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Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

268 points by couchand 12y ago

jonhmchan 12y ago
Also on Joel on Software: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html
- psp 12y ago
  > ...buried in thousands of pages of stale forums. Now this, my friends, is one of the major problems of stackoverflow today!
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    Except you don't have to browse to page four of a giant thread to find out a posted solution doesn't work, and you can update an old answer when the information becomes outdated, etc.
    - psp 12y ago
      Stale is stale wherever you put it - page four or on top. Technology moves so fast that that responses from 2009 to HTML/JS question should be just ignored no matter how green the accepted checkmark.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        Other than "can I use <new API>" style questions, the vast majority of 2009 HTML/JS answers are still entirely valid. Again, though, you're missing the point. On StackOverflow, a stale answer can be fixed, by virtually anyone. On traditional vBulletin-style forums, the post saying "this isn't true anymore, there's a better way" might be buried hundreds of posts in.
      - orbitur 12y ago
        I agree with you to an extent, and this is especially true for iOS stuff where there's a lot of API/platform churn, and sometimes the same issue or bug pops up twice with a few years between. I often land on a question that I'm asking, and it has a lot of upvotes, but it was answered 3 years ago using deprecated APIs.
      - ciupicri 12y ago
        If the API has really changed that much you can ask another similar question mentioning that you're interested in the new stuff, not the old one from the previous question.
      - danielweber 12y ago
        I love old questions and answers, because if I have to rebuild something that was built in 2009, I want to see what people were saying in 2009.
noblethrasher 12y ago
Congratulations, and (more importantly) thanks.
- jaydles 12y ago
  Kind of you, but the real credit goes to all the people who donate their time and knowledge to help others. We (I work at SE) are incredibly excited to be able to use this investment to do even more for them.
  - vorg 12y ago
    Credit also goes to the promoters of programming languages with bugs and bad documentation. Some of them use Stack Overflow in lieu of providing their own reliable issue tracking hosting; some even actively increase tags on SO for their own language to help along programming language ranking systems. Some of these promoters even lose their own investment, which may even have been redirected to SE in the same boardroom discussion somewhere.
rattray 12y ago
One interesting nugget: more than half of the 200+ employees at Stack Exchange are working on StackOverflow Careers. Has anyone used SO Careers? Opinions?
- thejosh 12y ago
  Interesting, which is why the blog post above went on about the careers side of things. I'm sure $40 million would help to push out their Q&A side of things, but looks like they want to spend it on the careers side of things? I hope they get back those 100,000+ job postings :P.
  - ajones 12y ago
    Their careers business has the opportunity to be a revenue generator for the company. The starting cost for a job listing is $495 per 30 days and goes up to $1499 per 30 days. In my opinion, the profiles on Stack Overflow careers allow developers to present themselves much better than many other career sites. http://careers.stackoverflow.com/products/listings http://careers.stackoverflow.com/products/listings
    - mandlar 12y ago
      $495? Wasn't it just about $350 not too long ago?
      - ascordato 12y ago
        We changed prices in December. Market conditions right now are tough; we’re seeing more frequently that it’s unrealistic to expect to hire a developer in 30 days given that for every developer there are 4-5 jobs. We’re optimizing our products and pricing to encourage customers to allow listings to run a longer on the site. To make this feel like the right decision for our customers, we’re significantly discounting our 60 and 90 day listings. That said, if you’ve been using Stack Overflow Careers for a while and want to keep buying 30-day job listings for $350, that’s fine too. (I'm on the marketing team, btw)
- 12y ago
wbeange 12y ago
more investment = more traffic = more reputation for me :)
- AtmaScout 12y ago
  More reputation for everyone which keeps everyone at the same level as they were. But the investment is awesome nonetheless. :)
Alupis 12y ago
> The Series D round, which also had participation from existing investors ... Bezos Expeditions, ... Is there anything Bezos doesn't have his hands in? (I mean it in both a good and bad way)
psp 12y ago
Your question has been closed as off topic.
taksintik 12y ago
Stack Exchange should spinoff a teaching/bootcamp division to tap the education market.
- jonhmchan 12y ago
  Similar has certainly crossed some of our minds (I'm a dev at SE)
gortok 12y ago
Unfortunately, Tech Crunch labels Stack Exchange as a 'forum'. It's not. A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material finding it. Or even worse: http://xkcd.com/979/ http://xkcd.com/979/ Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find the answer you're looking for. In short, while Forums and Stack Exchange are avenues to convey information, SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not. (I'm a moderator on Stack Overflow).
- sklivvz1971 12y ago
  Every time Stack Overflow is called a forum a moderator gets an eyetwitch.
- Shog9 12y ago
  There are multiple definitions for forum. The standard Internet definition is indeed "hang out, post lots of BS, troll newbs" - but the broader definition is simply "a venue for exchanging ideas", and SE certainly fits that. We don't like to call it a forum, precisely because it brings to mind the former. But the latter (older) definition is perfectly applicable. (I'm an employee of Stack Exchange, working in the "annoy gortok with pedantry" department)
