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I always wonder why original founders just sell the company and do something else. Why don't they try to control it more and make sure it stays aligned with nee

I always wonder why original founders just sell the company and do something else. Why don't they try to control it more and make sure it stays aligned with needs of society more? Either they can't because of shareholder/equity owners pressure, or they won't, because they really don't care and just said it for PR

towawy 3y ago
…or they might have determined that they‘d rather spend their time on something else. Keeping control is a (mostly time) commitment and liability. You have to stay on top of things and actively decide on issues that inadvertently come up.
blihp 3y ago
Because despite claims to the contrary most of these sites/projects aren't created for altruistic reasons, they were created to make money (at some point). Cashing out is typically part of the long term plan. In the case of Stack Overflow, I think the reason for the data dumps was two-fold: one of the original founders (who left long ago) came across as at least idealistic and wanting to do the right thing. The other was pragmatic and most likely always thinking about the money angle. However, the other founder likely also saw the value of the data dumps from a PR standpoint which was quite valuable as they were initially trying to replace expertsexchange.com that paywalled most of the content. IIRC, they discussed the data dumps in the early days of their podcast. Now that there's big money to be made from machine learning (both the models and the data they are trained on), they've likely decided 'screw it' on the PR value of the data dumps and would rather get some of that sweet, sweet machine learning money.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Wow I read the text for that link you posted in a very different way than I intended.
  - jraph 3y ago
    It is a well known situation. The best thing is that I don't think it was intentional, contrary to other well-known "offenders". Experts Exchange was well known for showing up in search results but not providing the answers without paying. Many people hated it and wanted search engines to implement some sort of deny list to filter it out automatically.
  - blihp 3y ago
    Heh... yes, that was a popular joke at the time and one of many cautionary tales in picking a multi-word domain name.
- actuallyalys 3y ago
  The thing is, I sympathize with them not wanting machine learning companies to make money off the site’s content without any benefit to the contributors, moderators, or the site itself. I worry that gating access won’t really change that and just mean that the site owners also benefit at the expense of the community.
strictnein 3y ago
The original founders sold the site for $1.8 Billion.
- shagie 3y ago
  That was in 2021. https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-overflow/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-... Joel left in 2019 https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/1111267189133316097 https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/1111267189133316097 Jeff left in 2012 https://blog.codinghorror.com/farewell-stack-exchange/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/farewell-stack-exchange/ I'm not sure that it is fair to say that the original founders sold it for that amount.
  - firesteelrain 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - jraph 3y ago
      I didn't know, what can I read about this?
      - firesteelrain 3y ago
        https://hub.packtpub.com/developers-dont-belong-on-a-pedestal-theyre-doing-a-job-like-everyone-else-april-wensel-on-toxic-tech-culture-and-compassionate-coding-interview/ https://hub.packtpub.com/developers-dont-belong-on-a-pedesta...
        abeyer 3y ago
        What? How do you justify declaring a person as a whole "super toxic" with only a link to an interview citing a link to a blog post including "Things like… hyper-competition… an over focus on aggressive competition… things like zero sum thinking" when: * the post is about interviewing which mostly is, for better or worse, a competitive zero-sum process. * the post is more than a decade old (then, more like two now.) * the post is written by someone else. I have no opinion on the guy one way or the other, and he may in fact be toxic, but that's hardly compelling evidence.
jzb 3y ago
I certainly wonder about the "do something else" in the sense of serial entrepreneurs. If I could cash in once I'd be done. If I had enough money to retire on, I would. Run a cat shelter or something. But the actual answer here is probably a combo of a few things: One, running a company is probably not as much fun as building a company. Much of my career has been "pioneer" roles where nobody else has done the job before. At a certain point, the foundation is laid and the problems to solve are different and often less interesting -- at least to me. It's the build vs. maintain thing. Two, they started with good and noble intentions. Money got involved. A lot of money got involved. The noble intentions were replaced with reality. Three, have you met users? As a site grows you have to deal with more and more people and people can be very demanding and not very appreciative. Coupled with the previous factors, I think original founders get burnt out and decide to take the cash and move on. The allure of building anew is too much, the grind of maintenance is too much, and the cash is too good to pass up. Also four... there's a peak for any site. You often don't know when or how, but you do now that someday your site's maximum value, interest, participation, and all that is going to peak and then decline. Sticking around to fight the good fight may just mean passing up a payday and being left with a declining property nobody wants anymore.
- Sakos 3y ago
  And yet you get people like Zuckerberg who'll stick around until the end. It's not like he cares about users or connecting people beyond them being a means to grow the company. Yet he saw through the company from its founding to the gigantic megacorp it is now, and it doesn't seem like hell ever want to quit. Why didn't he quit? It's not like his users are any more appreciative and he's far from beloved by anybody.
  - xu_ituairo 3y ago
    Maybe it’s because he can stay in pioneer mode, doing new things like Libra, VR etc. Maybe in some businesses pioneering is less likely (by nature, or the corporate culture) like Stack Overflow making inroads into crypto or VR or AI.
  - bombcar 3y ago
Diesel555 3y ago
> Either they can't because of shareholder/equity owners pressure, or they won't, because they really don't care and just said it for PR That is assuming the worst in people. Have you ever wanted to move onto something new? If you make something cool, it is not your lifelong obligation to oversee it.
sgjohnson 3y ago
> I always wonder why original founders just sell the company and do something else. They typically have millions of reasons. Sometimes billions.

