
Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums - couchand
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/stack-exchange-raises-40m-led-by-a16z-to-boost-its-programmer-forums/
======
troymc
I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find
that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got
answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?

~~~
jordanpg
There is an ongoing religious war among avid SO users (don't know about the
rest of SE) about what kinds of questions should be allowed.

Roughly, there are two camps. Those who say that any well-formed, non-dup
question of interest should be let in and those who think it's a stop of last-
resort after checking all conceivable documentation and scouring the internet.

I believe the latter viewpoint is pretty run-of-the-mill developer machismo,
and it makes me chuckle every time the first google hit directs me to a SO
post with 1000 upvotes that has been closed as "off-topic".

It seems self-evident to me that in the year 2015, the internet has allowed me
to make more valuable use of my time quickly searching for answers rather than
scouring documentation. Docs have a time and a place, but are not needed for
quick dips into the myriad techs you need to use to write a typical app these
days.

~~~
mavelikara
I hope that at some point Google starts pruning away closed SO questions from
its index. That will give the user a better search experience.

~~~
ciupicri
As a side note, the closed questions are not deleted from the web site because
Stack Exchange takes a conservative approach when it comes to deletion.
Nevertheless some questions do get deleted. The Help Center[1] and Meta[2]
have more details on this.

[1]: [http://stackoverflow.com/help/deleted-
questions](http://stackoverflow.com/help/deleted-questions)

[2]:
[http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/5221/135744](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/5221/135744)

~~~
Aldo_MX
> Questions that are extremely off topic, or of very low quality, may be
> removed at the discretion of the community and moderators.

In my experience, this is completely false, it should be reworded as
"Questions that moderators like to remove on a whim".

The fact that a moderator (or group of moderators) don't find a question
valuable doesn't mean that it is not valuable for the rest of the world, and
this applies specifically with questions about recommendations.

------
rattray
One interesting nugget: more than half of the 200+ employees at Stack Exchange
are working on StackOverflow Careers.

Has anyone used SO Careers? Opinions?

~~~
Max_Horstmann
I found my current job, which is working on SO Careers, on SO Careers.

~~~
rla4
yay! me too!

~~~
Max_Horstmann
I knew your alias sounded familiar...

------
mathattack
"Spolsky says that two-thirds of its revenues today come from recruitment
services, via its Stack Overflow Careers site, and one-third from
advertising."

I found this very interesting. Stack Exchange is an insanely useful service,
but I struggled to figure out how they would monetize it. (Similar to
Wikipedia) They're received enough money that exit valuation expectations are
high. I guess the cash flow projections from these are enough.

~~~
danielweber
I worry about exit strategies. Stack Overflow was supposed to be "programming-
question forum, done right." We've seen a lot of old people come through with
the strategy of "build up critical mass of questions+answers, then enact
paywall."

I'll probably always be skeptical that SO is just about to become ruined,
unless they explicitly move it into a long-term strategy where the careers
board is all they want for revenue.

~~~
Shog9
Good discussion of that here:
[http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-
stack-...](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-
overflows-business-model) (includes an answer from... a guy behind one of
those paywall sites).

Worth keeping in mind that, because everything contributed is licensed to us
via CC-BY-SA, we essentially have to compete _against our own content_ \- if
we make the user experience awful, there are plenty of other sites willing to
take the same information and present it better.

~~~
danielweber
> we essentially have to compete against our own content

What requires SO to publish this information? This means someone else can
legally mirror SO answers, but if that data one day disappeared from the
Wayback machine and the Google cache, then what?

If there are third-parties out there actively building caches of SO, then that
answers my question.

~~~
Shog9
Not sure what you're asking; we have to publish it or else it ain't exactly a
website.

Beyond that, not only are there plenty of sites scraping us (the better ones
use the API, the worst ones don't throttle and get throttled) but we
periodically publish full archives, hosted by a neutral 3rd-party:
[https://archive.org/details/stackexchange](https://archive.org/details/stackexchange)
\- kinda hard to take back something that's been torrented.

------
jonhmchan
Also on Joel on Software:
[http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html](http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html)

~~~
psp
> ...buried in thousands of pages of stale forums.

Now this, my friends, is one of the major problems of stackoverflow today!

~~~
ceejayoz
Except you don't have to browse to page four of a giant thread to find out a
posted solution doesn't work, and you can update an old answer when the
information becomes outdated, etc.

