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This is a pretty poor attack on a startup that managed to get itself acquired for more than most of us will ever sell a company for.

As Peter Thiel says there are two kinds of companies: companies who go from 0 to 1 (SpaceX, Tesla, maybe Google) and companies who go from 1 to n (globalization of technology).

Summly clearly fits into the 1 to n bucket, but so do a lot of other companies. Would people be pissed if Github got acquired? I see no outcry for a $100 million dollar round of funding for a company that is built upon open source software.

How is github any different than Summly from a 'renting' of technology perspective?




I almost down-voted you, but then I thought about it and I think you have a point worthy of discussion.

The core of Github is open source, which allows for interoperability and confidence, but what they have built on top is proprietary and community-engaging. Just like managing email infrastructure, there is a lot of nuance and domain expertise that comes from experience only. Come to think of it, it seems a lot of open source technology is so loosely built (configurable/ flexible), that it requires serious expertise to actually run it.


Github has revenue and provides a core service to many software devs.


«How is github any different than Summly from a 'renting' of technology perspective?»

Are you kidding? Github has global visibility, and is the absolute leader in the open source software hosting vertical.

From a "renting" of technology perspective, they are not that different. From a "large customer base" perspective, which was also mentioned in the article, they are complete opposites.




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