towawy 3y ago

…or they might have determined that they‘d rather spend their time on something else. Keeping control is a (mostly time) commitment and liability. You have to stay on top of things and actively decide on issues that inadvertently come up.

blihp 3y ago

Because despite claims to the contrary most of these sites/projects aren't created for altruistic reasons, they were created to make money (at some point). Cashing out is typically part of the long term plan. In the case of Stack Overflow, I think the reason for the data dumps was two-fold: one of the original founders (who left long ago) came across as at least idealistic and wanting to do the right thing. The other was pragmatic and most likely always thinking about the money angle. However, the other founder likely also saw the value of the data dumps from a PR standpoint which was quite valuable as they were initially trying to replace expertsexchange.com that paywalled most of the content. IIRC, they discussed the data dumps in the early days of their podcast. Now that there's big money to be made from machine learning (both the models and the data they are trained on), they've likely decided 'screw it' on the PR value of the data dumps and would rather get some of that sweet, sweet machine learning money.

lotsoweiners 3y ago
Wow I read the text for that link you posted in a very different way than I intended.
- jraph 3y ago
  It is a well known situation. The best thing is that I don't think it was intentional, contrary to other well-known "offenders". Experts Exchange was well known for showing up in search results but not providing the answers without paying. Many people hated it and wanted search engines to implement some sort of deny list to filter it out automatically.
- blihp 3y ago
  Heh... yes, that was a popular joke at the time and one of many cautionary tales in picking a multi-word domain name.
actuallyalys 3y ago
The thing is, I sympathize with them not wanting machine learning companies to make money off the site’s content without any benefit to the contributors, moderators, or the site itself. I worry that gating access won’t really change that and just mean that the site owners also benefit at the expense of the community.

strictnein 3y ago

The original founders sold the site for $1.8 Billion.

shagie 3y ago
That was in 2021. https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-overflow/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-... Joel left in 2019 https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/1111267189133316097 https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/1111267189133316097 Jeff left in 2012 https://blog.codinghorror.com/farewell-stack-exchange/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/farewell-stack-exchange/ I'm not sure that it is fair to say that the original founders sold it for that amount.
- firesteelrain 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jraph 3y ago
    I didn't know, what can I read about this?
    - firesteelrain 3y ago
      https://hub.packtpub.com/developers-dont-belong-on-a-pedestal-theyre-doing-a-job-like-everyone-else-april-wensel-on-toxic-tech-culture-and-compassionate-coding-interview/ https://hub.packtpub.com/developers-dont-belong-on-a-pedesta...
      - abeyer 3y ago
        What? How do you justify declaring a person as a whole "super toxic" with only a link to an interview citing a link to a blog post including "Things like… hyper-competition… an over focus on aggressive competition… things like zero sum thinking" when: * the post is about interviewing which mostly is, for better or worse, a competitive zero-sum process. * the post is more than a decade old (then, more like two now.) * the post is written by someone else. I have no opinion on the guy one way or the other, and he may in fact be toxic, but that's hardly compelling evidence.

jzb 3y ago

I certainly wonder about the "do something else" in the sense of serial entrepreneurs. If I could cash in once I'd be done. If I had enough money to retire on, I would. Run a cat shelter or something. But the actual answer here is probably a combo of a few things: One, running a company is probably not as much fun as building a company. Much of my career has been "pioneer" roles where nobody else has done the job before. At a certain point, the foundation is laid and the problems to solve are different and often less interesting -- at least to me. It's the build vs. maintain thing. Two, they started with good and noble intentions. Money got involved. A lot of money got involved. The noble intentions were replaced with reality. Three, have you met users? As a site grows you have to deal with more and more people and people can be very demanding and not very appreciative. Coupled with the previous factors, I think original founders get burnt out and decide to take the cash and move on. The allure of building anew is too much, the grind of maintenance is too much, and the cash is too good to pass up. Also four... there's a peak for any site. You often don't know when or how, but you do now that someday your site's maximum value, interest, participation, and all that is going to peak and then decline. Sticking around to fight the good fight may just mean passing up a payday and being left with a declining property nobody wants anymore.

Sakos 3y ago
And yet you get people like Zuckerberg who'll stick around until the end. It's not like he cares about users or connecting people beyond them being a means to grow the company. Yet he saw through the company from its founding to the gigantic megacorp it is now, and it doesn't seem like hell ever want to quit. Why didn't he quit? It's not like his users are any more appreciative and he's far from beloved by anybody.
- xu_ituairo 3y ago
  Maybe it’s because he can stay in pioneer mode, doing new things like Libra, VR etc. Maybe in some businesses pioneering is less likely (by nature, or the corporate culture) like Stack Overflow making inroads into crypto or VR or AI.
- bombcar 3y ago

Diesel555 3y ago

> Either they can't because of shareholder/equity owners pressure, or they won't, because they really don't care and just said it for PR That is assuming the worst in people. Have you ever wanted to move onto something new? If you make something cool, it is not your lifelong obligation to oversee it.

sgjohnson 3y ago

> I always wonder why original founders just sell the company and do something else. They typically have millions of reasons. Sometimes billions.