- ProAm 12y ago
  > SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not. SE is trying to create create technical manuals one extremely directed question and one specific answer at a time. There is nothing wrong with discussion around questions or topics, especially if it helps to clarify anything being discussed. It seems like the moderators think there is only one way to ask or question a topic, whereas in reality people learn in different ways. Having multiple discussion points is helpful, the cream will rise to the top with votes. Duplicates shouldn't be closed either, there is value in seeing the same question answered in a different manner especially when both answers are correct. SO and SE has gotten so bad it's my last resort these days, I turn to Reddit before asking questions there and that is embarrassing to say.
psp 12y ago
Your post has been closed as it does not describe a real problem but is instead suspect to opinions.
mathattack 12y ago
"Spolsky says that two-thirds of its revenues today come from recruitment services, via its Stack Overflow Careers site, and one-third from advertising." I found this very interesting. Stack Exchange is an insanely useful service, but I struggled to figure out how they would monetize it. (Similar to Wikipedia) They're received enough money that exit valuation expectations are high. I guess the cash flow projections from these are enough.
- danielweber 12y ago
  I worry about exit strategies. Stack Overflow was supposed to be "programming-question forum, done right." We've seen a lot of old people come through with the strategy of "build up critical mass of questions+answers, then enact paywall." I'll probably always be skeptical that SO is just about to become ruined, unless they explicitly move it into a long-term strategy where the careers board is all they want for revenue.
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    You probably didn't follow the early years. I just can't ever see them taking the site-with-a-dash's monetization strategy. It's exactly why they made it in the first place, they repeatedly rubbished expert's exchange in the podcasts and even went so far as to creative commons the content, you can download all the questions and answers if you want.
  - Shog9 12y ago
    Good discussion of that here: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-overflows-business-model http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-... (includes an answer from... a guy behind one of those paywall sites). Worth keeping in mind that, because everything contributed is licensed to us via CC-BY-SA, we essentially have to compete against our own content - if we make the user experience awful, there are plenty of other sites willing to take the same information and present it better.
    - danielweber 12y ago
troymc 12y ago
I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?
- cheald 12y ago
  Can you provide examples of some of those questions? Usually when I encounter that, it's been closed as a duplicate with a link to the original.
  - arfliw 12y ago
    Going to be hard to reproduce that bug since they are totally random long tail questions, but I have it happen a lot too FWIW.
    - orbitur 12y ago
      My experience with StackOverflow is that the long-tail questions are still open 2 years later, but lacking any answers.
      - Kalium 12y ago
        Moreover, you'll stumble across them as you search for your own answers.
  - gdw2 12y ago
    When searching for the best tool for the job, I often get pointed to SE and the questions are closed as "not constructive". I seem to recall, however, that they opened a separate site for such discussions?
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      "Best tool for the job" doesn't sound like something that should be on SO. Far too subjective and likely to result in stupid opinionated arguments that go nowhere.
argc 12y ago
Doesn't surprise me considering how much I use Stack Overflow. I also have a lot of respect for Joel--I don't actually know much about him but from his blog posts he seems like a very decent guy.
- jaydles 12y ago
  He's my boss, so I'm super biased, but I can still share a primary-source perspective. I knew him for years before working here, and would say that both as a manager and a general human being, he's one of the genuinely best people I've ever known. From when he started Fogcreek, his and Michael's whole philosophy was to create an environment and mission that makes smart people actually love working there, and then get the hell out of their way. Here at SE, we've grown a ton since I've been here, but I can tell you our exec team spends a lot of time discussing how to ensure we maintain an environment where employees are actually excited to work. (I know that sounds goofy/cheesy/like BS, but talk to any of our devs or other employees; I think you'll find that just about all of us take great pride in what we do.)
  - mackwic 12y ago
    As a startup entrepreneur which don't doubt about success and growth -- how could I ? ;) -- I am very interested in the work invested by the whole team in a sane and enjoyable workspace. What are the trade-offs ? I always feel like only the exceptional rich companies can sustain such high standard of living, the same rich which will respond that it's the only way for keeping an healthy work in the end. Seems like a never ending chicken and egg problem that I don't have time to solve, I have hard deadlines to manage... (it's slightly exaggerated, of course, but you got the picture)
dummyfellow 12y ago
what valuation did they get?
hyp0 12y ago
What will they use the money for? If they're not expanding, and are profitable (and so don't need to cover running costs), I can only guess at retiring founder debt.
- SurfScore 12y ago
  They said they aren't profitable, they're hiring too quickly for that. They're using the money to hire quicker, just like most other people use investment for.
- mhartl 12y ago
