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Comment by throwawaythat1 | Hacker News Reader

Didn't bitnami get acquired less than a month ago? How come the co-founder moves out so quickly? Was it an acqui-hire? Atleast https://blog.bitnami.com/2019/05/vmware-to-acquire-bitnami.h... talks about doubling down and what not but the co-founder has moved on already?

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How come the co-founder moves out so quickly?

It happens. Sometimes a founder doesn't want to be part of the new organisation and negotiates a quick departure as part of their terms. If all parties are happy it's fine, and not a sign of anything negative.

Additionally when people want to leave but an acquisition is in progress, they might want to wait and finish their role during due diligence and term setting, and leave on good terms afterwards, than a hasty leave that might raise red flags and endanger the process.

(not implying that this is what happened here, just adding a scenario where that happens)

Would you rather be COO of Github, or a VP at VMWare?

do you imply that it's better to be COO of Github? Because I would disagree with that.

Why do you feel that way?

VMWare has annual revenue of about 9B$. Github.... 300M$

Github is way more hyped accross engineers but VMWare is 30 times bigger! VMWare is simply one league above Github.

Github is a Business Departement part of Microsoft. VMWare is a huge company.

This is the typical fallacy of B2C vs B2B. Consumer products are way more hyped and therefore people think they are way bigger than other less famous B2B Enterprise products

Would you rather eat the world's largest steak, or the world's best steak?

Plus, a VP at VMware isn't going to be in charge of that whole $9B like a COO is. Bitnami is going to be a "Business Departement" too.

How big of a steak are we talking here?

Have you worked as an executive in an enterprise company ? It really isn't everyone's cup of tea. There is far more bureaucracy, politics, considerations than a small or medium company and your ability to meaningfully effect change is much more limited.

Most people with experience in this area would appreciate that one isn't better than the another. They are just different.

Yes, VMWare is a league above GitHub. I doubt many in this thread think otherwise. But a VP is a league below a COO. And Bitnami is a league below GitHub. And a VP of VMWare doesn’t work with all $9B of rev VMWare is doing.

Most of the article explains why she took this job. My take-away is that she saw Github as a growing company and she would be taking on similar challenges as her previous COO duties.

Is revenue the only thing you consider when looking for a new role?

I was highlighting that the "famous" and "cool" name of GitHub doesn't tell the whole story

But you still failed to account for a VP role vs COO role.

Sure. Depends which VP position you end up getting. And even so, I would say that most VPs at VMWare are a more "prestigious" and "important" position than the COO of Github (which as most COO position is a not fully defined position in between other CxOs)

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Github was acquired by Microsoft, so it's just gonna be a VP at Microsoft.

GitHub is far bigger than Bitnami. IE the Github founders are all among the biggest individuals with equity in Microsoft just because of the acquisition. GitHub will likely be its own subsidiary under Microsoft for some time.

Both roles sound great from my prespective

Huh, I had missed that. Hope it worked out well! I knew Daniel back when we were both working with Tcl.

It may be part of the decision that let do Bitnami being acquired.

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