[HN Gopher] Thank you, GitHub ___________________________________________________________________ Thank you, GitHub Author : todsacerdoti Score : 734 points Date : 2021-11-03 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.blog) (TXT) w3m dump (github.blog) | orliesaurus wrote: | If person's legacy is a list of all the good things (or bad | things) they've done during their time, Nat's legacy as the CEO | of GitHub can also be summed into a list. Let me get started...I | only remember this one thing but other users of HN can help add | more I supposed: | | - That one time when Nat spoke against DMCA law and said taking | down youtube-dl was wrong and he actively pushed for their | reinstatement. [1] | | [1] | https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432?l... | snotrockets wrote: | I also rememebr how he refused to drop ICE, and tried to treat | violations of humans rights as if they were carbon offsets. | dannyw wrote: | That youtube-dl moment was a really defining moment for me, | particularly as a heavy user of youtube-dl and having | contributed a PR here or there. | | GitHub handled the situation really well, both in terms of the | course of action it took, as well as setting up new procedures | and a legal fund to prevent future incidents like this. Along | with the EFF, they have actively promoted the right of | developers (and FOSS) to tinker. | | I think people don't realise how impactful youtube-dl going the | wrong way could be. | lrvick wrote: | That was just for show because it was a brand risk. Similar | repos without journalists covering them are still banned | without dispute. | | https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-0. | .. | iudqnolq wrote: | If you read the response letter the EFF prepared you'll see | their argument was that the "rolling cipher" yt-dl worked | around was not an actual protection measure. They contrast | it with widevine, which is. There's a good legal argument | yt-dl was legal in the us, and there isn't for the repo you | linked to. I think standing up for things that have a | plausible argument that they're legal in the US but not | things that aren't is a reasonable line for a corporation | to draw. | Cenk wrote: | ICE contract? | junon wrote: | IIRC that existed before Nat. I could be wrong. | Dangeranger wrote: | Nat posted publicly on this topic back in 2019 [0]. | | [0] https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government- | deve... | kylemh wrote: | Sure, but ICE is still a customer | that_guy_iain wrote: | I'm sure this is going to get hate but not all of ICE is | bad. They're also the guys who go after the super rich | crimes. The immigration stuff had such a bad effect on | the agency that the money crime people literally asked to | be separated so they could get back to hunting money | crimes without the stigma of the immigration stuff. [0] | | Also, immigration control in itself isn't a bad thing. | You shouldn't be asking that people stop providing | services to a goverment agency. You should demand the | goverment agency stops being a bunch of dicks. | | [0] https://www.vox.com/policy-and- | politics/2018/6/29/17517870/i... | Dangeranger wrote: | Correct. I'm not saying he "fixed" the problem, but that | he made his and the companies positions more clear. | c5e3ebe93d2c wrote: | Could you explain the moral and legal reasoning that | necessitates that Github block ICE from using their | public services, but also allows them to continue their | "Developers should be allowed to user our service" that | allows them to defend youtube-dl and usage in Iran? | b3morales wrote: | Copilot is still fresh in my mind as a reason to question using | GitHub to host my source code. Though I understand that my | opinion on this is not universal. | skeeter2020 wrote: | unlimited private repos for free if this is a concern? | b3morales wrote: | I don't entirely trust that they will remain excluded from | Copilot in future. This probably isn't the place to re- | litigate this discussion, but GitHub's claim is that source | licenses simply do not apply to what Copilot ingests. | | That being the case, the only thing that distinguishes | private repos in this context is a thin policy that can be | changed at a whim (and perhaps without any announcement). | | Also, one of the reasons I put my code on a host like | GitHub is so that I can share it/show it off*. So using a | private repo to avoid Copliot defeats some of the purpose | of me using GitHub in the first place. | | *To the extent anyone else cares, at least ;) | fnord123 wrote: | Nat has done a great job of embracing the ideals that many if | us respect. I look forward to watching Thomas continue to | extend Githubs influence in open source and productivity. | patal wrote: | I contacted Thomas several years ago about an Open Source | project that he didn't maintain anymore and which I wanted to | maintain. He was very cool about it and put maintainership in | my hands. I wish him the best of luck, too. | lrvick wrote: | Let's not give -too- much credit here. This only happened after | massive public outcry and targeting trolling campaigns | exploiting Github design flaws forced them to take a position, | and a position of anything other than defense of youtubedl was | going to be an expensive reputation hit given all the | journalists covering it. | | Meanwhile similar repos get DMCA banned daily, like when Google | demanded they remove all repos using a public widevine | decryption key: | https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-0... | | Microsoft is a member of the RIAA so don't expect to see real | defense of any repos unless there is major bad press. | Dangeranger wrote: | Github acquiring[0] and integrating with NPM. | | [0] https://github.blog/2020-03-16-npm-is-joining-github/ | notriddle wrote: | And dependabot | wil93 wrote: | Made Github available again in Iran [1] | | [1] https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1346517148357648385 | outside1234 wrote: | He integrated Github with Microsoft and didn't screw it up. | That is quite an accomplishment honestly. | abzug wrote: | There's plenty of time for this to happen... | dzaima wrote: | well, not anymore, as he's no longer the CEO. Unless you | count that as screwing up (which it might well be) | meragrin_ wrote: | He is CEO through November 14th. | jstummbillig wrote: | So you are saying there's still a chance? | mmcnl wrote: | How is GitHub integrated actually? Honest question. I use | GitHub almost daily and I almost forgot MS acquired GitHub. | oaiey wrote: | I think Microsoft was well aware that they had to run GitHub | differently. And then they found the right manager idling | around. | laserlight wrote: | This happened after the fact that EFF and the whole community | got involved. See his dismissive attitude to this HN comment: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24995179 | bytematic wrote: | Does anyone know more about where Nat is going? I am keenly | interested | dirkg wrote: | Microsoft buying Github was the best thing that could've happened | to Github/open source in general. | | Screw the people who still spread MS FUD. I cannot think of any | other company, certainly not FB/Goog (Amzn has nothing in this | space and no interest outside paid AWS services) that would've | done anything close to what MS have done. | | Everything is better, tons of things are now free, integration | has improved, there's full transparency. It helps that MS's own | tools like VSCode, VS online etc are best in class by some margin | and used by everyone. | yepthatsreality wrote: | It's not FUD if Microsoft has a history of EEE. | | I'm rolling my eyes hard at your claim of VS Code as best in | class. If the category is JS-powered code editors then I'll | surely give them that title. However BS Code has many flaws | compared to other IDEs. One being that it's restricted in | performance by the language it's written in. I don't use those | products so I must not be apart of everyone? | safaci2000 wrote: | "GitHub Actions has become the #1 CI service, used by popular | open source projects and enterprises alike." | | I must be missing something. For whatever reason GH Actions just | never appealed to me. Am I missing something? I've used Drone IO | more, granted it's better than travis but the #1 CI services | seems like a stretch. | jrochkind1 wrote: | i assume he means #1 in usage (measurable) rather than in | quality (an opinion, which he may also have, but which he | probably wouldn't say as simply as "has become the #1"). | | When you say "seems like a stretch", I read it as you thinking | he meant "quality, as a matter of opinion". | | I would not be surprised if it's #1 in usage, getting there by | being integrated in github and free and actually pretty darn | good. | DenseComet wrote: | Its free for open source projects and integrated nicely into | Github. Even if another CI service is better, the bar to get | started with Actions is much lower. | thom wrote: | It's just extremely low friction. Push some YAML in an existing | repo, done. I've enjoyed using TeamCity in the past, and | tolerated Hudson/Jenkins, and I do keep expecting to hit | something that makes me want to go back, but it hasn't happened | yet. | thesausageking wrote: | Why "cd ~ && mkdir -p nat/next" instead of just "mkdir -p | ~/nat/next"? | hnov wrote: | Popping the stack so to speak before embarking on the next | ____. | yibers wrote: | Maybe he is first going home, than moving on to the next thing? | Rokid wrote: | Also, in which shell does `cd $` change into a newly created | directory? | staz wrote: | it's `cd $_` with the underscore, it repeat the last | argument. | | from bash man page | | > _ At shell startup, set to the pathname used to invoke the | shell or shell script being executed as passed in the | environment or argument list. Subse- | | > quently, expands to the last argument to the previous | simple command executed in the foreground, after expansion. | Also set to the full pathname used | | > to invoke each command executed and placed in the | environment exported to that command. When checking mail, | this parameter holds the name of the | | > mail file currently being checked. | headmelted wrote: | Has Nat said what he'll be doing next? | | I know he travels most of the time now and I'm wondering if this | is a reflection of wanting to spend more time doing that or if | there's some other new project he's moving on to. | anandchowdhary wrote: | From the article: | | > That's why I'm moving on to my next adventure: to support, | advise, and invest in the founders and developers who are | creating the future with technology and tackling some of the | biggest opportunities of our day. | Aeolun wrote: | Ergo, I have enough money to retire and play around? | siva7 wrote: | Yes, the SV way of saying that he is retiring because he is | obscenely rich. | da39a3ee wrote: | I'm also one of the people in this thread who was under | the misconception that he was a Github founder / early | employee. if he's merely an employee of the acquiring | company, why is he so rich? | desas wrote: | He was a founder of xamarin which sold to Microsoft for | $400+ million five years ago. | lawrencevillain wrote: | Living