  They're expanding. It's a land grab, so gaining market share is more important than profitability. Spolsky wrote about it here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html
jlward4th 12y ago
So what does that value each reputation point at?
colinodell 12y ago
I sometimes stumble upon old answers I posted to questions I currently have - is that a bad or good thing?
- teh_klev 12y ago
  I see that as a good thing. I've bookmarked a fair few of my own answers to questions about programmatic management of IIS and .NET obscuria.
joelthelion 12y ago
What are they going to use that money for?
- bluedino 12y ago
  Good question - they obviously don't need to buy a bunch of hardware or something.
stevebot 12y ago
I use every bit of StackExchange and have for a few years....except for meta I use multiple stack exchange sites and even chat and have found it all useful...except for meta In the few times I have posted to meta, I get downvoted into oblivion. So far, the vibe I get from meta, is that there is an in-crowd with a certain philosophy and if it isn't yours get the fuck out or we will downvote you and pick apart your every word. It makes me wonder...as a help forum what the hell is meta really for? Also congrats to SE, glad to see them get this funding...but please wtf is meta?
programminggeek 12y ago
I have basically zero imagination about big dollar numbers, but I just don't see what they are going to do with $40,000,000 that would generate more than $40,000,000 in value. Without that context, I have no way of seeing this as anything other than a "bubble" investment, even in a pretty awesome product/team.
- mackwic 12y ago
  It's easier than emit obligation on the market, I guess. See it as a long-term shot. No doubt that 40M in recruitment will pay if the SO team continue to be half as good as they seems to be today (which is one of the challenges).
- tim333 12y ago
  They are hiring lots of people to provide new features and keep growing. To add $40m value you've got to add of the order of 4m users which seems quite doable.
DigitalSea 12y ago
StackOverflow has saved my bacon more than a few times, so good for Joel and the gang, they provided an invaluable service to the development community. However, I feel like StackExchange needs to get its priorities into check. Unbeknown to some, there are tonnes of StackExchange Q&A sites. Picked on Area 51 and then voted up by the community. Many start with good intentions, but lose steam and never make it to a fully-fledged Q&A site because they didn't meet the minimum requirements (the Startups StackExchange is a good example of this). There is literally a StackExchange site for every single niche; cooking, scepticism, music, science fiction, mathematics, database administration, Apple products, web services, Wordpress and tonnes more. You have to ask yourself, are a lot of these individual Q&A sites simply using unnecessary server resources when they're probably being carried and offset by StackOverflow's advertising revenue? I would love to see StackExchange go down the path of focusing on programmers more than I would cooking or mathematics. I contribute to a lot of individual StackExchange sites, mostly the Wordpress one. Reading the about page seems to highlight that not even StackExchange themselves know what they want to be or the fact they target a wide range of niches. Stack Exchange is the largest network of websites for software developers including Stack Overflow, the pre-eminent destination site for programmers to find, ask, and answer their questions. This statement seems to indicate they focus on catering to developers, but going through the list of over 100 StackExchange Q&A sites yields sites for niches like; marketing, mathematics, cooking, science fiction, gaming, DIY, Apple software/hardware, electrical engineering and tonnes more. I would say a few sites relate to programming, but many do not. Then there is the issue of overzealous moderators (mostly on StackOverflow). How many times have you Googled a problem, SO comes up as the first result, you click it and the question has a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand upvotes and it has been closed? Happens to me quite a lot. I see questions being closed as duplicates when they're in fact not duplicates and were closed because the mod simply lacked the understanding of what was being asked. Questions closely related to a duplicate often get closed as a duplicate and once a question has been "moderated" it rarely ever gets re-opened. The issue is in part with the points/badges system. You have an imbalance of power. It is virtually impossible for a new user to get high enough to make even a subtle difference to SO. Those at the top want to keep their spot, unfortunately many of the moderators are a little too click happy. Instead of the site feeling like a community moderated website, you have these select few power users telling us what is right or wrong (especially evident by the fact of high ranking Google results leading to closed questions). Things have been broken for a very long time on SO and I hope the investment means they can try and address the problems (which they must be aware of). Don't get me wrong, StackExchange have provided a beyond invaluable service, but the arrogance, overzealous moderators and often confusing policies/rules around the kind of questions you can ask/how you can ask them really deters me from participating. My involvement with SO these days is read only, because I don't want to get dragged into all of the politics of the site and the power users who control it. Seems to me this could be a problem for SO in the future if people like myself are deterred from answering because they don't feel like their contribution will be accepted or will be heavily criticised.
jonstewart 12y ago
I live in fear that StackExchange will not turn out to be a viable business and will eventually die off. Many times SO has saved me when all other hope was lost. It really needs a billionaire playboy type to be its patron.
sidcool 12y ago
I never new Andreseen Horowitz is also called A16Z. It's like I18N

