GitHub 的第一個外部投資人 A16Z
這週看到 Microsoft 以 USD 7.5B 購買 GitHub 的新聞。姑且不論開發社群的聲浪，在這個案子裡的在收益上，除了 GitHub 創辦人外，就是在 A 輪領投了 USD 100M 佔 13% 的 Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z)。
A16Z 負責投資 GitHub 的 Peter Levine 寫了 Microsoft Buys GitHub for $7.5 Billion：
Six years ago we invested an “eye-popping” $100 million into GitHub. This was not only a Series A investment and the first institutional money ever raised by the company, but it was also the largest single check we had ever written. We’d expected there to be quite a bit of criticism, and while a few made some good arguments, we simply had a different opinion.
Where they saw us “overpaying,” we saw a once-in-a-decade company. You see, modern programming is about assembling code — in the form of libraries, open source work, etc. — as well as writing it, and code tends to belong in one place where it’s easy to access and that place was, is, and will be GitHub. At the time, it had over 3 million Git repositories — a nearly invincible position.
我學習到，如果相信一件事，就將它作為自己做事判斷的準則吧。
[But] software was eating the world, and it was being built on GitHub.
就像 A16Z 相信 Software is eating the world, 這就是他們 Investment Thesis (In 2011, pmarca said: That’s the big opportunity. I know where I’m putting my money.)，即使別人覺得這個 deal 貴，那多少是因為別人沒有這個信念。
Peter Levine 在 2012 年投資 A 輪時寫的文章：GitHub ，他在當年就能想像 GitHub 對軟體開發在社群可以建立 social proof，及改變未來工程師求職方式，也是有遠見。
By orienting around people rather than repositories, GitHub has become the de facto social network for programmers. If you are using another programmer’s open source libraries, are interested in what she’s doing or just a fan of her work, you can follow her on GitHub. If you need to hire great programmers, why look at resumes when you can view a candidate’s actual work on GitHub?
6/13 update:
A16Z 最新的 Podcast，是 Paul Levine 跟 GitHub cofounder, Chris Wanstrath 的對談，談 the future of programmers/developer, programming 及 the future of data.
註：
Series A: raised USD 100M at Pre 650M from A16Z (and SV Angel)
Series B: raised USD 250M at Pre1.8 B, from A16Z, Sequoia, Thrive, Institutional Venture Partners
