
I’m Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA - hamza99
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/
======
jameslk
> That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated
> or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up
> for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week.

It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have
seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due
to an an exodus to GitLab.

~~~
the-dude
I think most people mirrored instead of closing. Spin.

~~~
EpicEng
>I think most people

Based on... what exactly? That's a big claim to make without any data.

~~~
vokep
its a reasonable expectation. You don't need any data to understand that most
people will care about certain things in a given situation. (and actually, in
making such a generalization, data is being used to make that, its a bit
difficult to present that data since its more of a soft 'life experience and
understanding of what positions others might be in and choices they might make
in such positions' kind of data.)

~~~
EpicEng
>its a reasonable expectation. You don't need any data to understand that most
people will care about certain things in a given situation.

I don't even know what that means; it's so vague and lacking in detail as to
be useless. Of course "people care about things in situations". but we're
talking about _what_ they care about, and that depends on the situation. For
example: "are Nazi's bad?". I don't need to see hard numbers to believe that
the answer from most people will be "yes". "Is MS buying GitHub bad"? That's a
whole other story. The vocal minority often doesn't represent the majority in
things like this.

I think it's pretty clear that most people in fact _don't_ care about the
things the-dude cares about. Privacy, lock in, using services provided by
"evil" companies... these are things a tiny fraction of people care about. You
know how I know that? All of these companies you don't like are _insanely_
successful.

------
eklavya
Ever since I heard of "Monaco" the online code editor which is used in VSCode.
I always assumed Microsoft will eventually come up with a completely online
IDE >> deploy toolchain like a GitHub on steroids. I think this acquisition is
pretty much all about that. Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet though, at
least not that I have read of.

~~~
darzu
Microsoft already has VSTS which has source hosting, CI, issue tracking,
kanban, release management and more.

I suspect acquiring GitHub was more about the developer mind-share than the
technology.

~~~
foepys
Are you sure that VSTS will live more than two more years? I'd suspect that
Microsoft will eventually want to integrate GitHub with their CI and get rid
of TFS (of which VSTS is just a hosted version) entirely. I don't know if
you've used TFS/VSTS but it's not exactly user-friendly and well designed.
Especially their CI configuration is horrendous.

~~~
darzu
VSTS hosts git repos as well. I don't know of anyone that still uses TFS, but
I'm sure they exist. I've been using VSTS daily for the last year and a half,
and while it has it's quirks I think it's a powerful and productive
environment.

~~~
foepys
Team Foundation Server is more than Team Foundation Version Control.

------
kartan
Nat is being really smart here. It should not backfire unless he acts pedantic
or insults Redditors intelligence. I think that both are unlikely.

Maybe Nat is trying to counteract any PR damage to GitHub, or maybe he just
wants to see how much can skyrocket his account's karma. If I was in his
situation I will be happy doing it for both reasons.

~~~
mikece
How long is it going to take Redditors / HN readers / open source advocates to
realize that Nat is one of them and that being an employee of Microsoft or
Microsoft's designee to lead GitHub doesn't diminish this?

~~~
squarefoot
Sorry but this is the corporate world. When an employee of a company speaks
about an asset of that company, he represents the company views, not his ones.

------
alexwebb2
> We will continue to develop and support both Atom and VS Code going forward
> [...] for as long as there is a healthy community of people who love each of
> them, which I expect to be a very long time.

------
emilsedgh
Microsoft should just make Github open source.

It would be a great PR move and an amazing build of trust.

I don't know why Github was not open source to begin with.

Why do companies still think source code is a big deal? This is not Google
Search or some advanced AI.

~~~
whalesalad
Great PR move? Amazing build of trust?

Microsoft bought GitHub for over seven _billion_ dollars. You don't buy
something for that kind of cash unless it has that kind of _value_. Saying
they 'should' do something as though there is a problem is silly. Engineers
here on HN are so quick to say what someone "needs to do" something... but in
response to what? What problem are you identifying? A vocal minority of
engineers have complained about the acquisition, meanwhile GitHub has 28
million users. _Most_ of those users don't care that this happened.

~~~
emilsedgh
1\. They have great competition in Gitlab. Gitlab's main point is it's open
source.

They simply will be more competitive.

2\. They want to improve their "Open Source Friendly" image and they've been
taking meaningful steps towards it.

3\. Why not? What's the downside of doing so?

~~~
gkoberger
Apple has great competition in Android, however it would be silly to open
source iOS. GitLab/Android are customizable and have a ton of features, while
GitHub/iOS are more cohesive. Differentiation is how competition exists.

Even if you prefer Android/GitLab, you can't deny that most of the early
innovation was copied from iOS/GitHub. In fact, most open source projects
(Linux, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc) take their lead from closed source
competition... and for all those examples, that competition was Microsoft.
That's not to say they can't eventually innovate, however much of the R&D,
creation of a marketing, etc come from closed source.

The downside of Open Sourcing so is losing billions of dollars from companies
who say "rather than paying $10k/mo, I'm going to just fork it for free".

Lastly, part of the value of GitHub is the network effects. If everyone's
hosting it on their own, then there's no network effect.