268 points by couchand 12y ago

Also on Joel on Software: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html

psp 12y ago
> ...buried in thousands of pages of stale forums. Now this, my friends, is one of the major problems of stackoverflow today!
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  Except you don't have to browse to page four of a giant thread to find out a posted solution doesn't work, and you can update an old answer when the information becomes outdated, etc.
  - psp 12y ago
    Stale is stale wherever you put it - page four or on top. Technology moves so fast that that responses from 2009 to HTML/JS question should be just ignored no matter how green the accepted checkmark.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      Other than "can I use <new API>" style questions, the vast majority of 2009 HTML/JS answers are still entirely valid. Again, though, you're missing the point. On StackOverflow, a stale answer can be fixed, by virtually anyone. On traditional vBulletin-style forums, the post saying "this isn't true anymore, there's a better way" might be buried hundreds of posts in.
    - orbitur 12y ago
      I agree with you to an extent, and this is especially true for iOS stuff where there's a lot of API/platform churn, and sometimes the same issue or bug pops up twice with a few years between. I often land on a question that I'm asking, and it has a lot of upvotes, but it was answered 3 years ago using deprecated APIs.
    - ciupicri 12y ago
      If the API has really changed that much you can ask another similar question mentioning that you're interested in the new stuff, not the old one from the previous question.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      I love old questions and answers, because if I have to rebuild something that was built in 2009, I want to see what people were saying in 2009.

noblethrasher 12y ago

Congratulations, and (more importantly) thanks.

jaydles 12y ago
Kind of you, but the real credit goes to all the people who donate their time and knowledge to help others. We (I work at SE) are incredibly excited to be able to use this investment to do even more for them.
- vorg 12y ago
  Credit also goes to the promoters of programming languages with bugs and bad documentation. Some of them use Stack Overflow in lieu of providing their own reliable issue tracking hosting; some even actively increase tags on SO for their own language to help along programming language ranking systems. Some of these promoters even lose their own investment, which may even have been redirected to SE in the same boardroom discussion somewhere.

