
GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath To Step Down After Finding Replacement - ahmedfromtunis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris-wanstrath-to-step-down/?c=0#33c9269eadd3
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andygcook
Random story about Chris...

I saw him speak at a startup event in 2010 at MIT called Startup Bootcamp. It
was probably my first startup-related conference and he was the first talk in
the kick off slot at 9am. He gave a great talk recapping the origin of GitHub
and how it grew out of another projected called FamSpam, a social network for
families.

After the talk I had to run to the restroom and happened to run into Chris out
in the entry way. I introduce myself and we starting chatting. As we were
talking, people started walking into the event late. They saw us standing in
the entrance, and started asking questions on where to go.

Instead of deferring responsibility to someone working at the event, Chris sat
down at the empty welcome table and started checking people in by giving them
schedules and helping them create name tags. We ended up checking in a few
dozen people together while we talked more. No one knew who Chris was when
they walked in, and just assumed he was a member of the event staff. I think
had they known he was the co-founder of GitHub they probably would have paid
more attention to him.

I ended up sending him a t-shirt and he took the time to shoot me back an
email saying thanks. The subject line was "Dude" and the text was "Got the
shirt. It's so awesome. You rock. Tell your brother yo, too!"

Anyways, I just thought it was kind of cool he took it upon himself to help
out with checking people in at the event even though he had volunteered to
travel all the way to Boston to speak for free to help out young, aspiring
entrepreneurs by sharing his learnings. It always kind of stuck with me that
you need to stay down to earth and pay it forward no matter how successful you
get.

~~~
aacook
Brother Andy. I read this article and before clicking into the comments I
started drafting an email to you with a link to it: "Hey, didn't we send Chris
a t-shirt and he sent us back some dino stickers or something? I remember him
being awesome."

Yo Chris!

~~~
andygcook
Funny that we're catching up on this story here instead of in person or on the
phone, Brother Alex.

HN, bringing families together since 2007.

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matt4077
Github is among the best things that ever happened to OSS. Compared to
anything that came before, it is a pleasure to browse, it is intuitive, and it
has managed to corral millions of people with vastly different backgrounds
into a golden age of OSS productivity.

In the 10 years+ before Github, I never even tried to contribute code–each
project had its own workflow, and sending an email somehow felt intimidating.
Today, spending an hour here or there to improve it slightly has almost become
a guilty pleasure.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: Thank you!

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forgingahead
Forbes is ad-infested hell, here is an Outline link:

[https://outline.com/mntwGu](https://outline.com/mntwGu)

~~~
christophilus
Woah. This is an amazing tool. They should make a browser that just does this
by default.

~~~
look_lookatme
It's not a legitimate tool, it's copyright violation.

~~~
tokenizerrr
Is google cache also a copyright violation? What about the internet archive?
Or do you mean just because they choose not to display certain elements it is
a copyright violation? What about just not running javascript?

~~~
vthallam
I guess the op was referring to storing the content which I am not sure if
outline is doing. If the save the content and make it searchable then it is
kinda violation to take away unique content.

~~~
tokenizerrr
Google cache does exactly that

~~~
look_lookatme
Google cache does not transform the content.

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jdorfman
When I was at GitHub Satellite last year in Amsterdam, I saw Chris walk in to
the venue and look around at the amazing production and smile. You could tell
how proud he was of his team and the brand he helped create. I am glad to see
he is staying with the company, I'm sure the new CEO will need his advice from
time to time to keep GitHub great for the next 10 years.

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DanHulton
Why the title change? As far as I can tell, it's factually incorrect, as well.

Wanstrath is _planning_ on stepping down and hasn't stepped down yet.

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geerlingguy
Any other way of viewing this story? On my iPad with Focus, I just get a
blurred out screen when I visit Forbes.com now. I remember it used to show a
'please turn off your ad blocker' dismissible splash screen, but that seems to
not be the case any more.

~~~
EduardoBautista
Not from Forbes but it should be readable:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris-
wanstrath-i...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris-wanstrath-is-
stepping-down.html)

I seriously believe that Forbes is playing a game of trying to build the worst
website in existence.

~~~
joelrunyon
I'd believe it.

It's getting worse + worse. I'm adding it to my list of undreadables...

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tdumitrescu
I've never met the guy but have a ton of respect for his work - his open
source projects like Resque and pjax were awesome for their time. I imagine
GitHub has benefited a lot from having real coders at the helm for so long.

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nodesocket
> Wanstrath plans to focus on product strategy and the GitHub community after
> stepping down from the CEO role, working directly on products and meeting
> with customers.

Just a theory, perhaps they bringing in a new professional CEO for an IPO?

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jbrooksuk
> GitHub may seek to become more of a marketplace that can help developers
> show off their work and take on additional projects, with GitHub taking a
> portion as a fee, says Sequoia investor Jim Goetz.

They already have a Marketplace offering.

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grandalf
Chris is one of the few well-known developers who conveys a deep love of
software engineering. Looking forward to reading some of the code he writes in
the coming months.

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ShirsenduK
The title is misleading. He plans to, but hasn't!

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PHP_THROW_AWAY1
Wrong title

~~~
ryan-allen
Defo throw away PHP man. It's 2017.