~~~
mikece
GitLab :: Android

GitHub :: iOS

CodePlex :: Windows Phone

Makes complete sense...

------
loco5niner
>> Why do you think Microsoft has previously rejected the idea of open source
software?

>Fear

Well, that's a pretty brazen answer.

------
nikivi
I asked:

What are your thoughts on how GitHub can incentivize open source work
financially? Perhaps by integrating something like Patreon or OpenCollective
in the website.

It seems that he won't answer it. Still would be awesome if GitHub started
addressing this in some way in the future.

EDIT: He answered it.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a51y1/?context=1)

~~~
craftyguy
There's a reason it's AMA and not IAA (I answer anything). Most AMAs like this
one are PR stunts, where the "what's your favorite ___" are answered while the
tough, controversial qeustions are ignored.

~~~
schoen
Well, we now know Nat Friedman's favorite cheese. :-)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a2id0/)

------
minimaxir
Why was the AMA posted on /r/AMA instead of /r/IAMA? Certainly the future CEO
of GitHub is notable enough for the latter subreddit.

~~~
alexwebb2
I assume that's just an embarrassing mistake on the part of Github's PR team.

There's really no reason that a CEO currently making headlines should be on
/r/AMA instead of r/IAMA (70x more users).

~~~
Shank
It's worth noting that until the deal closes, Nat isn't actually part of
GitHub. That would make it the Microsoft PR team or his deal -- not GitHub's.

~~~
minimaxir
That makes less sense as Microsoft has done some excellent AMAs with the Excel
team:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3rid26/we_are_the_mic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3rid26/we_are_the_microsoft_excel_team_ask_us_anything/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/777mb6/we_are_the_mic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/777mb6/we_are_the_microsoft_excel_team_ask_us_anything/)

~~~
darzu
You might be overestimating the coordination between different teams at
Microsoft :) It's a big company. I doubt there is any overlap between the
people involved in the Excel IAMAs and Nat's

~~~
minimaxir
That is true; when I looked, I thought MSFT did more AMAs than just Excel.

------
bwb
So weird, I don't understand the freakout. Microsoft is a solid company, I am
totally fine with them buying it. What is with all this craziness?

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Microsoft is where good products go to die. They change products and the
communities and cultures associated with those projects. They are a big
machine that has to please shareholders, and growth is difficult when you’re
that big, so there are “hard choices” that can be made abruptly. These choices
are often not to the benefit of the existing communities.

Ignore anyone who brings up “Embrace, extend, extinguish”. I’m not an MS
apologist but no rational person can still consider that to be relevant. There
are many reasons to distrust them, but that isn’t one of them.

~~~
meddlepal
No... Oracle is where projects go to die. Microsoft has other issues and it
like many companies has successfully murdered good products (Skype), but it
also realizes how important ecosystem is. Oracle just rapes and pillages
companies and tech.

------
euroclydon
Thinking about MS's recent acquisitions, how long will it take to recoup the
money they spent on: LinkedIn, MineCraft and now GitHub?

LinkedIn: $26b

MineCraft: $2.5b

Github: $7.5b

~~~
bytematic
Did the Minecraft thing not make money for them? I imagine now that it's on a
ton of platforms it's made that back?

~~~
lcfcjs
As of January 2018, over 144 million copies had been sold across all
platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time behind
Tetris.

^ from wikipedia

If they sold each for $10, then thats $1.5 bil (if my maths right). So I think
it's safe to say that they have not made their money back ... yet.

~~~
kthejoker2
Merch? Every kid I know has Minecraft Legos, Minecraft pajamas, Minecraft
fidget spinners ...

~~~
earenndil
Minecraft legos are a funny thought. Minecraft basically _is_ digitized lego.

------
systematical
Until Microsoft does anything shady I'm staying put with both personal and
business projects. I rather give them the opportunity to improve an already
good service.

Try justifying to management moving to gitlab because Microsoft...

------
ishbits
What is the root of all the Microsoft distrust? I’m older, and left Windows
for Linux back in 1997 and haven’t really paid attention since. I wonder if
this mistrust is valid? Are they any worse than Apple?

~~~
curun1r
Well, there are a lot of web developers that we're saddled with supporting ie6
for many years after Microsoft won the browser war with Netscape and proceeded
to let it stagnate for years. That amount of pain that was inflicted on the
web dev community left a lot of lingering resentment.

Then there was their locked-down file formats, their role in killing off BeOS
and preventing pre-installed Linux machines, their "embracing" of open
technologies like Kerberos only to make their version subtly incompatible. For
well over a decade, almost everything they did technically rubbed us tech
folks the wrong way.

------
woodandsteel
Does anyone really believe that if an open source project hosted on Github
became a serious competitor to a Microsoft project, the Microsoft management
wouldn't figure out some way to undermine it?

------
cbayram
Any code analysis initiatives in your pipeline?

