5 ms·

A VC-backed pip-and-more doesn't make sense to me. It's 2024: what's the revenue model when the free money printer's on the fritz?

dj_gitmo 3y ago
That was one of my first questions, but Anaconda exists https://www.anaconda.com/download/ https://www.anaconda.com/download/ Python is used by loads of scientists, academics, and other non software engineers. Those people need an easy way to use python.
- nateglims 3y ago
  I knew they sold something, but I am amazed to learn they have 300 employees.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Anaconda is very big in corporate envs. If you want to have a platform that allow to manage Python on all machines, including allowed packages and version, integrated with ldap, with auditing capabilities, they are pretty much the only game in town. And big companies want that.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      I agree. Real question: Why didn't ActiveState (ActivePython) win this battle? In my corporate experience, they are invisible.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        They were quite big in the 2000, on my bubble they faded away as .NET and Java with their IDEs came into the picture, alongside Tcl, Perl and Python improving their Windows support story. They were never big outside Windows shops.
      - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
        Because Continum had a loss leader with anaconda that, in 2010, was solving a ton of packaging problems. Today I would say anaconda brings more problems than it solves (https://www.bitecode.dev/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use https://www.bitecode.dev/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use), but at the time, we didn't have wheels for everything, and it was a life saver for anybody that wanted to use c extensions. So anaconda became first popular because it solved a real end user problem, then it moved on to be the corporation providers because it already was well known. It was a very good strategy.
        aragilar 3y ago
        The issue is there's c extensions, and there's c extensions. Something like cryptography is self-contained (kinda, we're sweeping a lot under the carpet with rust here), whereas something like pytorch cares much more about what environment it was built in and will run in (and then there's things like mpi4py, which you can't really distribute wheels for on PyPI). conda, by basically distributing a full userland (which has its own issues), can handle all those packages, and even more hairy ones (e.g. how would you manage the R packages you use for r2py), and because it runs on Windows (similar solutions before and after conda were tied to, or at least started with, unix-based systems), it replaced the less general ones on Windows which usually only supported a limited number of packages (e.g. ActivePython, Enthought). PyPI distributed wheels (you can obviously build wheels however you like, but that doesn't mean they'll run on others' systems) may at some point get close to what conda does (likely by reinventing it in an ad-hoc fashion), but there's enough mindshare (especially around its target of "data science", where all the tutorials are around using conda) that I don't see it disappearing.
    - ivirshup 3y ago
      Even bigger now that their distribution is integrated in Excel[1] [1]: https://www.anaconda.com/blog/announcing-python-in-excel-next-level-data-analysis-for-all https://www.anaconda.com/blog/announcing-python-in-excel-nex...
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    Why they need so much employees?
pininja 3y ago
NPM comes to mind. I’m imagining private package management and team support https://www.npmjs.com/products https://www.npmjs.com/products
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  NPM’s got Microsoft/GitHub behind it. I doubt those features bring in any serious money, given the abundance of free alternatives.
- jitl 3y ago
  NPM did not go well, and selling to Microsoft happened after the team there fell apart. In my view some of that is leadership issues, and some of that is pressure from a struggling business.
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  npm, Inc. was an unsuccessful business that got acquired for a pittance because MS can afford to throw away a few million dollars in case it turns out that having control over npm is useful. The team working on it isn't very large but I'd still be surprised if it's actually operating at a profit.
LtWorf 3y ago
I'm curious to see what the pydantic start up will do.
lacker 3y ago
Sell build-related services to companies. Imagine GitHub Actions, but it's cleanly built into your Python tooling in some reasonable way, so it's just the natural thing to use. I think it's pretty straightforward, although we'll see whether it works out for them.
mixmastamyk 3y ago
I read their about page and it seems they want to make Python dev more productive. Maybe they have a lot of projects using it and are tired of the tooling/packaging BS. I could definitely see someone making billions allocate under 1% of it towards fixing that. Improving Python is especially cheap compared to the productivity that could be unleashed. Surprised it isn't done more often. Only microsoft has shown significant interest, which is a shame. Perhaps changing.