the dream! | virgofx wrote: | The moving on post was kind of vague. I'm curious if there are | external factors involved. I do feel like Nat has done a great | job at GitHub but curious as to extenuating factors. Would love | to hear perspective/sentiment from current hubbers. | dghlsakjg wrote: | The github deal with MS closed almost exactly three years ago. | I'm guessing there was a massive financial incentive that he | just fulfilled by staying three years. Not a hubber, but this | is a pretty common thing to see with acquisitions. | hoistbypetard wrote: | But he was a MS employee pre-acquisition, right? Is it common | for the acquiring company to give their employees that manage | the acquisition massive incentives that vest in a short- | medium window? (Honest question. It's not been common in my | experience, but that's pretty limited.) | dsizzle wrote: | He was already an MS employee 3 years ago though (he came | over when Xamarin was acquired in 2016), whereas I usually | associate those terms started when you join the parent | company. Granted, 2016 is not that much longer ago, and it | does seem plausible there was some bonus that vested after 3 | years at Github, so you could be right. | joshmanders wrote: | Nat was not a hubber when Microsoft bought GitHub, he came | over with the acquisition of Xamarin. | jillesvangurp wrote: | As acquisitions go, this has probably been one of the best | executed ones in recent history. MS deserves a lot of credit for | having managed that very well. And I'm sure a lot of that is also | due to Nat's management. | TheRealDunkirk wrote: | I'll take the "con" side. A lot of the core Rubyists left for | Shopify after the sale, and I'm sure Nat had a contract to stay | on for X amount of time, where Microsoft would make no major | changes. Now that this is expiring, I fully expect Microsoft to | start making changes with the site that will appeal to large | corporations, at the expense of what I would prefer, as an | individual user. I guess time will tell. | skeeter2020 wrote: | I don't see it. MS has Azure DevOps for their Ms-specific | stack and Enterprise. GH is the closed source app where | people come to do open source, and way too valuable as-is. | TheRealDunkirk wrote: | Bingo. This is precisely my point. I think they're going to | phase out DevOps and replace it with GitHub in their | lineup. | passivate wrote: | What changes are you expecting? | jassmith87 wrote: | Nat comes from the Microsoft side, not the GitHub side. | TheRealDunkirk wrote: | To me, Nat and Miguel come from Xamarin Desktop, which made | Linux on the desktop an actual pleasure in the late | 90's/early 2000's. They're a couple of my heroes. | ehfeng wrote: | You are technically right, but Nat comes from Microsoft's | acquisition of Xamarin. He definitely is not a lifelong | Microsoft employee. | mohanmcgeek wrote: | I don't think that matters in the context of what's being | discussed here. | | If there were any retention contracts that came with | GitHub acquisition, that probably didn't apply to him. | ehfeng wrote: | You misunderstand why I brought up him being from | Xamarin. | | The initial conversation was about how Nat was likely | leaving because his contract ran out. The counterpoint | was that he was from the Microsoft side and therefore he | didn't have a retention contract. I brought up Xamarin | because he was likely under a retention contract from | that acquisition. | | That being said, these contracts probably had little to | no effect on his decision though, as I'm sure he would | have made more money than he could spend in a lifetime | regardless of whether he had stayed or not. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | > I brought up Xamarin because he was likely under a | retention contract from that acquisition. | | Microsoft bought Xamarin in February 2016. I'm sure five- | year retention contracts are possible, but that seems | _extraordinarily_ long; I 've rarely seen longer than two | years. | oaiey wrote: | Aside that Nat came from Microsoft, they made already tons of | changes to GitHub. Both for the Enterprise and for the public | open source. | | I do not see any indication about that being bound to a | contract. They are also promoting the chief product officer | which indicates that he did so far a good job. Which means, | we can expect that they continue like they have done in the | last year. | 29athrowaway wrote: | Now Github will require Microsoft login. | crazysim wrote: | Funny, if I log into Microsoft stuff nowadays, I have to | provide a GitHub login. Even Xbox. | ketanmaheshwari wrote: | Reading this and similar other pieces, I wonder what is _not_ at | an inflection point? | [deleted] | robertwt7 wrote: | Great guy. Going to miss him | 88913527 wrote: | Is this a sign of the continued progression of GitHub to be | further molded in Microsoft's image? Usually there's a churn in | leadership when the alignment isn't there anymore, though it's | typically accompanied by graceful public communication. | minhazm wrote: | Nat wasn't originally at Github. He was already at Microsoft | through the Xamarin acquisition and was installed as Github CEO | post acquisition. | supernovae wrote: | Management changes all the time, People change all the time, | hell, Microsoft has changed... If anything, Microsoft evolved | around GitHub and it's for the better in doing so. | junon wrote: | Embrace, extend, extinguish still alive at MS it seems. | | E: Pointing out proven, explicitly-defined-in-internal-emails | tactics used by Microsoft always seems to get downvoted on HN. | Why? Would someone like to start a conversation? | mpol wrote: | I'm with you, but this is not the topic. | pkaye wrote: | Start a new discussion post instead of tagging into the | current one. | junon wrote: | My comment is in direct response to the parent comment, so | no. This is on-topic. | skinnymuch wrote: | What are they extinguishing? Which things do you think they | extended? | | Pointing out stuff from decades ago doesn't really count as | still proven tactics. | | Though of course all major companies do behave and do things | like EEE in different ways. | Mikeb85 wrote: | > What are they extinguishing? | | All build tools that MS doesn't control. Their strategy has | always been to try lock developers into their ecosystem so | that only their ecosystem has all the software people want. | | > Which things do you think they extended? | | Acquiring and extending both Xamarin and Github. Atom | editor is basically dead, MS/Github created an AI tool that | presumably uses data they got from Github, they tried to | remove features from free .NET tools, etc... | | How long until they try to apply some more blatant vendor | lock-in techniques with Github, .NET/Mono or maybe Azure? | zaphar wrote: | Tactics that were true 20+ years ago are not necessarily | still true today. The E E E trope is pithy and a shared | cultural experience in our history. This does not immediately | imply it is true now. You made no supporting argument as to | why this announcement is an example of E E E. As such it | contributed little to 0 content to the discussion. I suspect | that is why you are getting downvoted in this instance. | junon wrote: | I wasn't responding to the announcement. I responded to the | comment above me. | blackoil wrote: | Context or Details!! What will they extinguish Github?? | junon wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_exti | n... | nyxaiur wrote: | He had to stay on until he was free to leave under the | microsoft acquisition contract. 2 years sound about right. | tiffanyh wrote: | That's not what happened here. | | Nat founded Xamarin which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016. | Github was acquired in 2018 and Nat was already an Microsoft | employee at time. | | So Nat departing now is actually 5 years post the Xamarin | acquisition (when he joined Microsoft). | | https://www.linkedin.com/in/natfriedman/ | | EDIT: what's also interesting is that Thomas Dohmke joined | Microsoft in 2015, moved to the Github division around the | time of the acquisition (2018) but only became CPO 4 months | ago. | oaiey wrote: | Thomas' own blog sounded a bit like he was the special task | manager. So do not read too much into this 4 months. | fragmede wrote: | We don't actually know one way or another. Golden handcuffs | are very common in the industry and it's very easy to | imagine that becoming CEO of very public and important | subdivision of a cloud company comes with a _very_ large | stock option grant. Easily 8-figures worth. When /how they | expire are also a mystery to us. I'm sure he didn't get the | standard engineer vesting schedule of 4-years with a 1-year | cliff. | ksec wrote: | I wonder if he stick with Microsoft long enough would he | have a chance of becoming the next M$ CEO. | jassmith87 wrote: | Many people within Microsoft felt that he was a clear | contender for Satya's eventual successor. | ksec wrote: | Damn. Satya is 54, within 10 years he could definitely be | the CEO. But I guess most entrepreneur just dont like | sticking around and not building. | scrubs wrote: | If I read another piece of American corporate crap --- plastic, | formulaic, always-be-selling --- I'm gonna throw up on my | keyboard. The write-up is rife with stock phrases, and vapid | emotionalism. Somewhere when the rest of us are busy there's a | room somewhere where people get the cheat-sheet, fill-in-the- | blank training that produces this junk. Look the guy probably had | some success and met some great people. So why in the hell can't | you say that in your own words? | agumonkey wrote: | I can be subject to similar views at times but here it's just | the usual leaving message. Just like on the Firefox release, | people should chill out. I guess the global context is getting | to people's head. | junon wrote: | Nat is a mogul in SV. Everyone knows him, many even before | GitHub. Simply walking away from GitHub without much of a | speech would make it seem like he didn't care or left on bad | terms, optics-wise. That would have a potentially serious | effect on perception and thus shareholders would be affected. | This clearly isn't his intent. | | I offer a contrary point of view: why does it bother _you_ so | much? Simply do not read it. | tgv wrote: | > shareholders | | It belongs to Microsoft, doesn't it? | joshmanders wrote: | Microsoft has shareholders, don't they? | est31 wrote: | In 2018, MS had 110 billion USD in revenue, while Github | had 200-300 million USD. So the Github business is <0.5% | of MS's revenue. | siva7 wrote: | They don't care about revenue at this league of | acquisitions. It's all about strategic power and market | share. | skinnymuch wrote: | GitHub's acquisition cost was close to $24B (dividend and | stock value today). Gitlab being far smaller are closing | in on $20B valuation. Even if Microsoft is worth $2.5T, | GitHub being worth $50B-75B still means a lot. Especially | for the synergies they gain with Azure and the good | publicity they get from being current stewards of GitHub. | junon wrote: | Money is not the only part of any large acquisition such | as GitHub. Given Microsoft's history, GitHub was the | perfect acquisition for their