you drove two mercedes instead of one or if you gave away a billion dollars to cancer research if you couldn't find the time to play LEGO with me. Just my opinion, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
    • ThomPete 15y ago
      Yeah I hear you.
    • krobertson 15y ago
      Especially at the age of 2. I have two boys, 4 and 2, and have spent the past 2 years with a 5 hour a day commute. It is not uncommon for the 4 yr old to ask if I can stay home in the morning. They care more about visibility and don't understand the connection between working hard for comfortable lifestyle yet. After 2 years of my crazy commute for a higher paycheck, the paycheck doesn't quite feel as justified.
• FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
  Stack Overflow has been brilliant not only for finding answers, but for encouraging people like me to contribute our own answers in return. I'd say it made me a better programmer.
• dazbradbury 15y ago
  I, and many others I'm sure, owe a huge thanks to Jeff. 99% of the time, searching an error message from a compiler/framework I'm less familiar with + "stackoverflow" yields a well written, well explained solution to the problem - this solves a huge problem with overcoming undocumented code, and corner cases. Not only that, but StackOverflow is often the de-facto place for a response to a technical problem of any kind. Heck, some companies even use it as a method for responding to queries about their product - one example I noticed the other day: http://blog.appharbor.com/2012/02/02/announcing-pricing http://blog.appharbor.com/2012/02/02/announcing-pricing This is a result of such a thriving community, which Jeff has made possible through StackOverflow. So I just want to say thank you, for advancing the pace of development on the web and beyond.
• jayferd 15y ago
  I love the ad for Stack Overflow Carreers at the bottom.
• yalestar 15y ago
  I followed the entire genesis of StackOverflow pretty closely via Jeff & Joel's blog posts and the first go 'round of the StackOverflow podcast. During that time, and to this day, I never ceased to be impressed by Jeff's committment to making the web a better place for programmers and the general public too. He never got mired in startup-speak; you never got the idea he was just in it to sell it, and even once they got some VC backing, you never got the idea he was planning to just sit back and collect the money. Just a no-BS guy in every regard. It's obvious to me that when Jeff does something, he does the shit out of it, and I can't imagine that parenting will be any different. We could use more people like him in every part of life.
• finnw 15y ago
  > Farewell Stack Exchange When I first saw the title I thought "Oh no, why is Stack Exchange closing down?" Maybe the title should be changed to the more accurate "Jeff Attwood quits Stack Exchange"
  • AznHisoka 15y ago
    I saw the heading after I read "Stack Overflow is out of space" so I got even more scared.
• jroseattle 15y ago
  Good call, Jeff. From someone who made a similar decision not so long ago, you've made a very good decision. As was explained to me with my own family: your job/company/career will never hug you back. I used to approach my career with the standpoint of figuring out how to manage my time to wrap my family into the schedule. Now I do the opposite -- I figure out how to manage my time to put my career around my family. Interesting thing I've found: I'm better now than I was before. Making a family investment decision, for me, has paid off in spades.
• elviejo 15y ago
  Why is Jeff retiring? Couldn't he simply semi-retire? work only 2 days a week and the rest of the time with his family? I think he was exhausted... maybe this books is worth a look: The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business That Works for YOU http://www.amazon.com/Big-Enough-Company-Creating-Business/dp/1591844215 http://www.amazon.com/Big-Enough-Company-Creating-Business/d...
• martincmartin 15y ago
  One day when I worked at Rockstar Games I was walking through the lobby and bumped into the technical director's wife and kid. I said "hi," and the wife was very apologetic, explaining that she knew their daughter couldn't see her father for yet another night in a row, but just wanted to spend 15 minutes with him. I just remember walking away thinking "I'll never be that kind of father." I left a few months later. Outside the games industry, though, the usual response when a company grows, and you can't give significant equity to new hires to justify crazy hours, is to change the company culture to have closer to 40 hours a week. Both ITA software (which PG mentioned in Great Hackers) and Endeca, two successful pre-liquidity-event companies when I joined, had normal working hours. Is that only true in Boston, or in SF too?
