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GitHub to Seek $2B Valuation in Latest Funding Round
- malkia 11y agoAwesome for the github folks!
- comrade1 11y agoHow does github make money? I read the article but it's only a couple of paragraphs. Github seems to be mostly personal and open source projects. With good reason since it's trival to set up a git server yourself and so you'd only want to put up stuff that you want public-facing. But it's not so trivial to set up the web ui in git server and so I could see some value there (not sure if $2B of value though) I used github at a company but only for some code that we wanted to share outside of our company. And if we had to pay for it we never would have used github since we could have spent a 1/2 day setting up a public-facing git server. We would never have used it for our internal code - again, it's trivial to maintain your own git server and it would also be irresponsible of us to put our internal code on a public-facing server. So... what makes them valued at 2B? Do they have any revenue at all? Maybe they can hook up with linkedin?
- jMyles 11y agoThey have a paid tier, the primary feature of which is private repos.
- aaronbrethorst 11y ago> How does github make money? GitHub Enterprise[1]. > And if we had to pay for it we never would have. I think you're the exception. [1] And private repos, but I'd imagine that 80%+ of their revenue comes from on-premise enterprise deployments.
- comrade1 11y agoDoes it really make sense to put your company's intellectual property on another company's servers?
- timClicks 11y agoSure. Many companies use Gmail, for example. The risk/reward payoff is different for every company, and there are many who will outsource the hosting of much of their IP because the alternative is often a hindrance to companies who want to ship their core product.
- stock_toaster 11y agoGithub Enterprise[1] is a bundled on-premises offering (virtual machine you host yourself). Atlassian has a somewhat similar offering named Stash[2] (I am not particularly a fan of Stash personally though). [1]: https://enterprise.github.com/home https://enterprise.github.com/home [2]: https://www.atlassian.com/software/stash/ https://www.atlassian.com/software/stash/
- dubcanada 11y agoAlso gitlab is basically a copy of github and more fully featured then stash.
- icefox 11y agoI must say that the fact that Stash still doesn't have WebHooks is embarrassing. We had to write a custom hook in their weird java plugin system to get a part of this screen that GitLab has. https://about.gitlab.com/images/feature_page/webhooks_full.png https://about.gitlab.com/images/feature_page/webhooks_full.p... But still all three GitLab, Stash and GitHub have horrible permission capabilities. Looks like GitLab might be the "best" with what they have http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/permissions/permissions.html http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/permissions/permissions.html, but that is still pretty poor. A simple example would be the requirement to only allow a single user the ability to create tags, that user being the build bot. Enterprise's of course have all sorts of unique permission models that they want to abide by and most of them could be supported out of the box with a more fine grain model.
- chx 11y agoGithub Enterprise certainly makes money. How much I do not know.
- bliti 11y agoThere is no logical explanation for the valuation. It's pure especulation.
- npkarnik 11y agoGithub Enterprise. Turns out that maintaining a git server and the familiar and great (imo) UI is something that medium-large companies generally have no interest in doing in-house and will gladly pay for.
- vonklaus 11y agoGithub is about $25 a month, which is probably worth it for any organization vs. the cost and engineering resources to maintain a redundant and available git server. Sure it is pretty trivial, but so is paying $25 monthly. Also, if you are a small organization you could pay as little as 7 to have a private repo. https://github.com/pricing https://github.com/pricing
- comrade1 11y agoBut why would you put your IP on another company's servers? I guess if the value of your company was something other than your code then it would make sense.
- hn_user2 11y agoThere is a ton of application code out there. Not super secret IP involving a secret new method to compress audio. It's mostly CRUD applications with some business logic mixed in. Nobody is trying to steal your CRUD code. Edit: just to clarify. I don't mean your crud code specifically. Just crud code in general. Maybe you specifically have some super amazing IP to guard.
- elwell 11y ago> super secret IP involving a secret new method to compress audio Pied Piper?
- pbreit 11y agoThat ship sailed about a decode ago. And I know you probably think IP/code is a company's most valuable asset but for most companies that's not even close. A company's most valuable asset is how it goes about delighting customers.
- comrade1 11y agoSo, no competition doing competitive analysis?
- drstewart 11y agoI don't understand why McDonald's is valued at $100b. Personally, I don't eat hamburgers, so they get no money from me. After all, it's irresponsible to eat junk food. So I have to ask, do they even have revenue at all? How are they still in existence?
- comrade1 11y agoMcDonalds has a huge amount of revenue! Are you kidding us?
- connor4312 11y agoWhoosh.
- comrade1 11y agoI asked about revenue. His ironic comment completely missed the point.
- alaskamiller 11y agoHe's satirizing your comment. The idea being that just because you don't find inherent value in something doesn't exclude others from finding their own value and additionally triviality doesn't necessary preclude others from claiming value.
- comrade1 11y agoIt's the argument of a two-year-old. I asked about revenue, not about personal value.
- spdy 11y agoIf i remember correctly the biggest asset of McD is property they own.