goals. | est31 wrote: | Sure it was, and for MS there is definitely strategic | value in owning Github. But I even if you factor in that | strategic value, Github is not as important to Microsoft | as, say, Instagram is to Facebook. | skinnymuch wrote: | Instagram is likely the greatest acquisition of all time | in terms of synergy and mainly financial gains. | | Instagram is worth hundreds of billions now. Bought for | $1B. It is an actual unicorn situation of being | incredibly rare. | | There's no point bringing up something so rare. | | For example, the only other [tech?] acquisition that I | can think of even sniffing IG is Priceline (now Bookings | Holdings) acquiring Bookings.com for a couple hundred | million. Now being the core of the business. | | -- | | Beyond that. Just to be geeky about this stuff. The only | other general financial deals in this ballpark are | SoftBank, Yahoo, and Naspers investments. Copy pasting | previous comment: | | SoftBank and Yahoo bought around 40% stakes each in | Alibaba. SoftBank spent $20M in 1999, the year Alibaba | was founded. Alibaba owned 34% as of the mid 2010s. Now | own 26%. Yahoo, because of Jerry Yang, invested $1B in | 2005. | | Naspers invested $32M for almost 50% of Tencent in 2001. | Probably the best investment ever. Naspers split into two | companies. Prosus owns the remaining close to 30% stake | now. Though Naspers and Prosus both own around one half | of one another. | | All three investing companies have had issues with their | own valuations. They've all had their own market caps be | undervalued. Their one investment alone usually was close | to or even exceeded the entire market cap of the company. | Still the case for SoftBank and Prosus. | junon wrote: | I don't see how that's relevant. Github is a huge asset | to Microsoft, regardless of its revenue streams. That's | my point. | adventured wrote: | GitLab is currently trading for $16 billion. | | It'd be reasonable to peg GitHub as being worth $40-$50 | billion. | | That's a serious asset for Microsoft shareholders - even | if the parent is worth $2t - and they will want to see it | flourish. Which goes in line with what the parent comment | noted about presenting the correct impression, not only | to shareholders but also to anyone interested in working | at GitHub for Microsoft. Potential employees will want to | know that the context is healthy. | VWWHFSfQ wrote: | yes. those are the shareholders. | lexapro wrote: | >thus shareholders would be affected | | Why not just tell it like it is then? Dear shareholders, I'm | leaving because I'm rich / bored with Github and not because | there was a falling-out. | | >why does it bother you so much? Simply do not read it. | | So you're suggesting people should just not read or listen to | anything that they don't like? And just keep quiet? | junon wrote: | > Why not just tell it like it is then? | | Because what you suggested is extremely impersonal, | arrogant, harsh, cold, and dismissive of the work of all | the employees working under you. | kodah wrote: | A little off-topic, but why does the CEO even need to say | goodbye? I'm not really concerned with listening the | words of most CEOs of companies I work at. It's just | another job at the company, albeit, probably one with a | bit too much power and influence. | oaiey wrote: | Because most likely he is already somewhere and this other | company is not ready yet to share the change of CEO. | | This case has more than 50% likelihood. | BoorishBears wrote: | You need to read enough to be sick to realize what it is. | | In part because even the title is clickbait. Even the tl;dr | manages to inject some platitudes before getting to the | point. | | - | | And you're arguing a strawman. The comment you replied to | never implied he shouldn't say farewell. They're complaining | about how utterly insincere it comes across being blasted | full of every trite corporate saying in existence | | If anything they're arguing for more of a farewell than this, | and it would have taken less effort too. | | I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about | this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat? | junon wrote: | > I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain | about this though, do you have a personal attachment to | Nat? | | Please point to where I implied I was at all upset. | BoorishBears wrote: | That last sentence alone "if it's so bad why read it?" is | clearly something an upset person would say. | | - | | But this is HN where inferring tone is apparently a step | too far in terms of speculation, so here. | | Have an ML model tell you how upset you sound: | https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg | e0a74c wrote: | I have no dog in this race but it sounds like you're | assuming that a sentence with a negative sentiment | (whatever that actually means) must have been created by | a person who's upset. A bit of a stretch, no? | BoorishBears wrote: | A tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact HN users act | _like basic social skills_ like the ability to infer tone | are voodoo gets dissected like this? | | You can't make up this stuff up. | | To the reply: | | > would not be acceptable in any social setting otherwise | | You're close to getting it! | | In a normal social setting if someone says "If you don't | like X don't interact with it!" that can reasonably | understood as a _negative_ statement. | | Going "show me where I said I'm upset!!" instead of just | clarifying is not acceptable in a social setting. Busting | out an ML model is just holding up the mirror. | | - | | > I am not responsible for how the voice in your head | portrays what you read. | | I'm not responsible for teaching people how basic social | interactions work, yet here we are... | junon wrote: | > HN users act [lack] basic social skills | | I believe using a sentiment analysis tool you googled for | to back up an assumption you made about me and my | character would not be acceptable in any social setting | otherwise. Just pointing this out. My original comment | was made with an informative/inquisitive tone. | | I am not responsible for how the voice in your head | portrays what you read. | e0a74c wrote: | You sound upset ;) | | (sorry, couldn't help myself. I think you're all great | simply for being here and applying your intellects!) | BoorishBears wrote: | Of course you couldn't help yourself, I poopoo'd on your | dog in the race and you couldn't think of something | meaningful to reply with. | | - | | And I am upset, I hate working in one of the few | industries where people wear social ineptitude like a | badge: | | Like someone says something when they're clearly upset, | you ask why they're upset, then suddenly they derail the | conversation because | | "how dare you imply I am some descendant of a caveman | capable of being _shudder_ upset " | | Like holy shit, real people get upset! Wowie what a | concept! | | Dude was _upset_ someone insulted his rockstar idol that | _everyone in SV knows_ and got called out. | | I jokingly tell him even a computer can see he's upset | and now there's literally another reply to me by this | "peter" person picking a fight with the computer! | | - | | Maybe you're all stuck in this weird passive aggressive | bubble of timidity (maybe that's the "everyone") where | you're not allowed to express emotion but I'm not going | to coddle you, not here or in real life | | This person was upset. They didn't need to present it as | some passive aggressive "informative", like the guy they | replied to didn't know they couldn't read it. | | They're just not used to having to deal with emotions | directly instead of being as biting as possible while | seeming... "informative" | peterdn wrote: | > In a normal social setting if someone says "If you | don't like X don't interact with it!" that can reasonably | understood as a negative statement. | | Except they didn't say that, did they? What they said | verbatim was "simply do not read it" which is a much more | reasonable tone than how you seemingly interpreted it. | | Whether it's negative or not also depends on the context | which in this case is a proposed solution to _literally | the most negative and upset-sounding post in this chain:_ | the one that started it. What does your ML model think of | "I'm gonna throw up on my keyboard"? | BoorishBears wrote: | "You don't have the social skills to realize _people_ can | infer tone, so here let your fellow _computer_ tell it to | you " | | _third person shows up to pick a fight with the | computer._ | | Never chance y'all. | | - | | And for the record, if someone complains about a piece of | writing, and you tell them "simply not to read it" | | You are being a passive aggressive joke, and you are | clearly upset with their critique. | | People are allowed to dislike things, and _gasp_ even | hate things, you don 't need to get all _max passive | aggression_ over that. | | Not everyone lives in an echo chamber of timidity where | all emotions must be moderate some of you put yourselves | in. | | - | | The person I replied to had no answer to the actual point | I made, so they tried to derail the conversation to "how | dare you claim I'm upset!" which was a complete aside in | my comment as it was in theres. | | Yet now I am talking to a guy who wants to argue with an | ML model so I guess well played? | junon wrote: | > I am talking to a guy who wants to argue with an ML | model | | Are you suggesting ML models are infallible? You might | want to sit down before I tell you the news... | BoorishBears wrote: | I physically cringed reading this. | | My comment said something a social skill as simple as | inferring tone is too far above you. | | Now here you are, still trying argue about the ML model | that was used to compare your social skills to that of a | text analysis model. | | Hint: It was never about the ML model. | | Like at first it was funny, now it's just sad. It's too | on the nose. | Drblessing wrote: | Yeah, why is everyone so mad, you don't get to decide how | someone writes their farewell letter. | xxs wrote: | mostly b/c it's rather unlikely that someone has decided, | themselves, to do that. There is no human behind the pen | (or the keystrokes). I suppose some might have been in a | similar position and resent it. | kodah wrote: | I feel you. Words of those in leadership positions can often | seem fairly hollow. They don't just seem so, though, they are | and that's on purpose. | | Being authentic as a leader is impossible. Your thoughts, | desires, core beliefs, etc are going to be offensive to someone | -- even if those disagreeable things made agreeable outcomes | for people mad at your words. I mean offensive in the broadest | possible definition here; more plainly, they'll be perceived | negatively by someone with enough motivation to be nasty and | often it's not worth the trouble of dealing with someone who | woke up feeling nasty. We live in a world where people think | it's okay to read into the words (and lives) of others, try to | derive deep meaning out of simple actions (even if there is | none), and where people believe you're lying by default (as a | leader). The fact is, as time has gone on confirmation of these | things in various people and businesses builds, so they're hard | assuations to just toss aside. Therefore, it is most safe to | type a paragraph giving direction, listing accomplishments, and | thanking entities that helped you along the way in the most | taste-free way one can, while saying absolutely nothing at all. | romanhn wrote: | You're absolutely right, though is this case even the taste- | free text is offending enough people. Being a leader means | you'll offend someone, so it becomes an exercise in whom | you're ok with offending. | macNchz wrote: | I'm with you about corporate drivel generally, but I'm not | really seeing it here... this post is much more human and | expresses seemingly genuine gratitude towards team members in a | way that's absent from the utter tripe I find, for example, in | the LinkedIn feed. | htrp wrote: | I always wonder how much of these statements are PR driven vs | PR edited... what percentage of these words actually belong to | Nat vs the corporate communications team. | xxs wrote: | Sometimes I truly wonder if people can actually =talk= like | that for reals. The 'blog' is practically unreadable mess, | esp. given its name 'blog'. | alexashka wrote: | Hear, hear. | | As I live longer, I realize some people take to corporate speak | and corporate values like ducks to water. | | It's actually their preferred mode of communication and | existence. | | Politicians play this game most clearly - they need to | communicate allegiance to the rich, their political party _and_ | 'the people', which is an impossible ask (because the parties | are not aligned and you please one by taking away from the | other) but they do quite well by having invented a vocabulary | that's interpreted differently by each group, plus they can | outright lie, which's a last resort move they try to avoid. | | Anyhoo :) | hawski wrote: | If we only could have honest tribal liars as Zoons have. | friedman23 wrote: | If I was a ceo and I had an assistant, I would definitely tell | them to write all the bs company letters for me... | ferdowsi wrote: | When you are a company leader, your words can have a material | effect on your business. This is doubly so true at a disruptive | point like leadership exits. Of course words are going to be | delicately chosen? | | That being said I didn't notice anything particularly offensive | about this letter. He describes the accomplishments under his | watch, expresses gratitude for employees, and expresses | confidence in his successor. | systemvoltage wrote: | There is one particular corporate leader who speaks their | mind and has made a tremendous impact on the world. So, it's | not clear if it has anything to do with polished big-corp | language. | | I'd rather listen to someone who is straightforward than | Sundar Pichai speaking entirely in corporate-speak while | saying absolutely nothing of value or substance. Completely | uninspiring. | | All corporate speak is rather an invention of the 80's and | 90's. Listen to corporate leaders from any other time before | that. | approxim8ion wrote: | Why is one thing a corporate persona and the other | "speaking their mind"? I think most CEOs are good at | cultivating a personal brand that speaks to the people they | want to be reaching out to. | | Musk is equally if not more pompous with his nuggets of | wisdom, and offers no value or substance either. | ghostly_s wrote: | Who is that? | aerosmile wrote: | Elon | | Edit: lol, this will be the most downvotes on a char | count basis I've ever received. I thought it was | generally accepted that for better or worse, he does not | mince words. | __s wrote: | Musk | ghostly_s wrote: | LOL, Github has made more impact on the world than Elon. | __s wrote: | ? | | systemvoltage made no comparison between impact of Musk & | impact of GitHub | kreeben wrote: | It's funny to me that you think Musk isn't an "always-be- | selling" type of person and that you think he speaks his | mind without spewing "corporate speak" because to me, | "Musk speak" is just another form of corporate speak. | | Musk isn't so much "speaking the truth", he's more | "selling things, his way". | jaywalk wrote: | You've essentially expanded the definition of "corporate | speak" to be "anything a person in a leadership position | says" | Apocryphon wrote: | When you're a corporate leader, the way you speak is by | default a form of corporate speak, because as a public | figure who is listened to, everything you say is a | reflection of the brand. | jaywalk wrote: | No. Corporate speak is a specific way of speaking. | kreeben wrote: | Will you agree with this? | | Corporate speak, definition: | | - to say what's in the best interest of the corporation, | no matter what the circumstance | | - to not tell the truth, unless it's something that can | become a huge PR success for the corporation | | - to not tell a lie, unless it's something that can | become a huge PR success for the corporation | | For the "Musk speak" definition, simply replace "the | corporation" with "Musk". | Apocryphon wrote: | I think there's a specific "corporate style" of speaking | that's very stiff and blandly positive, which is what | they're thinking of when they're saying corporate speak. | But I agree with your point and was making it, even | though Musk speak is a different style, it ultimately | works the same way as the corporate style, which is to | buff up his brand in a way that maximizes shareholder | value. Musk speak might not be the corporate _style_ , | but it's still a form of corporate speak, as per your | definition. | Apocryphon wrote: | Exactly, his shtick just happens to be the complete | opposite of conventional corporate speak. It's edgy | "tell-it-like-it-is" trolling, but it's still designed to | build a brand and a relationship with the consumer. He's | not even the only corpo who does that. | __s wrote: | That's cool; I was just answering ghostly_'s question as | to whom systemvoltage was implying | haliskerbas wrote: | Ah yes Elon Musk also tweets about "TITS university". I'm | sure there's no one that finds issue with that, but doesn't | have the power to speak against it. | TeMPOraL wrote: | There are over 7 billion people on this planet. I'm sure | that for every utterance you could construct in the | English language, you could find someone who "finds issue | with that, but doesn't have the power to speak against | it". | xibalba wrote: | People are entitled to their opinions, but I personally | just can't take the pearl clutchers seriously in their | offense-taking on this one. | | The framing on this as a demonstration of deep misogyny | in tech is just way, way too morbidly absurd. | jaywalk wrote: | If someone finds issue with it but doesn't have the power | to speak against it, then _who cares_ that they find | issue with it? If Elon was worried about making sure he | didn 't offend anyone, he wouldn't speak the way he does. | [deleted] | yongjik wrote: | Can't deny that Musk is an incredibly successful man, but | if it's the choice between Sundar Pichai's corporate speech | and someone who attacks a rescue expert as "pedo guy" | because his ego is hurt, I'd rather work for Pichai. | | I mean, if we can excuse Musk's behavior as "So what? His | companies have been incredibly successful," then, fine, but | why can't we say the same for other CEOs? Other CEOs at | least have a good sense of keeping their personal feuds out | of twitter. | scrubs wrote: | Agree. Corporate speak is un-open. It's a spin. It's | pejorative because it's essentially manipulative. To get | out of that and to work from one's own experience requires | intelligence and some (not a ton) of confidence. If the | putative speaker doesn't have that, how in the hell did he | get into the top spot? To be sure, such plain speak also | comes with a take, a slant, and frame. Is that | manipulative? Not in the end: you see it coming. You see | from whom it's coming. And the listener can assess how it | lands. If there's a meeting of the minds, great. If not no | harm, no-foul. | devmunchies wrote: | > Of course words are going to be delicately chosen? | | that question mark at the end of a non-question. Nothing | personal, just critique on a larger trend, but IMO upspeak | and vocal fry are more annoying than corporate speak. | | But I agree about these exit letter being more delicate. The | more intimate notes are fine internally. | ksec wrote: | Mostly started by Google as "Do No Evil" PR, and later by | Apple's creating products that "enrich people's lives." | | I dont think it is this letter in particular. So may be it is | not fair to criticise it. But my guess is that the | accumulation of these cooperate speaks, PR, and the past 10 | years of main stream media riding along these PR to new | height, just happen to tricker OP this time around. | | And it doesn't seems to be an American things either, I read | a lot of Fortune 500 post, somehow these over the top PR | speak are mostly related to tech only. | | However, I still think Github and Nat deserve _a lot_ of | praise for what they have done. Lots of changes and | improvement happened _after_ the acquisition. And not only | credit to Nat but also to Microsoft. | jaywalk wrote: | This stuff easily predates Google's founding, and isn't | remotely limited to tech. It's been standard "big | corporation" stuff for a very long time. | JohnWhigham wrote: | Corporate PR speak is a reflection of the American public's | willingness to have corporations put their foot on their neck, | and then play for the pleasure of it. | wongarsu wrote: | Corporate PR speak is a reflection of the American media's | willingness to endlessly mock anything that is outside the | accepted norm. PR speak is meaningless because saying | something interesting isn't worth the potential blowback. | VRay wrote: | Yeah, any time an executive speaks plainly it blows up in | their face | vorpalhex wrote: | Incendiary statements don't add much to the conversation. | | You probably like buying groceries, you're typing on a | computer and you presumably at least own clothes so you don't | have a problem with all corporations. One would also assume | you don't want a return to feudal society in which the goods | generally available to you were those produced in a 2-mile | radius. | JohnWhigham wrote: | Here come the "yet you participate in society...curious!" | posters. Also, nice strawman | spicybright wrote: | The computer point is fair, but for many growing your own | food and making your own clothes is nearly impossible with | some kind of corporation involvement. | TheJoYo wrote: | You might be reading the anti-corporate sentiment into that | comment. | | It seems more directed towards the public space of Twitter | and Facebook where corporations have enough rope to hang | themselves in the town square. | barelysapient wrote: | This is written in Protect-The-Stock-Price::English; a late | post-modern dialect of American English distinctive for its | bold and verbose phrases that are also in-explicitly devoid of | any substance. | | We're confident that intelligent audience members, like | yourself OP, can appreciate the large amounts of money and | diverse political sensitivities that our communication must be | careful to navigate. And