dj_gitmo 3y ago

That was one of my first questions, but Anaconda exists https://www.anaconda.com/download/ https://www.anaconda.com/download/ Python is used by loads of scientists, academics, and other non software engineers. Those people need an easy way to use python.

nateglims 3y ago
I knew they sold something, but I am amazed to learn they have 300 employees.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Anaconda is very big in corporate envs. If you want to have a platform that allow to manage Python on all machines, including allowed packages and version, integrated with ldap, with auditing capabilities, they are pretty much the only game in town. And big companies want that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    I agree. Real question: Why didn't ActiveState (ActivePython) win this battle? In my corporate experience, they are invisible.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      They were quite big in the 2000, on my bubble they faded away as .NET and Java with their IDEs came into the picture, alongside Tcl, Perl and Python improving their Windows support story. They were never big outside Windows shops.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Because Continum had a loss leader with anaconda that, in 2010, was solving a ton of packaging problems. Today I would say anaconda brings more problems than it solves (https://www.bitecode.dev/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use https://www.bitecode.dev/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use), but at the time, we didn't have wheels for everything, and it was a life saver for anybody that wanted to use c extensions. So anaconda became first popular because it solved a real end user problem, then it moved on to be the corporation providers because it already was well known. It was a very good strategy.
      - aragilar 3y ago
        The issue is there's c extensions, and there's c extensions. Something like cryptography is self-contained (kinda, we're sweeping a lot under the carpet with rust here), whereas something like pytorch cares much more about what environment it was built in and will run in (and then there's things like mpi4py, which you can't really distribute wheels for on PyPI). conda, by basically distributing a full userland (which has its own issues), can handle all those packages, and even more hairy ones (e.g. how would you manage the R packages you use for r2py), and because it runs on Windows (similar solutions before and after conda were tied to, or at least started with, unix-based systems), it replaced the less general ones on Windows which usually only supported a limited number of packages (e.g. ActivePython, Enthought). PyPI distributed wheels (you can obviously build wheels however you like, but that doesn't mean they'll run on others' systems) may at some point get close to what conda does (likely by reinventing it in an ad-hoc fashion), but there's enough mindshare (especially around its target of "data science", where all the tutorials are around using conda) that I don't see it disappearing.
  - ivirshup 3y ago
    Even bigger now that their distribution is integrated in Excel[1] [1]: https://www.anaconda.com/blog/announcing-python-in-excel-next-level-data-analysis-for-all https://www.anaconda.com/blog/announcing-python-in-excel-nex...
- lobocinza 3y ago
  Why they need so much employees?

pininja 3y ago

NPM comes to mind. I’m imagining private package management and team support https://www.npmjs.com/products https://www.npmjs.com/products

Kwpolska 3y ago
NPM’s got Microsoft/GitHub behind it. I doubt those features bring in any serious money, given the abundance of free alternatives.
jitl 3y ago
NPM did not go well, and selling to Microsoft happened after the team there fell apart. In my view some of that is leadership issues, and some of that is pressure from a struggling business.
plorkyeran 3y ago
npm, Inc. was an unsuccessful business that got acquired for a pittance because MS can afford to throw away a few million dollars in case it turns out that having control over npm is useful. The team working on it isn't very large but I'd still be surprised if it's actually operating at a profit.

LtWorf 3y ago

I'm curious to see what the pydantic start up will do.

lacker 3y ago

Sell build-related services to companies. Imagine GitHub Actions, but it's cleanly built into your Python tooling in some reasonable way, so it's just the natural thing to use. I think it's pretty straightforward, although we'll see whether it works out for them.

mixmastamyk 3y ago

I read their about page and it seems they want to make Python dev more productive. Maybe they have a lot of projects using it and are tired of the tooling/packaging BS. I could definitely see someone making billions allocate under 1% of it towards fixing that. Improving Python is especially cheap compared to the productivity that could be unleashed. Surprised it isn't done more often. Only microsoft has shown significant interest, which is a shame. Perhaps changing.