alexknowshtml

You're being pedantic about the definition of culture. Many companies "cultures" are held together by a single personality, or a select few. When that person or people leaves (or stop beating the drum), the "culture" dies.

GitHub - much like the tool chain it's built around - has done a remarkable job of decentralizing culture. Far better than most companies of any scale, even ones much smaller than it.

You seem to have read past the connection between their goal as a company - which is easy to say but hard to practice consistently, otherwise more companies would succeed at building a culture that attracts an retains like GitHub does.

Relevant username.

Then maybe it wasn't written for you. - signed, OP

Hm, I didn't expect a novelty account on HN.

That was the difference for me, too. If I took notes at all it wasn't in one place (a mix of text files and iOS notes for me). Switching to Byword and a single file was faster and I was more consistent about jotting notes down no matter where I was.

More importantly, I didn't have any habit for reviewing them. Hope it helps you like it helped me!

While I'm no longer a member of the wonderful team at Beanstalk, I can tell you for certain that this comment is appreciated.

Happy to answer any questions about Beanstalk Deployments which is my personal favorite part of the system: http://beanstalkapp.com/features/deployments

Without a doubt. Money makes everything more complicated, even "clear business models" aren't so clear.

I never said the money is irrelevant, quite the contrary.

It's VERY relevant. Just not in the way that the other author I'd cited made it out to be, nor does money have the protective alignment that I think people have convinced themselves it brings.

That said, your fragmentation thesis is an interesting one for sure. Have you seen anything along those lines researched outside of this context, by chance?

> I don't think it's as simple as...

Is kinda the point I've been trying to make. :)

A big part of twitter's initial growth was due to 3rd party development. But the tides shifted there as well, not (just) because of advertisers but because of "normal people" joining as users.

I wonder if that's who we're actually excited to keep out? Not the advertisers, but all of those totally mediocre people who make our trending topics embarrassingly dull ;)

"...too green to know that I should have run for my life after that statement."

Yep.

Neither of those points safeguard you from it turning into something other than what YOU want. That's the point I'm trying to make.

I don't have a specific reason for doubt, but I don't have evidence for confidence either.

I'm 100% behind a paid API as a service for the purpose of financial sustainability. But I don't think that's what has actually been purchased by the first batch of customers.

They paid for a dream, like you. And that's okay.

My point was to make sure people had a chance to see that's what they purchased. :)

I was with you until the last sentence. How does that help developers who are being harmed under the advertiser arrangement?

The developers still make up a minority of the user revenue. Even if that flipped...there are multiple customer interests at play. Developers, member users, and the company.

No advertisers is better than advertisers, but I don't see anything that protects developers (except Dalton's word, which you didn't bring up) from similar fates in this model.

I'm with you on the meta-goal being "right". And I didn't say to exclude money from the equation, Dalton and his team deserve to be paid for their work: once they actually solve a real pain point. Right now the pain looks a lot like fear & hope to me, two things that make people do silly, unsustainable things with their money.

I actually don't hate this project, I think it's interesting or else it wouldn't have caught my attention in the first place. I just noticed a few things about it and wrote what I saw.

Sweet. Thanks for sharing.

I'm with you 100% on every point you made, but my original point was that the thesis seems to be "the money comes from the users & developers now", and I don't think that's as dramatic of a shift as its been painted to be.

I have an honest question for you because I'm trying to understand this mode of thinking myself: why suddenly "no fear" of the rug being pulled out from under you? How does giving Dalton your money permanently align your interests with his?

Edit: this isn't meant to accuse Dalton of nefarious plans in the least. I just don't understand the causal link.

Movement, ha.

I don't really feel negative, to be honest. Just noticing some things and wanting to point them out. From the comments so far, it seems I'm not alone in the things I've noticed.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

This is the healthy outlook I wish more people had...and that we didn't need to throw money at a false idol to have that conversation.

Hence, the money being an intentional distraction (red herring) from the real issues.

I think part of the disappointment people have in twitter stems from the days when TWITTER didn't know what twitter was going to become. It didn't become what they (and Dalton) hoped, so this is an attempt to reboot.

Except the rules didn't really change.

I donate regularly to donorschoose.org and organize a blood drive for the Philly tech scene 3-4x a year. I hope you've got a favorite cause, too :)

No, I can reason the multitude of reasons that someone would pay, including my own. Empathy is a helluva drug.

If you have any interest in populating this with data from the http://weworkinphilly.com API, drop me a line. Email in profile.

Disclosure: I used to work at Postmark.

ISPs are way more interested in maintaining relationships with ESPs that keep junk from getting to them in the first place than the ones that "quickly fix once the damage is done". It's one case where "asking for forgiveness" isn't preferred over the more careful approach.

SES is more like outsourcing sendmail on your own server so you don't carry the burden of maintaining/securing it, except that you don't have control over it when something goes wrong and you have the same lack of customer support if you don't know how to fix it. If you value your messages getting to the inbox, it's the least desirable option. For sending low-value emails, though, go nuts!

A friend of mine built this:

https://vipbox.heroku.com/r38y

Don't forget that infoproduct (ebook & class) income is an alternative way to fund product development.

In a way, in addition to being helped to their own sustainable success, revenue from the classes supplants the need for angel or venture money in order to help fuel growth of the software products.

And in the end she owns 100% of her business, all the while fulfilling her mission to help people launch their own businesses that they can own 100% of as well.

Please don't undervalue yourself like that. This kind of experience and insight is worth much more than "a buck or two".

When do you tell them that? Before or after you've invested?