while we respectfully regret any | discomfort you might have experienced, we hope that you find | joy in our future communications. | [deleted] | bpodgursky wrote: | Then don't read it. I'm more tired of the whining. | justin_oaks wrote: | Not OP, but it's hard to unread things. | Taywee wrote: | Fewer people probably would have read it if the title said | what it actually was. | zarathustreal wrote: | Then don't read it. | bastardoperator wrote: | I don't think they did... | OneTimePetes wrote: | Could have a warning label in the title similar to spoilers | though - [PRSPAM] | soheil wrote: | Because this _is_ a corporation. Why would he say it in his own | words? This is not a dinner party with aunt and grandma, it 's | a multi-billion dollar business with lots of liability. | nickthemagicman wrote: | Yoooooooooooo homies. I'm dippin out! Tom the new homie now. | This a legit cruise. One love to y'all. Always remember, | Snitches get stitches. Peace out braphogs. | | -Phat Nat | throwaway84636 wrote: | He probably can but doesn't want to. He may be posturing for | whatever thing he wants to do next which requires being "very | professional" (aka high-quality executive bullshit). Or he | might just be boring as hell. My dad was an executive, and he | was one of the most bland and uncreative human beings I've ever | met. | dang wrote: | Could you please stop creating accounts for every few | comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in | the site guidelines: | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. | | You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a | community, users need some identity for other users to relate | to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no | community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https | ://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... | throwaway84636 wrote: | It turns out that using throwaway accounts completely | changes the votes I receive for comments. It seems to | result in way more positive feedback than sockpuppets. The | last two throwaways I've used accrued several hundred | points in less than a month just from comments (no | submissions), whereas my 'normal' account actually gets so | many negative and neutral votes that the score doesn't | change, and seeing that literally makes me feel | bad/sad/angry. It seems like throwaways could indeed create | a different kind of forum - one where we get more positive | feedback and don't feel bad. Or as another way to put it, a | community can be toxic _because_ people think they know who | someone is. | tacon wrote: | >I will become Chairman Emeritus, which fulfills my lifelong | ambition of having a title in Latin. | | "plastic, formulaic, always-be-selling" | | Huh? | b3morales wrote: | While I think the complaint above is a little over the top, | the sentence you quote is a solitary fleck of personality in | a sea of boilerplate. | jb1991 wrote: | "..which fulfills my lifelong ambition of..." | | OP is probably referring to this tired, cliched turn of | phrase (among other examples in the blog). | junon wrote: | A lighthearted phrase, at worst. Are we not allowed to | express ourselves except for the dryest, most information- | dense prose? | madeofpalk wrote: | I read this as a tongue in cheek joke? | jb1991 wrote: | That's right, it is tongue-in-cheek, and a stereotypical | way of doing so. | abzug wrote: | I read as dumb. It doesn't give any value to the piece, | very akin to virtue signaling. | meowface wrote: | I don't really think it's virtue signaling. "Virtue | signaling" is itself an extremely tired | cliche/accusation. To me it feels more like stock | "relatability signaling", which gives me a similarly | unctuous feeling. Kind of the nerd-corporatespeak version | of "hello, fellow kids". | [deleted] | [deleted] | freewilly1040 wrote: | The mind numbing boringness is entirely the point. The real | message is that there's nothing to see here, everyone is on the | same page, everyone loves the successor, if you're an investor | or an employee this is definitely not an event that should make | you reconsider your relationship with the company. | shp0ngle wrote: | If you don't want to read this type of stuff, don't read | corporate blogs. Especially CEO posts. That's easy. | Kiro wrote: | Obnoxious comment and perfect example of how toxic this place | has become. | BoorishBears wrote: | Are you kidding? Even the _title_ is intentionally | uninformative clickbait. | meragrin_ wrote: | How so? My first thought when reading the title and seeing | it was a GitHub blog was that someone was probably leaving | the company. Do you expect someone leaving their company to | title their goodbye blog post like "John Doe leaving | GitHub"? | BoorishBears wrote: | Have we really reached a place where now "Thank you | Company" means "I'm leaving Company"??? | Taywee wrote: | My first thought was "GitHub has some underappreciated | feature or functionality that saved somebody's ass at | their job, and this is their write-up". | meragrin_ wrote: | But the blog post was on GitHub's blog. They would title | something like that more like "How FEATURE Saves Your | Ass". | Taywee wrote: | I agree. I clicked on this expecting something more | interesting than some corporate executive's resignation | letter. | azemetre wrote: | Is it really obnoxious? | | The world is starting to realize that tech companies are | causing a lot of societal damage that will take years, if not | generations to repair. | | People are also starting to get upset at large corporations | for being tone death and having zero social contracts for the | societies they reside in. | | Public opinion is turning and GitHub/Microsoft are just | getting caught in the crosshairs with public sentiment. | thrdbndndn wrote: | To me, it's obnoxious because this kind of "complaint" is | just as formulaic and will appear on every single | announcement post thread. | azemetre wrote: | That's fair. It is interesting when you look at other | types of farewell post over the years/decade on HN | (mostly open source projects or programming langs). There | is definitely a tendency to favor those types versus | corporate ones. | Barrin92 wrote: | disagree. Honest exasperation over the constant fakeness in | the industry and how corporate it has become is valuable in | the sense that it at least expresses a genuine emotion, | something that can't be said about the empty but faux-civil | communication that is 99% of the tech industry nowadays with | its constant need to pat its own back. | fishtacos wrote: | I actually thought OP's take was very pertinent to the | situation. | | ...which was riddled with phrases like: | | "With all that we've accomplished in mind, and more than five | great years at Microsoft under my belt, I've decided it's | time for me to go back to my startup roots. What drives me is | enabling builders to create the future. | | Not even Clark Kent could be this braggadocios. | _vertigo wrote: | Sorry, what's bad about that? | afarrell wrote: | If you start from the assumption that it is meaningless | and insincere, then it is eye-rollingly vapid. | | If you start from the assumption that it is a genuine | attempt to put messy feelings into concise words, then it | is a bit lacks vividness but is nonetheless heartfelt. | | When you choose not to trust someone, you make them | untrustworthy. | fishtacos wrote: | Is that why we make judgement calls on this case? No one | can know the intent or original thoughts of the author, | but we can certainly ascribe qualities to their product | based on our experience... | | The fun exercise here is not that this is yet another | vapid post on HN, but that people are defending it. | adventured wrote: | > The fun exercise here is not that this is yet another | vapid post on HN, but that people are defending it. | | It's quite plausible that the simple truth of the matter | is that some people commenting here, defending the post, | may feel that HN shouldn't be so very frequently cynical, | negative, mean, quick to jump to assuming the worst about | intentions, and so on. The Guidelines - for good reason - | even go out of the way to try to drive users away from | behaving that way. | afarrell wrote: | Thats my motive. Why? | | Because "If people would assume the worst about someone | as competent at communication as $leader, then how much | more likely are they to mistrust me when I try to | communicate sincerely?" is the story I tell myself. | Spending time in low-trust environments does bad things | to the psyche. | fishtacos wrote: | Reading up higher will inform you of context, but to | reiterate: | | OP: "Look the guy probably had some success and met some | great people. So why in the hell can't you say that in | your own words?" | | My comment: "Not even Clark Kent could be this | braggadocios." | | There are better way of expressing one's | (dis)satisfaction in the workplace. Starting with, | perhaps, whittling down one's pride in accomplishing what | tens of thousands already have... | renewiltord wrote: | When a leader lists each of these accomplishments, it's | less "See what I did" and more "To the team that did | this: I see you, I recognize your contribution". | | I think all these comments are incredibly childish. It's | a nice goodbye letter from their well known and visible | leader. | fishtacos wrote: | Then we probably agree to disagree on this point. | | A braggadocios "goodbye letter" is worse than no letter | at all. | | The corporate speak regurgitation is icing on the cake. | nine_k wrote: | He cannot say it in his own words because it's a ritual. | All formulae here are ritualistic, following a corporate | protocol for such speeches. The speaker's agency | is,limited to choosing which formulae to choose, and | filling in the predefined slots in them. | | The point of the ritual is to signal the world that all | goes as planned, while giving away as few salient details | as possible. | fishtacos wrote: | "The speaker's agency is,limited to choosing which | formulae to choose, and filling in the predefined slots | in them." | | Sometimes it's better to say nothing at all than be | thought a fool. | notriddle wrote: | "Nate, after stepping down as the CEO of GitHub, has | declined to comment." | | Yeah... what message do you think _that_ would send. | afarrell wrote: | It is better to risk being thought a fool by some than to | act foolishly out of fear. | stelonix wrote: | I do agree we're living an eternal september for the past | months and comment quality has gone down to reddit-level, but | I also agree with the commenter about this specific post from | GH's founder. | fishtacos wrote: | Curious as to why you think this is an "eternal september" | vs.... anything else/your standard. | 5e92cb50239222b wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 | | From the HN guidelines. | 1123581321 wrote: | Reddit-level is a moving target. Both are trending in the | same direction, one faster and earlier than the other. | Drblessing wrote: | Exactly, why is that the top comment. | jrockway wrote: | Good data. We have learned that if your company ever gets bought | by Microsoft, you have to wait about three years to be fully | vested. (The acquisition was in