<story><title>GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is-building-a-coder-s-paradise-it-s-not-coming-cheap</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cperciva</author><text>Are you saying that VCs are investing because they see companies like GitHub as being public goods?  That&amp;#x27;s contrary to normal investing principles, unless there&amp;#x27;s some reason to think that a VC investing will result in their portfolio companies having superior access.</text></item><item><author>drchiu</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups.&lt;p&gt;The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it&amp;#x27;s necessary for the running of other ventures.&lt;p&gt;Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stock_toaster</author><text>This &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; be the article the parent was referencing: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;words.steveklabnik.com&amp;#x2F;is-npm-worth-26mm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;words.steveklabnik.com&amp;#x2F;is-npm-worth-26mm&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is-building-a-coder-s-paradise-it-s-not-coming-cheap</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cperciva</author><text>Are you saying that VCs are investing because they see companies like GitHub as being public goods?  That&amp;#x27;s contrary to normal investing principles, unless there&amp;#x27;s some reason to think that a VC investing will result in their portfolio companies having superior access.</text></item><item><author>drchiu</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t find the blog post, but some blog wrote a while ago why VCs invest in companies like Github. TL;DR -- basically it provides infrastructure for other startups.&lt;p&gt;The business itself may not be a great business due to the amount of cost it takes to run it -- but it&amp;#x27;s necessary for the running of other ventures.&lt;p&gt;Sort of like highways and non-toll bridges.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jakub_g</author><text>The point is more or less, if VC invests (or plans to) in 20 software companies, investing additionally in something like GitHub or npm makes it more likely that the other 20 companies will succeed. They don&amp;#x27;t invest &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; in GitHub from the goodness of their hearts.</text></comment>