~~~
psp
Stale is stale wherever you put it - page four or on top. Technology moves so
fast that that responses from 2009 to HTML/JS question should be just ignored
no matter how green the accepted checkmark.

~~~
ceejayoz
Other than "can I use <new API>" style questions, the vast majority of 2009
HTML/JS answers are still entirely valid.

Again, though, you're missing the point. On StackOverflow, a stale answer can
be _fixed_ , by virtually anyone. On traditional vBulletin-style forums, the
post saying "this isn't true anymore, there's a better way" might be buried
hundreds of posts in.

------
gortok
Unfortunately, Tech Crunch labels Stack Exchange as a 'forum'. It's not.

A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it
may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material
finding it. Or even worse: [http://xkcd.com/979/](http://xkcd.com/979/)

Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find
the answer you're looking for.

In short, while Forums and Stack Exchange are avenues to convey information,
SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum
does not.

(I'm a moderator on Stack Overflow).

~~~
Shog9
There are multiple definitions for forum. The standard Internet definition is
indeed "hang out, post lots of BS, troll newbs" \- but the broader definition
is simply "a venue for exchanging ideas", and SE certainly fits that.

We don't like to _call it_ a forum, precisely because it brings to mind the
former. But the latter (older) definition is perfectly applicable.

(I'm an employee of Stack Exchange, working in the "annoy gortok with
pedantry" department)

------
Alupis
> The Series D round, which also had participation from existing investors ...
> Bezos Expeditions, ...

Is there anything Bezos doesn't have his hands in? (I mean it in both a good
and bad way)

------
argc
Doesn't surprise me considering how much I use Stack Overflow. I also have a
lot of respect for Joel--I don't actually know much about him but from his
blog posts he seems like a very decent guy.

~~~
jaydles
He's my boss, so _I 'm super biased_, but I can still share a primary-source
perspective. I knew him for years before working here, and would say that both
as a manager and a general human being, he's one of the genuinely best people
I've ever known. From when he started Fogcreek, his and Michael's whole
philosophy was to create an environment and mission that makes smart people
_actually love working there_ , and then get the hell out of their way. Here
at SE, we've grown a ton since I've been here, but I can tell you our exec
team spends a _lot_ of time discussing how to ensure we maintain an
environment where employees are actually excited to work. (I know that sounds
goofy/cheesy/like BS, but talk to _any_ of our devs or other employees; I
think you'll find that just about all of us take great pride in what we do.)

~~~
mackwic
As a startup entrepreneur which don't doubt about success and growth -- how
could I ? ;) -- I am _very_ interested in the work invested by the whole team
in a sane and enjoyable workspace.

What are the trade-offs ? I always feel like only the exceptional rich
companies can sustain such high standard of living, the same rich which will
respond that it's the _only way_ for keeping an healthy work in the end.

Seems like a never ending chicken and egg problem that I don't have time to
solve, I have hard deadlines to manage... (it's slightly exaggerated, of
course, but you got the picture)

------
hyp0
What will they use the money for? If they're not expanding, and are profitable
(and so don't need to cover running costs), I can only guess at retiring
founder debt.

~~~
SurfScore
They said they aren't profitable, they're hiring too quickly for that. They're
using the money to hire quicker, just like most other people use investment
for.

------
taksintik
Stack Exchange should spinoff a teaching/bootcamp division to tap the
education market.

~~~
jonhmchan
Similar has certainly crossed some of our minds (I'm a dev at SE)

------
noblethrasher
Congratulations, and (more importantly) thanks.

~~~
jaydles
Kind of you, but the real credit goes to all the people who donate their time
and knowledge to help others. We (I work at SE) are incredibly excited to be
able to use this investment to do even more for them.

~~~
vorg
Credit also goes to the promoters of programming languages with bugs and bad
documentation. Some of them use Stack Overflow in lieu of providing their own
reliable issue tracking hosting; some even actively increase tags on SO for
their own language to help along programming language ranking systems. Some of
these promoters even lose their own investment, which may even have been
redirected to SE in the same boardroom discussion somewhere.

------
programminggeek
I have basically zero imagination about big dollar numbers, but I just don't
see what they are going to do with $40,000,000 that would generate more than
$40,000,000 in value.