June 2018, but I guess it must | have been finalized on November 3rd ;) | [deleted] | zerkten wrote: | Why is that a surprise? All of the top tech companies have many | public acquisitions and all of the leader info is available | from multiple sources. In fact, you could use that leader info | from LinkedIn to understand that Nat was already at MS from the | Xamarin acquisition to know that his tenure at GitHub wouldn't | be a good data point. | sandyarmstrong wrote: | Nat was originally on the Microsoft side when GitHub was | acquired, not the GitHub side. | HugoDaniel wrote: | Does not change the fact that he stepped into the company he | co-founded with vesting shares 3 years ago. | aroman wrote: | Nat was not a cofounder of GitHub. | HugoDaniel wrote: | sorry my mistake, I had the idea he went full circle when | were assigned as the CEO | apetresc wrote: | I still can't tell what you're alluding to. The company he | founded was acquired 5 years ago, not 3. | kodah wrote: | Nat has had the privilege of working on some large projects | and startups. I doubt money is something he's too concerned | about at this point. | da39a3ee wrote: | So how come he made so much money that he can waltz off to | what sounds like a life of casual angel investing? | sandyarmstrong wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman | kalium-xyz wrote: | 30 times as many likes as comments, are people upvoting this | without reading or do people actually use the delay function? | SirSourdough wrote: | It's only 5x now. But also... it's "big news" but I doubt | people have all that much to say about it. | pistoriusp wrote: | Most likely people posting it, but how do you correlate likes | and comments? Not everyone that likes an article needs to | comment on it? | EastOfTruth wrote: | > how do you correlate likes and comments? | | That doesn't make it good or bad, but HN itself changes the | ranking of an article based on the upvotes/comments ratio... | lxe wrote: | Post titles like these are HN's flavor of clickbait. I get that | it's the title of the article, but it doesn't mean it should be | the title of the post. | aigo wrote: | As a newer user that's actually one of the things I love about | HN, that people accurately and succinctly summarise the link's | content in the title. And if not, someone will ask them to do | so in the comments. | zrail wrote: | That's actually (generally) the opposite of what happens. | Usually someone will editorialize the title and the admins | will change it to the contents of the title tag. If you see a | good synopsis it's probably because the author of the piece | took the time to write a hook-ful title. | lxe wrote: | Instead of "Thank You, GitHub", the post title should be | "GitHub's CEO farewell address" or something. | Amorymeltzer wrote: | Related post by the new CEO Thomas Dohmke: | https://github.blog/2021-11-03-building-the-next-phase-of-gi... | | (nascent) HN discussion: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29095759 | kerng wrote: | There seems to be a lot of confusion in the HN community about | Nat originally coming from Github. He was already a Microsoft | employee at the time Github was aquired. | | That confusion alone speaks books on how well Microsoft | integrated Github under his tenure. Kudos. | qwertox wrote: | I fully agree, I was one of those until 5 minutes ago. I'm | happy that GitHub managed to stay being what it used to be, and | has the strong financial backing of Microsoft. | | Stack Exchange, GitHub and Wikipedia, God bless them. | mythz wrote: | Didn't see this one coming, considering how well Nat/GitHub was | doing since MS acquired them where they now appear to be | unstoppably dominant who are successfully branching out of repo | hosting to take over more of the dev/project lifecycle. | | Will be interesting to see what his next plans are. | ksec wrote: | >Didn't see this one coming | | It also happened M$ promoted [1] a new president of the MSFT | DevDiv, which includes GitHub. | | It happened on the same day, I mean I cant help to read a lot | into it. | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640#29098677 | tevon wrote: | Agreed, github has seemed to be absolutely crushing it lately. | With novel features every couple months: Copilot, workspaces, | wayyyy better CI. | toxik wrote: | Tangential but what do you mean with better CI? GitHub | doesn't do any CI at all as far as I know, and Travis turned | commercial only. Did I miss something? | jitl wrote: | Github is one of the biggest CI players around, I think. | https://github.com/features/actions | | At Notion we use Actions to build our iOS and Android | nightly apps and deploy our client and server releases to | production. | fernandotakai wrote: | while i agree that github is a huge CI player, i really | really miss gitlab's ci -- i feel like they were more | flexible compared to github's. | geerlingguy wrote: | It was only a couple years ago when it seemed competitors | were eating at many of GitHub's fringe uses, and even some | (like GitLab) were hacking at the core. | | GitHub really amped it up and not only brought out useful | features from around 2018 on, it also started fixing some | (not all) of the most annoying long-term gripes users and | maintainers have had. | | Couple that with adding more abilities to free accounts, and | they seem to have all the momentum for dev tooling right now. | | I just hope they don't get complacent, or target the | enterprise stuff too much. | oaiey wrote: | Seems like they promoted the chief product officer. Seems | like exactly the person who delivered this. | jppope wrote: | Thats a bummer. I was a Nat fan during his tenure. I think he | really embraced the spirit of the role. Hopefully the next CEO | continues his work | alpb wrote: | Perhaps the moderation can consider changing the title to "GitHub | names new CEO as Nat Friedman steps down"? | dang wrote: | I considered it, briefly changed it, but reverted it. | | Reason for changing: probably the most important exception to | HN's title rule (" _Please use the original title, unless it is | misleading or linkbait; don 't editorialize._") is in the case | of corporate press releases, whose bland titles are usually a | kind of misdirection (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&pag | e=0&prefix=true&sor...). | | Reason for reverting: on reflection I think the title is more | Nat's voice than corporate PR, and I'd rather respect that. | m0zg wrote: | I'm kinda worried about GH now. I actually worked at MS over a | decade ago. They had a pattern at the time which routinely drove | their acquisitions into the ground. It went something like this: | an acquisition happens, and in order for folks who matter to not | jump ship immediately, the acquired company would be allowed to | operate semi-autonomously for a while. A year, year and a half | sharks from Microsoft proper would start coming in smelling the | water for blood. Someone leaves (or is stabbed in the back and | fired), and MS "mafia" would start moving in, quickly bringing | their old boys network with them. Absolutely the most soulless, | corporate types imaginable. Dev team then inevitably notices this | turn of events and bails. A new, much weaker dev team is brought | in to replace it. Acquisition is now in smoldering ruins, sharks | start looking to ruin something else. Lather, rinse, repeat. Seen | this happen several times in adjacent teams. | outside1234 wrote: | This one does seem to be different. Github is held at arms | length from the rest of Microsoft (like LinkedIn) such that all | of this sort of interference can't happen currently. | | It will be interesting to see if they can keep that up. It is | clearly an advantage to have an organization that can think | "developers first" and not Azure, Windows, or whatever first. | lmickh wrote: | Hundreds of developers were moved from Azure teams to the | GitHub org about a year or so ago. Several new features they | have added are effectively rebranding/built on top of other | Azure projects. | | GitHub is hardly at arms length from MS. | oaiey wrote: | Let us be straight: they effectively made the Azure DevOps | (the leftover from the once might Team Foundation Server) a | weak product to further foster GitHub. So when this team | brought some tech over, that just means, they are now | working for GitHub primarily and no longer on Azure DevOps. | rickbradley wrote: | [Citation needed] | m0zg wrote: | We'll see soon enough. If this is what's going on, the | process rarely takes more than a year, year and a half. | pantulis wrote: | I guess the post-Gates Ballmer era was prone to these types | of acquisition wreckage. My feeling is that under Nadella | everything is more nuanced. Still, we'll see soon enough. | jeffrallen wrote: | You forgot the part about "leveraging" Windows into places | where the acquired company had previously determined it was | wholly unsuitable. | | Gack, what a terrible company. | eat_veggies wrote: | nat's only starred gist says drop ice: | https://gist.github.com/nat/starred | Xavdidtheshadow wrote: | That seems to have changed since you posted it - I see no | starred gists. | nickthemagicman wrote: | Interestinf. What's the ICE contract? | max1cc wrote: | lol. didn't he have enough time while he was actually CEO? | feels like quite a cop out | Brosper wrote: | Cool story bro | onion2k wrote: | I like and respect nat because he never seemed afraid of engaging | directly with customers (here on HN, on Twitter, etc). You need | to talk to customers at the start of founding any startup, but to | carry on doing that _long_ past the point of being able to have a | team to do it for you is pretty awesome. I hope the next CEO is | equally open to listening to us. | FpUser wrote: | >"Build, test, and deploy your code right from GitHub" | | And then loose everything if the supreme being puts you on a | blacklist just because it stopped liking your government. | jeffrallen wrote: | Heh, heh. Wonder what Microsoft did to piss him off. | MikusR wrote: | They promoted the person responsible for this | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28972431 | supernovae wrote: | Nothing. | mtmail wrote: | https://restofworld.org/2021/github-microsoft-in-china-how-l... | "As Microsoft scales back the Chinese version of LinkedIn, | developers worry the code repository could be next." though I | personally don't believe it to be the reason. | nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: | Do you also wonder what Amazon did to piss Bezos off? | oaiey wrote: | Simple: gave him too much money and shares. | hackitup7 wrote: | Sometimes people just want to move on. No different than | engineers seeking greener pastures. | ya3r wrote: | Nat was a great CEO. The best that could have happened to Github | after the acquisition IMO. | | The one time that I won't forget about Github under Nat, was when | they stood up for Iranian developers [1]. They went the extra | distance to get a permission/license from the US government | specially to offer full Github to developers from Iran. Many | other companies didn't do something similar. | | [1]: https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer- | freedom-g... | rarkins wrote: | I agree. youtube-dl