rattray 12y ago

One interesting nugget: more than half of the 200+ employees at Stack Exchange are working on StackOverflow Careers. Has anyone used SO Careers? Opinions?

thejosh 12y ago
Interesting, which is why the blog post above went on about the careers side of things. I'm sure $40 million would help to push out their Q&A side of things, but looks like they want to spend it on the careers side of things? I hope they get back those 100,000+ job postings :P.
- ajones 12y ago
  Their careers business has the opportunity to be a revenue generator for the company. The starting cost for a job listing is $495 per 30 days and goes up to $1499 per 30 days. In my opinion, the profiles on Stack Overflow careers allow developers to present themselves much better than many other career sites. http://careers.stackoverflow.com/products/listings http://careers.stackoverflow.com/products/listings
  - mandlar 12y ago
    $495? Wasn't it just about $350 not too long ago?
    - ascordato 12y ago
      We changed prices in December. Market conditions right now are tough; we’re seeing more frequently that it’s unrealistic to expect to hire a developer in 30 days given that for every developer there are 4-5 jobs. We’re optimizing our products and pricing to encourage customers to allow listings to run a longer on the site. To make this feel like the right decision for our customers, we’re significantly discounting our 60 and 90 day listings. That said, if you’ve been using Stack Overflow Careers for a while and want to keep buying 30-day job listings for $350, that’s fine too. (I'm on the marketing team, btw)
12y ago

wbeange 12y ago

more investment = more traffic = more reputation for me :)

AtmaScout 12y ago
More reputation for everyone which keeps everyone at the same level as they were. But the investment is awesome nonetheless. :)

Alupis 12y ago

> The Series D round, which also had participation from existing investors ... Bezos Expeditions, ... Is there anything Bezos doesn't have his hands in? (I mean it in both a good and bad way)

psp 12y ago

Your question has been closed as off topic.

taksintik 12y ago

Stack Exchange should spinoff a teaching/bootcamp division to tap the education market.

jonhmchan 12y ago
Similar has certainly crossed some of our minds (I'm a dev at SE)

gortok 12y ago

Unfortunately, Tech Crunch labels Stack Exchange as a 'forum'. It's not. A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material finding it. Or even worse: http://xkcd.com/979/ http://xkcd.com/979/ Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find the answer you're looking for. In short, while Forums and Stack Exchange are avenues to convey information, SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not. (I'm a moderator on Stack Overflow).

sklivvz1971 12y ago
Every time Stack Overflow is called a forum a moderator gets an eyetwitch.
Shog9 12y ago
There are multiple definitions for forum. The standard Internet definition is indeed "hang out, post lots of BS, troll newbs" - but the broader definition is simply "a venue for exchanging ideas", and SE certainly fits that. We don't like to call it a forum, precisely because it brings to mind the former. But the latter (older) definition is perfectly applicable. (I'm an employee of Stack Exchange, working in the "annoy gortok with pedantry" department)
ProAm 12y ago
> SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not. SE is trying to create create technical manuals one extremely directed question and one specific answer at a time. There is nothing wrong with discussion around questions or topics, especially if it helps to clarify anything being discussed. It seems like the moderators think there is only one way to ask or question a topic, whereas in reality people learn in different ways. Having multiple discussion points is helpful, the cream will rise to the top with votes. Duplicates shouldn't be closed either, there is value in seeing the same question answered in a different manner especially when both answers are correct. SO and SE has gotten so bad it's my last resort these days, I turn to Reddit before asking questions there and that is embarrassing to say.

psp 12y ago

Your post has been closed as it does not describe a real problem but is instead suspect to opinions.

mathattack 12y ago

"Spolsky says that two-thirds of its revenues today come from recruitment services, via its Stack Overflow Careers site, and one-third from advertising." I found this very interesting. Stack Exchange is an insanely useful service, but I struggled to figure out how they would monetize it. (Similar to Wikipedia) They're received enough money that exit valuation expectations are high. I guess the cash flow projections from these are enough.

