<story><title>All the wrong reasons for Stack Overflow&apos;s VC chase</title><url>http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2159-all-the-wrong-reasons-for-stack-overflows-vc-chase</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>iamelgringo</author><text>I know that this is 37 Signal&apos;s thing.  They like to be hip, contrary and different.  They take a popular post, and they take an opposing view, stir the pot and raise a ruckus.  After all, they are &quot;rock stars&quot;.  But really, David?&lt;p&gt;Why do you care what Stack Overflow does?  Why do you presume to know more about Stack Overflow&apos;s business needs than Joel?  Why do you presume to know more about the VC funding process and it&apos;s outcomes than Joel?  You&apos;ve run a successful business and you manage a great open source framework.  That&apos;s to be commended.  You chose to not take VC, and you have been successful.  Congratulations.  (We&apos;ll ignore that bit about Bezos investing in you for now.)&lt;p&gt;But, there are hundreds if not thousands of successful software companies that have indeed taken investor money.  Presumably, it was the right decision for them.  Why do you insist on criticizing those decisions and put people down for those decisions?&lt;p&gt;When I worked as an ER nurse in the inner city, we had an expression for this behavior:  &quot;Up in someone else&apos;s kool aid, not knowing what the flava is&quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>All the wrong reasons for Stack Overflow&apos;s VC chase</title><url>http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2159-all-the-wrong-reasons-for-stack-overflows-vc-chase</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>chime</author><text>Reading the original post, I thought pretty much the same thing. The whole idea of getting VC money is to jumpstart the next phase of a company/product&apos;s life. Facebook was a college kid&apos;s side project that looked promising but VC money made it top 3 site on the web. YouTube would have been impossible for 3 typical 20-somethings to afford out of their personal/family savings. They needed VC funding because they were burning through $1m/month in cash. What exactly is it about Stack Overflow that Joel can&apos;t pay for himself with his own funds? What kind of hiring does he want to do to make it any bigger?&lt;p&gt;Joel listed all these vague reasons that sort of sound good without actually saying concrete steps / changes that would come out of VC funding. I would definitely like to hear what it is that he, despite being one of the most popular tech bloggers with a boatload of notoriety and savings, can&apos;t do with Stack Overflow that somehow VC money can.</text></comment>