was another example of them turning a | vulnerable moment into a win: | https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432 | fragmede wrote: | Which, btw, was also thanks to the EFF. Their mission is | occasionally murky these days, but their part in the | subsequent restoration of _youtube-dl_ in the face of a DMCA | takedown is not to be ignored or forgotten. | | https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1. | .. | 5faulker wrote: | Here's another new chapter to software development. | rsync wrote: | "They went the extra distance to get a permission/license from | the US government specially to offer full Github to developers | from Iran." | | Wait, that's a thing ? | | We get a signup from Iran about once every month and I always, | apologetically, send a personal note saying that I wish we | could provide service to them but ... | | You're saying rsync.net can legally provide service to Iranians | with ... some paperwork ? | thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: | They are a trillion dollar company which spends ten million | dollars a year on lobbying for reasons like this. | dharmab wrote: | It would take some intensive lobbying: | | > And separately, we took our case to the Office of Foreign | Assets Control (OFAC), part of the US Treasury Department, | and began a lengthy and intensive process of advocating for | broad and open access to GitHub in sanctioned countries. Over | the course of two years, we were able to demonstrate how | developer use of GitHub advances human progress, | international communication, and the enduring US foreign | policy of promoting free speech and the free flow of | information. We are grateful to OFAC for the engagement which | has led to this great result for developers. | saurik wrote: | There are standing "general" licenses for any product / | company that is doing certain activities and "specific" | licenses granted to individual companies. I believe GitHub | managed to get a general exemption for anyone providing | source code hosting? The general idea is that there are | things that the US government _wants_ people in Iran to be | able to do as it would _help_ their fight rather than hurt | it. This page has the list of general licenses: | | https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial- | sanctions/... | ya3r wrote: | Definitely a thing. | | Regarding the cost, it might be more than "some paperwork". | AriaMinaei wrote: | Iranian dev here. I can tell you if a company goes the | extra mile to provide services to us, the reason is almost | always that they just care. It's not a marketing tactic. | You _have_ to care if you go through all that trouble. And | there is very little publicity to these acts. No one is | going to notice it but us. They only do it out of the | goodness of their hearts. | rvnx wrote: | They also went the extra-mile to block Iranian | developers, they didn't have to do so much police, and | probably tried to buy their redemption. For example, in | theory Hackernews should block Iranians, but they will | probably pretend not to be aware and won't actively chase | them. | ralph84 wrote: | Compliance with US export controls and sanctions isn't | optional. That some companies are less diligent about it | than others doesn't change the compliance requirements, | and people can and do regularly go to prison for willful | violations. | 908B64B197 wrote: | > You're saying rsync.net can legally provide service to | Iranians with ... some paperwork ? | | A lot of it probably. Also, not sure how you can collect | payment from these users. And keep in mind your software | might end up being used by their regime for oppressive | purpose. | | Keep in mind the people of Iran can end these sanctions at | any time. It's a personal and societal choice. | type_enthusiast wrote: | > the people of Iran can end these sanctions at any time | | Sorry to bite on this off-topic thing... but, _how_? | Overthrowing their government? I guess that would be | technically true, but "at any time" seems like a weird | phrase to use for that. | 908B64B197 wrote: | Yes. Just look at Libya during the Arab Spring. Democracy | is never given, it is earned. | hni wrote: | Never given; but taken, sometimes. | ghuntley wrote: | In case people missed it. There was two promotions today. A new | CEO at GitHub and the person GitHub reports to a MSFT also got | promoted. | | Here's the internal msft email | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 | | This person at MSFT who got promoted is the one that caused the | problems in the dotnet community where features that had a go- | live RTM license (as in merged and ready for long term support) | were removed from the programming language so that more | Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. | | Other items under this persons remit: | | - Visual Studio | | - .NET | | - Python | | - TypeScript | | - OpenJDK | | - GitHub (+NPM) | | - (hint hint) Azure SDKs (hint hint) | | - (hint hint) Azure PaaS / Azure Serverless (hint hint) | tailspin2019 wrote: | Wow. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | > removed from the programming language so that more | Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. | | Honestly, I'm fine with this level of dickishness so long as | it means the rest of the VS ecosystem is free-to-use. | | Someone or something has to subsidise VSCode. | geofft wrote: | Right, I have to admit I don't entirely understand the .NET | kerfuffle. .NET is clearly Microsoft's language ecosystem, | just as much as Swift is Apple's, and much more so than, | say, Go is Google's. A lot of the value in .NET is how it | works with the Microsoft ecosystem - or put another way, as | someone who mostly doesn't develop on Windows (but uses | Windows a lot as a desktop OS), I have never once felt that | .NET was the best way to solve a problem that wasn't a | Windows-specific problem. | | It would be totally fine if .NET were a closed-source, | Microsoft-run language. It is pretty cool that this isn't | true. But the idea that Microsoft organizationally having | control over the .NET open source project is somehow bad | for open source is just incomprehensible to me, who grew up | on .NET not being open source at all. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | > It is pretty cool that this isn't true. But the idea | that Microsoft organizationally having control over the | .NET open source project is somehow bad for open source | is just incomprehensible to me, who grew up on .NET not | being open source at all. | | It's not about open-source: it's more that major | organizations and industries won't use a programming | platform that is _entirely_ at the whims of a company | they have no real control over and without independent | means to ensure it keeps on working, so a compromise | position that Microsoft took is to make .NET open-source, | so that in the event Microsoft disappears overnight (say, | Mt. Rainier erupting and wiping out the Seattle metro | area) people have something they can keep on using and | build and maintain themselves. We saw the opposite with | VB6: the VB6 platform was never open and shared and now | all the companies that invested in VBA and VB6 in the | 1990s is rightfully annoyed because VB6 is a complete | dead-end with no feasible upgrade-path to .NET (VB.NET is | not compatible with VB6). | | -------- | | While my SaaS (and my current job) is a .NET shop because | it originated with some "Classic" ASP 3.0 VBScripts that | my boss put together himself in the late 1990s that was | slowly transitioned through .NET WebForms (ew) and | ASP.NET MVC, we still use it for new greenfield projects | because .NET is a nice platform overall that scales | really well from one-off prototype projects that can be | easily transitioned to high-performance distributed | applications without any major rewrites (the only thing | I've had to "rewrite" was the conversion from .aspx (as | an MVC View, not WebForms) to Razor .cshtml, everything | else has been refactored through the years. The tooling | and integration between MS products and services does | save a lot of trouble otherwise (that's where the value | is). | | My experience from other shops, and the problems I've | seen there is _not_ that other "stacks" (I hate that | word) like MySQL+PHP, Postgres+Python, Anything+NodeJS | are somehow less capable (excepting PHP, it's often the | opposite, actually) but that you end up with dozens of | projects all with their own separate stacks and build | environments, all with their own tedious onboarding | processes (e.g. having one Angular project that | absolutely requires Node 12, not Node 14, to run) while | another project's server-side NodeJS code absolutely | requires Node 16 _and_ Python _and_ Tomcat somewhere. | | So I'm more than happy to pay the thousands of USD per | year for my MSDN Subscription because it gives me a | platform that saves me the trouble and headaches of a | highly heterogenous environment especially given the fact | we're a small shop. | passivate wrote: | > it's more that major organizations and industries won't | use a programming platform that is entirely at the whims | of a company they have no real control over and without | independent means to ensure it keeps on working, | | That is a risk that is common to every single industry, | and as such is a risk that is easily understood and | quantifiable. We live in an interdependent world. You're | always going to be dependent on suppliers, vendors, | equipment etc. We have seen how covid related supply | chain issues have affected everyone. Atleast with a S/W | platform, what you have in-hand continues to work, and | you can continue to use the compiler, libraries, etc to | churn out new binaries. | smoldesu wrote: | > major organizations and industries won't use a | programming platform that is entirely at the whims of a | company they have no real control over | | 100% this, the biggest issue I see with dotnet and Swift | is that they're spending too much time trying to be | appealing to people who don't want to use them. Swift, as | a language, _really_ only makes sense to use if you 're | extensively targeting Apple systems and planning to skip | Windows/Linux altogether. That's a pretty shit deal, from | the perspective of developers who want to deliver | software to the largest possible audience. Similarly, | writing an entire program in dotnet used to be a death | sentence until Mono finally got thrown together. Even | still it's not a very attractive framework for most | cases, which just goes to show how important open | governance can be when developing such a complex system. | tills13 wrote: | This comment is 100% FUD. | devoutsalsa wrote: | I wonder if services of non-Iranians ever get canceled if they | travel to Iran for vacation or business. Has anyone heard of | that happening? | NobodyNada wrote: | > And so today, I am excited to announce that effective November | 15th, Thomas Dohmke (@ashtom), GitHub's Chief Product Officer, | will become CEO and I [Nat Friedman] will become Chairman | Emeritus. | [deleted] | teh_klev wrote: | How very HN, a TLDR; of the TLDR; at the top of the post. | dang wrote: | Please don't. | teh_klev wrote: | Sorry Dang, I meant this as good humoured comment rather | than "HN is becoming reddit". | throwaway84636 wrote: | How very HN, a comment about how very HN a comment is | kalium-xyz wrote: | The blogs TLDR was too long to be effective. | SirSourdough wrote: | A short paragraph? What a world we live in. | kalium-xyz wrote: | it looks like a foreword. Modern articles have made sure | I never read those. | avgcorrection wrote: | Summary: Leaving. | Jugurtha wrote: | Summary: exit(0). | karagenit wrote: | > n.b.: bye | | Let's code golf this and see how short we can get it :) | xook wrote: | Shortest version might be: | Taywee wrote: | More of a "saved you a click" than a TL;DR. Most people on HN | probably don't care to read about GitHub changing CEOs. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Most people probably say this just to be like "I know Nat, look | at me." I don't know how to phrase this to avoid that: | | Nat is an incredible person. I've been lucky to get to know him | over the past couple months. Not only is he super chill, but he's | also not afraid to ask basic questions. Many of you might roll | your eyes at that, but it's a real problem: when you're | organizing something, you feel pressured to know everything, or | else you'll lose people's confidence. So all the people who try | to act confident also rarely ask basic questions. | | Hackers are the opposite. We're always focused on breaking down | problems into the most basic components, and then building up | complexity once we understand the system. | | When Nat reached out to me, I didn't know what to expect. But I | certainly didn't expect him to be a fellow hacker that happened | to be famous. I think it's incredible that someone can go so long | without losing that spirit -- imagine suddenly having a boatload | of money. Most of us would probably take things easier. | | Another surprise is how incredibly chill he is. When things go | seriously wrong, he's totally cool about it, in a way that's hard | to put into words. I learned the phrase "No stress, friend" from | him, and I've used it a few times to soothe other people. As | cliche as it sounds, sometimes it's the one thing in the world | you need to hear. | | I wish I could tell a certain story to underscore the point, but | Nat's stories are his to tell. I hope he writes a book someday -- | nothing fancy, just a raw thought stream of all his experiences. | | And I wish I could share his future ambition. It's so exciting | that I can hardly contain myself. It might not work out, but | that's true of everything. | | I don't know if anyone will see this. But I just wanted to write | a little note to say how rare Nat is. He actually cares -- deeply | -- and also cares about you. Most leaders don't. | | If someone reading this has the opportunity to work with him on | his new project, I encourage you to leave your cushy job on that | basis alone. It'll be fun in a way you won't experience | elsewhere. | cbatr wrote: | He (unless someone impersonated him) made some quite | undiplomatic remarks regarding CoPilot here on HN. As an OSS | author, I was offended by those remarks. | Gigachad wrote: | I think it's fine that someone shares their bold opinions on | future technology and puts it out in the public without | hiding all this discussion in private where the public can | not interact with them. | rightiousrob wrote: | Are you in love with your ex- boss? | sillysaurusx wrote: | I love my wife, which isn't entirely dissimilar :) | alfiedotwtf wrote: | > I don't know if anyone will see this. But I just wanted to | write a little note to say how rare Nat is. He actually cares | -- deeply -- and also cares about you. Most leaders don't. | | That's the worrying thing - how will Github be 5 years from now | without Nat at the helm. | ghuntley wrote: | In case people missed it. There was two promotions today. A new | CEO at GitHub and the person GitHub reports to a MSFT also got | promoted. | | Here's the internal msft email | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 | | This person at MSFT who got promoted is the one that caused the | problems in the dotnet community where features that had a go- | live RTM license (as in merged and ready for long term support) | were removed from the programming language so that more Microsoft | Visual Studio licenses could be sold. | | Other items under this persons remit: | | - Visual Studio | | - .NET | | - Python | | - TypeScript | | - OpenJDK | | - GitHub (+NPM) | | - (hint hint) Azure SDKs (hint hint) | | - (hint hint) Azure PaaS / Azure Serverless (hint hint) | alfiedotwtf wrote: | Nat successfully Embraced, and Extended Github. I'm just hoping | he wasn't the one holding back an inevitable Extinguish... but | here we are | MikusR wrote: | This is probably what caused him to resign. | judge2020 wrote: | Despite Visual Studio being a paid product it's always slow and | a pain to use. Maybe they should fix that instead of trying to | gatekeep features. | | Don't forget https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/pull/22262 | FpUser wrote: | I use Visual Studio to develop software ( C++ ) for Windows | and Linux targets. I do not find it slow and rather than | being "pain" it is actually way above other development IDEs | in my opinion. | mritchie712 wrote: | What do you mean by Python being under them? | jiggawatts wrote: | I use most of those technologies daily, and I'm across much of | the "controversies" and issues, but I don't get what you're | hinting at. | | Feel free to be more candid... | nothatscool wrote: | Strong feeling of impending doom | nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: | Stayed long enough to screw up the Azure DevOps future, but not | long enough to make GitHub a viable alternative. | Yuioup wrote: | Staying on this subject, how is the Azure DevOps phase-out | going? When can I expect to see a "migrate now!" button? | EscargotCult wrote: | I wouldn't be surprised if it takes years for the phase-out, | if it ever gets phased out at all. There is a particular type | of organizational culture that believes having the "big" | option for a productivity tool is the best option. AzDO feels | like the "big" option. It is quite customizable and can | emulate (and in some areas surpass) GitHub's functionality, | but at the expense of having more knobs. To me, AzDO feels | like the inside of a space shuttle, but I'm certain that this | complexity is seen as a strength to some orgs. | | In CI-land, though, I think GitHub Actions and Azure | Pipelines fates are much more closely intertwined. The | Microsoft-hosted runners for Azure Pipelines have the same | environment as GitHub Actions (or perhaps it's GitHub Actions | that's standing on the shoulders of Azure Pipelines)[1]. | | 1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en- | us/azure/devops/pipelines/agen... | oaiey wrote: | I would also say that deployment pipelines have a place | inside the portfolio of a public cloud. Not the issue | tracking but repo and pipelines. | | AWS has this as well | sktrdie wrote: | I should say that back in the day Nat was one that got me into | coding. His nat.org blog (unfortunately cannot find it anymore on | archive) was such an authentic piece of writing with his Xamarin | and GNOME adventures along with posts and great photography on | his general coding life working for OSS and other smallerish | companies such as Novell. It was truly inspiration and made me | want to live that life - building cool things with great people - | but more importantly enjoying the whole human side around it | where your colleagues become your friends and coding is just | something that gets you closer to one another - similar to | "playing guitar" or "cycling around town" or "going snowboarding | together". | | Of course his corporate persona is a bit different, but his work | is still inspiring. Best of luck with your next adventure Nat! | Cheers. | emddudley wrote: | His blog seems to be excluded from archive.org, but I have | found archived copies elsewhere. I don't want to link directly | but you can find it with a little searching for his "Evolution | for Windows" blog post from 2005. | larrywright wrote: | I loved his blog too. I looked and found the post you're | referring to, but can't find most of the interesting stuff | that I recall seeing. | wojciechpolak wrote: | I loved reading his blog in the early 00s. Imagine that one day | in 2006 I ran "wget --mirror" on nat.org/blog and I still keep | the result in my archive folder. I really don't get it why he | deleted it. | nikodunk wrote: | I loved his blog too! | | I still have some printed cards where I copied his idea to | print 'Your_Name would like to apologize most abjectly for | his behavior on the evening of ___________' | diskzero wrote: | I was at Eazel back in the day and worked with Nat and Miguel | when they were at Ximian. It was obvious then that Nat would go | on to do great things. What will be next for Nat? Something | amazing I hope! | krrrh wrote: | I also had a parasocial relationship with him through nat.org. | There were some great posts about him and his friend buying a | used British roadster that had a lot of problems. I still | remember one of my favourite lines, "this car is a real dude | magnet." | adfm wrote: | Interestingly, no mention of Linus anywhere. So much for that | open source ethos. | sneak wrote: | Things Nat Friedman could have done, but didn't, while CEO of | GitHub: stop the use of GitHub Enterprise in organizations that | operate concentration camps. | | https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/m7jpgy/open-source-commu... | tessierashpool wrote: | and the worst part is that's probably not even what they fired | him for. | jassmith87 wrote: | There is no way they fired him. He is leaving by his own | choice. | junon wrote: | Hate to see this downvoted, and glad it got vouched. This is my | number one gripe with GitHub and is frequently dismissed as a | conspiracy when it is very real. GitHub does nothing because | nobody cares, and that's a sad state of affairs. | dannyw wrote: | People can care and not think that version control software | providers should start to denying service to governmental | agencies. | junon wrote: | This is a motte and bailey response. You're right, | governmental agencies shouldn't be denied service by | Github. I don't think anyone here is denying that statement | _as is_. However, the business ICE conducts, the actions | they take against other humans, and the vile, insideous | content they post in private facebook groups about it, are | something most people would have a problem with if they | were aware of it. | euroderf wrote: | In the current mood, shouldn't it be Chairperson Emeritum ? | bob229 wrote: | Who cares. Pathetic corporate pish | Drblessing wrote: | Thanks for making GitHub great , Nat! | MattIPv4 wrote: | Thank You, Nat. | sbussard wrote: | Nat Friedman is very cool in real life | beermonster wrote: | From the things he stood up for, the direction he took GitHub | in and his comments on HN, I can believe this. | obiwan14 wrote: | I think he should follow that up with a thank you letter to a guy | named Linus Torvalds. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-03 23:00 UTC)