Without that context, I have no way of seeing this as anything other than a
"bubble" investment, even in a pretty awesome product/team.

~~~
mackwic
It's easier than emit obligation on the market, I guess.

See it as a long-term shot. No doubt that 40M in recruitment will pay if the
SO team continue to be half as good as they seems to be today (which is one of
the challenges).

------
jonstewart
I live in fear that StackExchange will not turn out to be a viable business
and will eventually die off. Many times SO has saved me when all other hope
was lost. It really needs a billionaire playboy type to be its patron.

------
stevebot
I use every bit of StackExchange and have for a few years....except for meta

I use multiple stack exchange sites and even chat and have found it all
useful...except for meta

In the few times I have posted to meta, I get downvoted into oblivion. So far,
the vibe I get from meta, is that there is an in-crowd with a certain
philosophy and if it isn't yours get the fuck out or we will downvote you and
pick apart your every word.

It makes me wonder...as a help forum what the hell is meta really for?

Also congrats to SE, glad to see them get this funding...but please wtf is
meta?

------
jlward4th
So what does that value each reputation point at?

------
colinodell
I sometimes stumble upon old answers I posted to questions I currently have -
is that a bad or good thing?

~~~
teh_klev
I see that as a good thing. I've bookmarked a fair few of my own answers to
questions about programmatic management of IIS and .NET obscuria.

------
sidcool
I never new Andreseen Horowitz is also called A16Z. It's like I18N

------
wbeange
more investment = more traffic = more reputation for me :)

~~~
AtmaScout
More reputation for everyone which keeps everyone at the same level as they
were. But the investment is awesome nonetheless. :)

------
joelthelion
What are they going to use that money for?

~~~
bluedino
Good question - they obviously don't need to buy a bunch of hardware or
something.

------
dummyfellow
what valuation did they get?

------
DigitalSea
StackOverflow has saved my bacon more than a few times, so good for Joel and
the gang, they provided an invaluable service to the development community.
However, I feel like StackExchange needs to get its priorities into check.

Unbeknown to some, there are tonnes of StackExchange Q&A sites. Picked on Area
51 and then voted up by the community. Many start with good intentions, but
lose steam and never make it to a fully-fledged Q&A site because they didn't
meet the minimum requirements (the Startups StackExchange is a good example of
this). There is literally a StackExchange site for every single niche;
cooking, scepticism, music, science fiction, mathematics, database
administration, Apple products, web services, Wordpress and tonnes more.

You have to ask yourself, are a lot of these individual Q&A sites simply using
unnecessary server resources when they're probably being carried and offset by
StackOverflow's advertising revenue? I would love to see StackExchange go down
the path of focusing on programmers more than I would cooking or mathematics.
I contribute to a lot of individual StackExchange sites, mostly the Wordpress
one.

Reading the about page seems to highlight that not even StackExchange
themselves know what they want to be or the fact they target a wide range of
niches.

 _Stack Exchange is the largest network of websites for software developers
including Stack Overflow, the pre-eminent destination site for programmers to
find, ask, and answer their questions._

This statement seems to indicate they focus on catering to developers, but
going through the list of over 100 StackExchange Q&A sites yields sites for
niches like; marketing, mathematics, cooking, science fiction, gaming, DIY,
Apple software/hardware, electrical engineering and tonnes more. I would say a
few sites relate to programming, but many do not.

Then there is the issue of overzealous moderators (mostly on StackOverflow).
How many times have you Googled a problem, SO comes up as the first result,
you click it and the question has a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand
upvotes and it has been closed? Happens to me quite a lot. I see questions
being closed as duplicates when they're in fact not duplicates and were closed
because the mod simply lacked the understanding of what was being asked.
Questions closely related to a duplicate often get closed as a duplicate and
once a question has been "moderated" it rarely ever gets re-opened.

The issue is in part with the points/badges system. You have an imbalance of
power. It is virtually impossible for a new user to get high enough to make
even a subtle difference to SO. Those at the top want to keep their spot,
unfortunately many of the moderators are a little too click happy. Instead of
the site feeling like a community moderated website, you have these select few
power users telling us what is right or wrong (especially evident by the fact
of high ranking Google results leading to closed questions).

Things have been broken for a very long time on SO and I hope the investment
means they can try and address the problems (which they must be aware of).

Don't get me wrong, StackExchange have provided a beyond invaluable service,
but the arrogance, overzealous moderators and often confusing policies/rules
around the kind of questions you can ask/how you can ask them really deters me
from participating. My involvement with SO these days is read only, because I
don't want to get dragged into all of the politics of the site and the power
users who control it.

Seems to me this could be a problem for SO in the future if people like myself
are deterred from answering because they don't feel like their contribution
will be accepted or will be heavily criticised.

------
psp
Your question has been closed as off topic.

------
psp
Your post has been closed as it does not describe a real problem but is
instead suspect to opinions.