danielweber 12y ago
I worry about exit strategies. Stack Overflow was supposed to be "programming-question forum, done right." We've seen a lot of old people come through with the strategy of "build up critical mass of questions+answers, then enact paywall." I'll probably always be skeptical that SO is just about to become ruined, unless they explicitly move it into a long-term strategy where the careers board is all they want for revenue.
- mattmanser 12y ago
  You probably didn't follow the early years. I just can't ever see them taking the site-with-a-dash's monetization strategy. It's exactly why they made it in the first place, they repeatedly rubbished expert's exchange in the podcasts and even went so far as to creative commons the content, you can download all the questions and answers if you want.
- Shog9 12y ago
  Good discussion of that here: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-overflows-business-model http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-... (includes an answer from... a guy behind one of those paywall sites). Worth keeping in mind that, because everything contributed is licensed to us via CC-BY-SA, we essentially have to compete against our own content - if we make the user experience awful, there are plenty of other sites willing to take the same information and present it better.
  - danielweber 12y ago

troymc 12y ago

I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?

cheald 12y ago
Can you provide examples of some of those questions? Usually when I encounter that, it's been closed as a duplicate with a link to the original.
- arfliw 12y ago
  Going to be hard to reproduce that bug since they are totally random long tail questions, but I have it happen a lot too FWIW.
  - orbitur 12y ago
    My experience with StackOverflow is that the long-tail questions are still open 2 years later, but lacking any answers.
    - Kalium 12y ago
      Moreover, you'll stumble across them as you search for your own answers.
- gdw2 12y ago
  When searching for the best tool for the job, I often get pointed to SE and the questions are closed as "not constructive". I seem to recall, however, that they opened a separate site for such discussions?
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    "Best tool for the job" doesn't sound like something that should be on SO. Far too subjective and likely to result in stupid opinionated arguments that go nowhere.

argc 12y ago

Doesn't surprise me considering how much I use Stack Overflow. I also have a lot of respect for Joel--I don't actually know much about him but from his blog posts he seems like a very decent guy.

jaydles 12y ago
He's my boss, so I'm super biased, but I can still share a primary-source perspective. I knew him for years before working here, and would say that both as a manager and a general human being, he's one of the genuinely best people I've ever known. From when he started Fogcreek, his and Michael's whole philosophy was to create an environment and mission that makes smart people actually love working there, and then get the hell out of their way. Here at SE, we've grown a ton since I've been here, but I can tell you our exec team spends a lot of time discussing how to ensure we maintain an environment where employees are actually excited to work. (I know that sounds goofy/cheesy/like BS, but talk to any of our devs or other employees; I think you'll find that just about all of us take great pride in what we do.)
- mackwic 12y ago
  As a startup entrepreneur which don't doubt about success and growth -- how could I ? ;) -- I am very interested in the work invested by the whole team in a sane and enjoyable workspace. What are the trade-offs ? I always feel like only the exceptional rich companies can sustain such high standard of living, the same rich which will respond that it's the only way for keeping an healthy work in the end. Seems like a never ending chicken and egg problem that I don't have time to solve, I have hard deadlines to manage... (it's slightly exaggerated, of course, but you got the picture)

dummyfellow 12y ago

what valuation did they get?

hyp0 12y ago

What will they use the money for? If they're not expanding, and are profitable (and so don't need to cover running costs), I can only guess at retiring founder debt.

SurfScore 12y ago
They said they aren't profitable, they're hiring too quickly for that. They're using the money to hire quicker, just like most other people use investment for.
mhartl 12y ago
They're expanding. It's a land grab, so gaining market share is more important than profitability. Spolsky wrote about it here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html

jlward4th 12y ago

So what does that value each reputation point at?

colinodell 12y ago

I sometimes stumble upon old answers I posted to questions I currently have - is that a bad or good thing?

teh_klev 12y ago
I see that as a good thing. I've bookmarked a fair few of my own answers to questions about programmatic management of IIS and .NET obscuria.

joelthelion 12y ago

What are they going to use that money for?

bluedino 12y ago
Good question - they obviously don't need to buy a bunch of hardware or something.