  • stuff4ben 15y ago
    >explaining that she knew their daughter couldn't see her father for yet another night in a row, but just wanted to spend 15 minutes with him. Dude, reading that just makes me want to cry. I may be an IT enterprise schmuck doing java development for the man, but at least I have a life outside of the 8-5. Man I have so much to be thankful for: a job that's 5 minutes away from where I live, pays me very well, and I can be home for lunch with my girls every day and home for dinner before 5:30. I'd love to have my own startup (hence the HN trolling) but not at the expense of my family. I guess the lifestyle-business/startup is where I'll end up eventually.
    • martincmartin 15y ago
      The crazy thing is, I've told this story on the phone when interviewing at startups, and I've had them say "oh, we work 60 hours a week here!" At that point, I say that's a deal breaker and wish them well.
      • hessenwolf 15y ago
        Yeah - I worked sixty hours per week at a start up; they got up only once in the twelve hour days for twenty minutes to get a sandwich, separately, for their desks. It's bollox, and certainly not more productive.
• nutanc 15y ago
  Hats off! Congrats on getting your priorities right. You have done your job, now teach your kids to do their jobs :)
• mathattack 15y ago
  Great call if his heart wasn't in it any more. You need to look forward to going to work and going home. Leave one out of balance and things fall apart. I am curious about the culture there. FogCreek seems very family friendly. Did it not bleed over?
• moconnor 15y ago
  Never, ever underestimate the ridiculous amount of time, energy and willpower you invest to raise children. Just because billions of other people do it doesn't mean it isn't the single most demsnding, time-consuming thing that will ever be asked of you. Perhaps you plan to outsource to a very understanding wife / girlfriend / grandparents, but if you want to do it yourself then bear this in mind: Jeff's was the only option on the table.
• epaga 15y ago
  "Success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure." I can already tell this post is an instant classic that I will return to many times in the coming years. I was left with almost exactly the same thoughts as he was after reading Jobs' biography - and kudos to him for following through. Seeing Jobs' life being lived at the expense of a meaningful relationship with his kids (especially his daughters), for me personally it made his Stanford speech about "following your heart" being the most important thing ring hollow. What happens when your heart values your job more than your kids? Is that just bad luck for your kids? Perhaps our own gut instinct is not the final authority we should follow. Maybe loving our kids is something that is more important than "succeeding" at our job, even during times in which we don't feel like it is.
  • ahoyhere 15y ago
    What's to say he didn't learn from his mistakes? I think that was the point of the speech. Sounds like he spent wayyyy more time with his "second round" of kids.
    • epaga 15y ago
      Actually, reading his biography, it didn't sound like that to me at all. "More time" as opposed to complete ignoring and acting like he wasn't the father, yes. But the reason he had the biography written was because he wanted his kids to be able to read why he had so little time for them and to get to know him a bit better that way. And those are his own words, as far as I recall.
• dbecker 15y ago
  I've always been amazed how the stackoverflow (and various other stackexchange communities) turned out so much better than the other communities on the internet. Jeff and the stackoverflow team have put together something really incredible. Congratulations... and thank you.
• mak120 15y ago
  I don't think the impact that stackexchange has had on the programming community is even well understood or appreciated yet. Still for many of us it is already hard to imagine a world without something like stackoverflow.com. It is a tool that we rely upon every day, not unlike Google. Thank you Jeff.
• hetaoblog 15y ago
  a big surprise!
• andrewkreid 15y ago
  My workplace recently upgraded all devs to a dual-monitor setup. Now when I walk around the office the most common thing I see is one monitor for the IDE and one for Stack Overflow in the browser.
• varkker 15y ago
  This exit is too convenient. Jeff left SE because Joel's a bit of an ass and Spolsky's focus is back at FogCreek with offerings like Trello. With VC cash drying up, Manhattan office space, and fifty employees that aren't exactly cheap. Jeff (to his credit) is exiting gracefully while he can. Kudos.
  • libria 15y ago
    Probably just coincidence, but the Microsoft Bizspark licenses he blogged about 3 years ago [1] are probably close to finished. 1) http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/stack-overflow-and-bizspark/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/stack-overflow-and-biz...
• tzury 15y ago
  Thanks is just a word, yet, all my apps, servers, desktops and smartphones, been well supported by stack exchange sites and community. With StackExchange, getting the correct answer is one post away, and that is a revolution! So I will use that word of "thanks" to express my gratefulness towards Jeff and Joel and all the community members(!), and want to wish Jeff the best of time with his kids. Thank you StackExchange!
