

Stackoverflow: Joel and Jeff want VC Money? Say What? - cletus
http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/02/stackoverflow-joel-and-jeff-want-vc.html

======
javery
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/39545/possible-
negat...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/39545/possible-negative-
effects-of-vc-funding-for-stackoverflow/39565#39565) \- interesting comment
from Joel over on meta.stackoverflow.com

~~~
cletus
That is interesting for two reasons.

1\. The "insurance" aspect (which is good); and 2\. Because Joel bothered to
reply (within about an hour) to something on Meta.

If you listen to the SO podcasts Joel rarely visits Meta so I guess he was on
the lookout for a reaction, which is understandable. But it's still
interesting.

------
epochwolf
It would be nice if the guy could get his facts straight.

 _The infrastructure (hardware and bandwidth) is cheap (almost free) for Q &A.
Stackoverflow.com hasn’t even gone to two Web server yet._

Let's count them, shall we? [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-
overflow-network...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-
network-configuration/)

6 web servers and 2 database servers (the load balancers are virtual machined)

And about the money, there are labor costs.

 _Fog Creek has ~24 employees._

34 - <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html>

~~~
cletus
It's worth pointing out that those servers are for the entire set of sites of
which only SO is anywhere remotely close to capacity but yes there are three
Web servers for SO.

And yes the hardware/bandwidth costs are (still) nothing. Read:

[http://highscalability.com/blog/2009/8/5/stack-overflow-
arch...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2009/8/5/stack-overflow-
architecture.html)

(slightly outdated)

and you'll see how cheap the servers are: single CPU, relatively low RAM.

The 24 was a typo (now fixed). I updated the other too. Thanks for pointing
that out.

------
zyb09
ugh, 3 pages of how Stackoverflow and everything around it is doomed to fail.
Also, seems like he's attacking Jeff & Joels decisions on a regular basis. Is
this some personal thing of him?

Please just let them do their thing, they've been successful with everything
they've done so far and I'm sure they have their reasons for raising VC. Kinda
hate this gossip sometimes.

~~~
DrJokepu
Mr. Shields (Cletus) is a very active member of the StackOverflow community
who have contributed a lot to the site. I believe this is more like friendly
criticism, not "personal vendetta".

~~~
cletus
My interest in this instance is twofold:

1\. I simply don't understand this 180; 2\. I am concerned about how this will
impact what is an otherwise successful formula by any metric except perhaps
its ability to generate its owners wads of cash.

For the record, the main thing I've criticized to date is Stackoverflow
Careers because it comes across as snake oil.

On the other side, I support their efforts at monetizing that included things
others criticized such as adding Adobe logos (sponsored) to the flash and flex
tags.

See [http://www.cforcoding.com/2009/10/stackoverflow-
advertising-...](http://www.cforcoding.com/2009/10/stackoverflow-advertising-
and-ethics-of.html)