stevebot 12y ago

I use every bit of StackExchange and have for a few years....except for meta I use multiple stack exchange sites and even chat and have found it all useful...except for meta In the few times I have posted to meta, I get downvoted into oblivion. So far, the vibe I get from meta, is that there is an in-crowd with a certain philosophy and if it isn't yours get the fuck out or we will downvote you and pick apart your every word. It makes me wonder...as a help forum what the hell is meta really for? Also congrats to SE, glad to see them get this funding...but please wtf is meta?

programminggeek 12y ago

I have basically zero imagination about big dollar numbers, but I just don't see what they are going to do with $40,000,000 that would generate more than $40,000,000 in value. Without that context, I have no way of seeing this as anything other than a "bubble" investment, even in a pretty awesome product/team.

mackwic 12y ago
It's easier than emit obligation on the market, I guess. See it as a long-term shot. No doubt that 40M in recruitment will pay if the SO team continue to be half as good as they seems to be today (which is one of the challenges).
tim333 12y ago
They are hiring lots of people to provide new features and keep growing. To add $40m value you've got to add of the order of 4m users which seems quite doable.

DigitalSea 12y ago

StackOverflow has saved my bacon more than a few times, so good for Joel and the gang, they provided an invaluable service to the development community. However, I feel like StackExchange needs to get its priorities into check. Unbeknown to some, there are tonnes of StackExchange Q&A sites. Picked on Area 51 and then voted up by the community. Many start with good intentions, but lose steam and never make it to a fully-fledged Q&A site because they didn't meet the minimum requirements (the Startups StackExchange is a good example of this). There is literally a StackExchange site for every single niche; cooking, scepticism, music, science fiction, mathematics, database administration, Apple products, web services, Wordpress and tonnes more. You have to ask yourself, are a lot of these individual Q&A sites simply using unnecessary server resources when they're probably being carried and offset by StackOverflow's advertising revenue? I would love to see StackExchange go down the path of focusing on programmers more than I would cooking or mathematics. I contribute to a lot of individual StackExchange sites, mostly the Wordpress one. Reading the about page seems to highlight that not even StackExchange themselves know what they want to be or the fact they target a wide range of niches. Stack Exchange is the largest network of websites for software developers including Stack Overflow, the pre-eminent destination site for programmers to find, ask, and answer their questions. This statement seems to indicate they focus on catering to developers, but going through the list of over 100 StackExchange Q&A sites yields sites for niches like; marketing, mathematics, cooking, science fiction, gaming, DIY, Apple software/hardware, electrical engineering and tonnes more. I would say a few sites relate to programming, but many do not. Then there is the issue of overzealous moderators (mostly on StackOverflow). How many times have you Googled a problem, SO comes up as the first result, you click it and the question has a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand upvotes and it has been closed? Happens to me quite a lot. I see questions being closed as duplicates when they're in fact not duplicates and were closed because the mod simply lacked the understanding of what was being asked. Questions closely related to a duplicate often get closed as a duplicate and once a question has been "moderated" it rarely ever gets re-opened. The issue is in part with the points/badges system. You have an imbalance of power. It is virtually impossible for a new user to get high enough to make even a subtle difference to SO. Those at the top want to keep their spot, unfortunately many of the moderators are a little too click happy. Instead of the site feeling like a community moderated website, you have these select few power users telling us what is right or wrong (especially evident by the fact of high ranking Google results leading to closed questions). Things have been broken for a very long time on SO and I hope the investment means they can try and address the problems (which they must be aware of). Don't get me wrong, StackExchange have provided a beyond invaluable service, but the arrogance, overzealous moderators and often confusing policies/rules around the kind of questions you can ask/how you can ask them really deters me from participating. My involvement with SO these days is read only, because I don't want to get dragged into all of the politics of the site and the power users who control it. Seems to me this could be a problem for SO in the future if people like myself are deterred from answering because they don't feel like their contribution will be accepted or will be heavily criticised.

jonstewart 12y ago

I live in fear that StackExchange will not turn out to be a viable business and will eventually die off. Many times SO has saved me when all other hope was lost. It really needs a billionaire playboy type to be its patron.

sidcool 12y ago

I never new Andreseen Horowitz is also called A16Z. It's like I18N