• jc123 15y ago
  Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange have been wildly successful, but I finally realized that success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure. As others have said, thanks Jeff for all the lessons and time saved with Stack Overflow! Super happy for your success and hard to imagine how it could have worked better. Your twins are only months old, your son is less than 3, so your success affords you all the time with your family. Your success story is well balanced and positively enviable.
• chrislomax 15y ago
  Farewell Jeff! I wonder how many other people have had the epiphany since Steve died that no matter how much money or power you have, nothing can keep you alive? I say good luck to him and his reasons could not be more justified in my eyes.
• chj 15y ago
  Best wishes from a programmer addicted to stackoverflow.
• asksol 15y ago
  Who has the means to take 6 months at home with the kids, anyway? Even one month would be luxury for most... Is he telling me I'm failing my son?
• scrame 15y ago
  Good Job, Jeff! I routinely disagreed with your blog, and self-promotion -- but in the end -- you delivered a slick site and built a great community. It doesn't matter that I didn't like your opinions, or thought that Joel's column became pointlessly self-promoting. All those things thrive in the tech-blog-o-sphere, and there is no shortage of people with unpopular opinions, fanbases, or self-promoting start-ups. Instead, you guys did all those things, _and_ delivered a kick-ass tech Q&A site on _windows_ with a team of, what 4 people in the initial development? Anyway, congrats to a job well done! Take some time off, you've earned it!
• dev_Gabriel 15y ago
  Well, I just became addicted to Stack Overflow and for that I really owe big thanks you to Jeff: THANK YOU!
• cnunciato 15y ago
  The timing of these posts amazes me sometimes. I just turned down an opportunity to join an early stage startup (would've been employee #4, engineer #2, leading a team) that was uncommonly well backed, led by a seasoned founder, and tasked to build some truly bad-ass technology. I've always been drawn to startups, and this was indeed a rare one, unique in my experience so far, and particularly well suited to my sensibilities and to the direction I'd been wanting to go in my career. Closest thing to a perfect opportunity yet, to be sure. But it required some travel (half-dozen or so trips a year overseas, week or so each, give or take, probably more), and would've surely required longer hours than I work now (generally 40, sometimes less). We have two young boys (ages 1 and 2 1/2) and a third due in August. My wife, ever my champion, did nothing but encourage me to take it. But I couldn't do it. My dad traveled constantly while my sisters and I were growing up (still does, actually -- very successful, but physically and often mentally absent), and I've always promised myself I'd never make that mistake. It was by far the toughest professional decision I've ever had to make, was emotionally and physically draining (I lost much sleep over it, spanning several days), but ultimately right -- for me, anyway. Much as it might restrict me career-wise, I work to live, don't live to work, and I'm not willing to risk regretting lost time with my boys because of work I chose for myself over them. I can't imagine a future in which any of us would look back and say that was worth it. Many thanks indeed to you, Jeff -- you all did build something awesome. As my dad would say, Now go have fun.
• Wazzup12 15y ago
  Jeff, understand our point about prioritizing family over work, etc but clearly lots of people reading it but cannot afford to retire are going to end up sad and demoralized today :(
• jiggy2011 15y ago
  I'm a little surprised by this. I can understand Jeff wanting to "slow down" a bit and spend more time with his family etc but unless he has enough money to basically retire I can't see how his workload will reduce from not working on stack exchange. Stack exchange I believe is developed mostly by programmers working from home and there are enough of them and SE is well developed enough that I doubt it requires Jeff to be glued to his keyboard at all times so it would seem simple to reduce his hours at his current job. In many ways it is the ideal job for somebody with a family since he's working at home and he's already done the hard part. I imagine it's now more a process of making gradual improvements as the money comes in. I wonder what is next for Jeff, I can't see him taking a cubicle 9-5 with BigEnterpriseSoftwareCo and if he joins/starts another startup type business he's back to square 1 in terms of workload. Perhaps he will focus on his blog/writing more now? He doesn't seem to worried about the prospect of being unemployed with a growing family so he must have stockpiled a fair amount of cash.
• lrobb 15y ago
  Why not make SE a family-friendly company instead of just leaving? I'm guessing at this stage he has already lost control and can't influence that decision?
• tjbarbour 15y ago
  Which contribution is greater? Building the canonical Q/A engine or setting an example for tech professionals that family is #1? Thank you Jeff, I'm glad you shared some of your awesome with us!