~~~
loco5niner
The AMA is actually happening on reddit... He won't answer here.

------
jaimex2
No one asked "why?" ?

------
handbanana
> Is there any truth to the rumor that Clippy will be joining your team? I
> think "You appear to have a merge conflict. How can I help you?" is a good
> fit for Github.

> His name is actually Clippit, and you will address him as Mr. Clippit.

Classic

Edit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a5juw)

~~~
colemannugent
Little things like this build more trust with me than all the carefully
written press release blogs ever could.

~~~
marricks
I think this falls under “I want a president I would have a beer with”, you’re
judging something by a bad metric.

~~~
carlosdp
Only if it's the only metric. I've worked with people who would never be
comfortable making jokes like that in a public forum, always having their "PR-
mode" on, and they tend to be the ones that don't have a ton of empathy.

Being able to interact with the community in a human way is definitely a good
signal, imo.

~~~
marricks
Eh... for a small organization sure but I think relatability from big wigs is
more used as a way to hand wave controversies than being used for actual good?

I think the president analogy really holds. A president who you could have a
beer with can get away with a lot more crap then one who has to prove it
through policy.

I’m definitely being a bit nit picky, just saying it’s not a good metric.

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
_What would you rather fight - a horse sized duck, or 100 duck sized horses?_

Hope he answers that one.

~~~
fermienrico
I really dislike this kind of questions. "A little fun doesn't hurt" Reddit
and the internet has a lot of fun things to do. Don't waste the opportunity of
someone important willing to spend what little 30 mins they have in their
schedule to take questions from the community and these questions come up -
there are important things to ask. Absolutely useless question and should not
be asked.

~~~
praneshp
> Absolutely useless question

Sure

> and should not be asked.

None of your business.

~~~
fermienrico
I thought we are supposed to be sharing our opinions on HN with respect.

Since when is stating my opinion on an opinion-based community none of my
business?

I am saying these questions should not be asked. Please provide a counter
argument.

~~~
praneshp
My counter argument is that these questions can be asked, it's none of your
business to sayt what questions should not be asked on a reddit community.
Historically, r/(I)AMA has been just that, and the ducks question is part of
the community's history now (I can't think of a semi-famous AMA in the last
year where that question wasn't asked).

More importantly, it's an ama, and the fact that he is about to be github CEO
is secondary. We don't want movie stars coming there just for their latest
release (if you overdo it, it's a disaster. Google Rampart AMA)

Finally, my intention was to be brief, but stop short of disrespect (and I am
sorry if it offended you). Unfortunately I seem to have approached you with
the same condescension you showed for (I)AMA's users

~~~
fermienrico
I accept your apology.

I still do not agree with "it's none of your business to sayt what questions
should not be asked on a reddit community". With that line of thought, none of
this is our business to be on the internet and providing opinions. Instead of
focusing on what's someone's business and what's not - I recommend you state
__why __asking, what I believe to be useless questions, would be beneficial.
What insight does it provide? I understand it could be fun and quirky but
literally, every thread on reddit...I mean every...single...thread... on
reddit starts with a joke.

------
staunch
"Developers are independent thinkers..."

He seems to be playing the typical corporate lackey role. His comments are all
full of condescension, platitudes, and corpspeak. He sounds more like a PR
person than a principled leader. He's saying exactly what he thinks his
audience wants to hear. It's not surprising that he thrived as a Microsoft
exec.

That he's willing to make promises about GitHub's future is also telling. He's
the "CEO" of a company owned by another company. He can be fired and replaced
at the first hint of disagreement with Microsoft execs. He can't afford to
rock the boat at all and he knows it. So he's being dishonest or naive when he
makes these promises. A more honest or aware person would make this
distinction clear.

Microsoft ruining GitHub over the next few years will be a good thing for open
source. There was never anything ideal about relying on a highly centralized
proprietary service. GitHub made it work but Microsoft will reveal the
inherent weakness of this situation.

~~~
orand
Your comment is a significant misreading of his current statements as well as
where he's come from. Yes, he's very skilled in the corporate world, but he's
just as skilled in the open source world. You absolutely need to be awesome at
both to be able to do the right thing as the CEO of GitHub. Check out his
history:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman)

~~~
staunch
I've read his Wikipedia page. I see work at Microsoft, Novell, an open source
version of Microsoft .NET that had little to no adoption, a Microsoft
acquisition, and more Microsoft employment. What's there to be excited about
there?

He's not an open source developer with a great project that now leads GitHub.
He's a corporate guy that now leads GitHub under Microsoft executives.

~~~
cjbprime
It is extremely obvious that you don't know anything about Nat or his work
history.

Ximian led development of GNOME, which was one of the largest open source
software projects at the time. Nat showed up to the hackfests and wrote code
like everyone else. He is absolutely an open source developer, whose later
career has been in management.

