Legendary programming Q&A site Stack Overflow is being acquired by Prosus N.V., Europe's largest tech investment firm. According to a press release on Prosus' website, the two companies entered into a definitive acquisition agreement yesterday.
According to Amazon Alexa web analytics, Stack Overflow is the 46th most heavily engaged site in the world. Since 2008, the site has served as the first stop for developers searching for answers to their programming-related questions—and eventually, their non-programming-related questions, as the Stack Exchange network of sites expanded into categories including culture, recreation, arts, science, business, and more.
Prosus will likely be much less familiar, particularly to Americans, as the Amsterdam-listed investment firm has a much lower public profile. Although based in Europe, Prosus invests internationally; for example, it has the largest single stake in Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent.
In 2001, Prosus' parent company Naspers bought a 46.5% interest in Tencent for only $34 million— but earlier this year, Prosus liquidated a 2% Tencent stake for $14.6 billion, retaining a 28.9% interest valued at roughly $200 billion. Prosus chairman Koos Bekker said the Tencent liquidation will "fund continued growth in Prosus' core business lines and emerging sectors" and create "some headroom for acquisitions."
Stack Overflow co-founder Joel Spolsky blogged about the purchase, and Stack Overflow CEO Prasanth Chandrasekar wrote a more official announcement. Both blog posts characterize the acquisition as having little to no impact on the day-to-day operation of Stack Overflow.
"How you use our site and our products will not change in the coming weeks or months, just as our company’s goals and strategic priorities remain the same," Chandrasekar said.
Spolsky went into more detail, saying that Stack Overflow will "continue to operate independently, with the exact same team in place that has been operating it, according to the exact same plan and the exact same business practices. Don't expect to see major changes or awkward 'synergies'... the entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now."
162 Reader Comments
I'm trying to think of a single acquisition where the founders didn't say this.
Every single time something like this happens this is what is said. It is never true.
I'm trying to think of a single acquisition where the founders didn't say this.
The mere statement acknowledges that we've seen and heard this before and have reason to believe you're (the co-founder) wrong. I'd say I give this about eight times the chance of being true as the statements made about Whatsapp when Facebook bought it. What's 0 X 8 again?
"The solution the problem was posted in a thread from 5 years ago before the technology in your question that i didn't even read existed. I'm not going to link it. Learn to use the search function."
More often than not, I can find a reddit thread that is far more helpful.
I think we'd see a recession.
https://twitter.com/Foone/status/12296424267692728321
Okay, sure.
I'll hope, for now, that these guys are smart enough to realize that the current value of their investment rests heavily on not doing anything overtly shitty to the community they just bought. And if they turn out to be the weasels I think they are, well, I guess Stack Overflow will no longer be among the search results I look for when I'm trying to solve a problem.
https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1229642426769272832
Yes, if you blindly copy-paste answers instead of taking the time to understand them.
If you do make an effort it's an excellent resource.
I don't think about Stack Overflow on timescales of weeks. It might take weeks to even fully characterize and understand a problem before I'd take it to SO.
It would be interesting if Stack Overflow shut down, and badly documented software stopped being able to rely on it as a crutch. There are plenty of things I've used for which the only documentation seems to be "whatever answers you can find on SO".
What if that went away?
...except that the entire site will now be delivered as bitmapped graphics and short autoplay videos rather than text so that "cut and paste from stack overflow" will no longer be a viable development methodology. We're confident that this will have no impact on traffic or engagement.
/s
Last edited by jhodge on Thu Jun 03, 2021 12:55 pm
We don't know Prosus but we have the experience of dozens of other acquisitions made with the statement that "nothing will change" ... until it always does.
At least it wasn't acquired by Google so they could turn it into a chat program and then shut it down.
Last edited by DaveSimmons on Thu Jun 03, 2021 12:57 pm
tl,dr; I'm cashing out, there will be major changes.
Now this. Just like Amazon acquiring MGM to add more content to its "who the fuck designed this interface and why have they not been savagely beaten yet?" Prime Video service. Just like Microsoft buying Bethesda and saying some future games will be PC and XBox exclusives. Just like how Facebook devoured Instagram because, as emails show, they were viewed as a potential competitor in the future. Just like EA buying up game companies, stticking their noses into the creative process, ruining the next games, then shutting down the companies when their meddled-with games didn't do so hot. Looking at you, Westwood (Command and Conquer) and Visceral Games (Dead Space)
Sure is cool letting companies gobble up others willy nilly like Bluto in the cafeteria in the movie Animal House1. I'm sure these companies are doing this to further lower prices and increase innovation for us, the consumer, and most certainly not to consolidate, wield more power, and increase profits at the cost of us consumers.
...
Last edited by Deputy Cartman on Thu Jun 03, 2021 1:04 pm
Hopefully the Wayback machine will keep a copy of all of StackOverflow once it sits behind a paywall so its history can still be accessed.
Been a member of SO for ages and it is super useful. Not holding my breath out that it is going to be worthwhile much longer.
Next month: StackOverflow Pro!
Last edited by *Legion* on Thu Jun 03, 2021 1:05 pm
"You don't know the first thing about either me or my motivations," snaps fox who just purchased wildlife reserve for chickens
It will become like ExpertSexChange.com (ExpectsExchange) where you have to pay see the answers, haha. Or they'll want to get big data behind it and somehow bundle up the data about users and questions and sell the data to someone. The idea that an investment company wanted to buyout a tech company to just let them do their own thing, sounds unbelievable. It's like the moon is made of cheese kinda unbelievable
I'm trying to think of a single acquisition where the founders didn't say this.
Ars certainly said the same.
I will say though that Ars' mindset seemed to change more in the years before the condé nast acquisition than in the years after.
https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1229642426769272832
Yes, if you blindly copy-paste answers instead of taking the time to understand them.
If you do make an effort it's an excellent resource.
As the linked thread demonstrates, there are so-called professional developers at large companies that don't follow this excellent advice.
I'm trying to think of a single acquisition where the founders didn't say this.
Ars certainly said the same.
I will say though that Ars' mindset seemed to change more in the years before the condé nast acquisition than in the years after.
Ars definitely changed. You can see it in the Wired articles and other cross-branding.
The correct comparison isn't to the Ars or Stack Overflow of yore, it is whether they could have continued as independent entities. I suspect Ars is a net cashflow loss business, but Stack Overflow may have been able to continue and this is just cashing out.
So the changes are coming, just a bit later...
Last edited by No Bic on Thu Jun 03, 2021 1:17 pm
2025: Stack Exchange becomes Experts Exchange.
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