- stock_toaster 11y ago> So... what makes them valued at 2B? Do they have any > revenue at all? Maybe they can hook up with linkedin? It has been speculated[1] that certain companies/endeavors derive some part of their value from the fact that VC firms and other investors view them as a "force multiplier" for _other_ startups. They have some amount of value simply as being an integral part of the overall software/startup ecosystem, and investors may want to keep a good things going. Further, investors may desire to keep Github from being acquired by some larger company with a different agenda. Investing at a high valuation may result in a lower likelihood of an acquisition. Certainly Github would qualify, if that is the case. [1]: http://words.steveklabnik.com/is-npm-worth-26mm http://words.steveklabnik.com/is-npm-worth-26mm
- jMyles 11y agoI know that common sense isn't always a useful lens for these matters, but how is it possible that Github, which has actual paying clients and revenue, is worth 10% of whatsapp?
- vonklaus 11y ago1/14th of the entire world used whatsapp.
- pkaye 11y agoI'd think there are probably <1% of software developers in the world compared to whatsapp users (or even Facebook.) Just so many people with the interest and training to be programmers at this time. The question would be how much each makes in revenue for a customer.
- jdhawk 11y ago2B/9 Million Users = $222 per user 2B/21 Million Repos = $95 per repo obviously they're not pulling in that kinda cash, but I'd love to see enterprise pricing.
- arfliw 11y agoI know, right? Also, how is that Whatsapp is worth more than a liquor store, which has actual revenues and profits?
- jMyles 11y agoI surmise you are being sarcastic, but this is a reasonable question. There are plenty of liquor stores which seem to be of greater value (and likelihood to generate future revenue) than whatsapp.
- arfliw 11y agoAll they'd have to do is start running ads to show how absurd what you just said is. I find it laughable that in 2015 people are still claiming companies strategically delaying monetization have worthless businesses. They care about long term growth, not money in the hand. See Facebook and Twitter. And a bunch of other companies.
- vonklaus 11y agoGithub is one of the best examples of a successful company built around open source technology. This is proof open source software can be profitable.
- kiba 11y agoIt is proof that building a proprietary business around open source is profitable. It is not proof however that being full on open source in everything you do is profitable however I wished that to be the case.
- vonklaus 11y agoRight. I think open source software is great. The community, collaboration and transparency make it a great way to build and maintain software. It is not a great way to build and maintain a business. Github has struck a balance between open source and proprietary. I can't think of a successful open source company that has 100% FOSS. Can you? Would be really interested in that actually, it would be an interesting case study.
- plorkyeran 11y agoRed Hat? Of course, every attempt at duplicating Red Hat has failed pretty miserably.
- sytse 11y agoGitLab CEO here, I think Hortonworks is 100% open source. And we like to think that open core is a better model (making the core experience of the product open source instead of just tools surrounding it).
- ksherlock 11y agoIf only it was profitable for Linus Torvalds, Junio Hamano, and everyone else that provided that open source technology. But hey, slavery is profitable too, as long as you're not the slave.
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- pbreit 11y agoI know this isn't how it works but I'd love to see 1) free private repos (like Bitbucket) and 2) Mercurial support (like Bitbucket).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- FreeFull 11y agoAny reason not to use Bitbucket rather than Github, to get those features?
- guidopallemans 11y agoBecause GitHub is GitHub. It's as simple as that. Especially when your repo is public, it won't have the same appeal on Bitbucket.
- stephenr 11y ago> Especially when your repo is public, it won't have the same appeal on Bitbucket. I don't know what kind of software you write, but if your users choose things based on GitHub vs BitBucket hosting, I think you should find new users.
- pbreit 11y agoIf you don't understand why people prefer Github, I'm not sure what to tell you. And if you don't understand why people would prefer to use what they prefer to use, then, well, I really don't know what to say.
- stephenr 11y ago> If you don't understand why people prefer Github, I'm not sure what to tell you. That just sounds like a reworded "It's what all the cool kids are using" to me. If you can't describe in words, the possible reason(s) why someone using and/or contributing to a project, would prefer GitHub over BitBucket, it seems like my original comment is valid, no? I would liken this to Todd Barry's take on Coke vs Pepsi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nacbxCgfQHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nacbxCgfQHc): "It made me very sorry for her, because her body is telling her that she hates something that tastes exactly like something she loves." The user-functionality differences between GitHub and BitBucket are insignificant. If the original post was talking about users who download and use an app/library from GitHub, then no I don't understand why the end-users would care if it comes from GitHub or BitBucket - whether you're cloning the repo or downloading a release, both make this very easy to do. If the original post was talking about users who may submit bug reports, potentially fork & submit pull requests, and there really are people willing to contribute in those ways, but only if the project is hosted on GitHub.com, then I would seriously question those people's values and reasons for contributing in the first place.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoThe valuation may be cheap. They have 9 million developers sharing their code on their network, or at least using it to save their code. Certainly that must be worth more than $2B, or in other words $222 per user.
- arthurcolle 11y agoI thought Tom Preston-Werner left GitHub? Out of the loop
- bensw 11y agoI believe that video is from 2012
- tomphoolery 11y agoYeah, I think it was just the last video they had of them and every article just HAS to have a video on top these days doesn't it? ;-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]