What will happen to Stack Overflow now that it has been sold to Prosus for $1.8 Billion?

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Given Prosus is Dutch, I expect the confetti will be replaced with Windmills and Tulips — rene, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:19
@10Rep at Prosus they are surprised they bought a Cooking site as well .... — rene, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:25
@rene Pretty sure they bought it because of the cooking site. The geek nest is just a weird bonus. — yivi, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:27
The company that owns the SE Network has been called Stack Overflow for some time now, I think. Interpreting this as buying just one site of the network would be really strange, I think. — yivi, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:31
"Prosus NV said it struck a $1.8 billion deal to acquire Stack Overflow, an online community for software developers, in a bet on growing demand for online tech learning." I'm already afraid, do they know what they buy ? — Stargateur, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:36
Oh, this one's gonna need some official explanations. There's a lot that we could guess about or gesture vividly about, but the core tenet (and a lot of the motivation behind some decisions) has largely been about the investors, the profitability of the platform, and what the actual direction held. With there now being an owner, the existing knowledge or assumptions about what Stack Overflow Inc. is or was is rendered completely invalid. Only executives or the board could answer this. — Makoto, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:41
In the mean time, some anxiety-laced regret and concern is already starting to course through my psyche, as if I had a chance to read the writing on the wall and chose to ignore it... — Makoto, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:42
@Stargateur Why is it not a place to learn? In microscopic ways? It's not a teaching platform, no - and I don't think that's something anyone would say... but to imply that people aren't learning on SO or the rest of the network seems a bit odd. When I ask questions, I learn a ton. When I search and find an answer already on site, I learn. This may be just in time learning instead of lesson plans but it's still learning. — Catija, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 18:58
@Catija first, I believe there is a different between "learning" and "learn" you changed the word thus change a lot the thing I was talking about, secondly, sure we can learn from SO, but this trigger some red flag, specially, a Q&A form is not suitable for get starting in something, it's suitable to get answer to specific question and a lot of misinformation lead to a lot of people believing SO is here to help you learn basic of language/programming. This lead to a lot of negative experience. Also, here I speak of stackoverflow itself, not stackexchange other site that I never used. — Stargateur, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 19:24
$1.8 billion? So do those of us who contribute get any of that? — Steve Summit, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 22:22
@SteveSummit I was shocked to discover that that number is only a little (~8%) greater than the total reputation held across Stack Overflow. If it's doled out that way, then you've got a nice gift coming your way! — zcoop98, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 22:37
The controlling company has a "glorious" past: "...Naspers refused to comply, which led to 127 Naspers employees each making an individual submission to the TRC, apologising for their role in the apartheid years. They said Naspers newspapers had formed an integral part of the power structure which implemented and maintained apartheid through, for instance, supporting the NP in elections and referendums. In 2015, Media24 CEO Esmare Weideman apologised for Naspers's role in supporting apartheid.". Prosus — Peter Mortensen, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 6:14
@Stargateur SO is already receiving massive traffic of the kind "I'm too lazy to study beginner learning material, just tell me the answer so I don't have to spend 5 minutes checking a book or using Google". We are talking of thousands of questions like that every day. The company loves massive traffic so they will encourage the behavior rather than seeking to prevent it. Also the soulless "rep hunters" love answering the same question over and over, so they get answered. It's been a very long time since this was a site for professional & enthusiast programmers. — Lundin, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 11:13
@IanKemp Well that's humans for you. Just look at the score. Many people seem to think that this is a major event in the history of StackOverflow. They want to discuss it, whether they can get accurate answers or not. I find it very interesting. But I also agree that it's a bit early to tell. Still I think that every user of SO should know of it, therefore the request to feature it. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jun 4, 2021 at 7:02

Machavity · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-02 17:23:44Z

Here's my general take (disclaimer: I am not an employee, nor am I a TV actor)

Stack Overflow wants to grow

Nobody has made that a secret. Somehow, you have to make money to keep the lights on. When the new CEO took over he said

It is critically important that we evolve our platform, community infrastructure, and culture to be more useful to our community so we continue to be a core part of a developer’s workflow.

Those things take money. And you don't hire a new CEO to keep the status quo. The best way to do that is to offer stock. The problem is that tech stocks are no longer a sure bet, especially for a company that doesn't seem to have a white-hot product like Slack (sold for $27.7B USD). I really don't know that a Stack Overflow IPO would work well enough, and the risk is the stock tanks and takes the company down too.

In this context, selling is the next best option.

Get a bigger vision

So what does Prosus want with SO? (emphasis mine)

With expertise in scaling communities in high-growth markets globally, Prosus can help accelerate Stack Overflow’s growth ambitions, with a particular focus on reaching a wider international community, while also further scaling the company’s Teams product to position Stack Overflow at the center of product and technology development within major enterprises globally.

Prosus has built a significant presence on the enterprise side with a focus on the future of workplace learning. Prosus will reach 90% of the Fortune 100 across its corporate learning companies including Stack Overflow, Skillsoft, Udemy and Codecademy.

You've probably heard of some of those companies. I know directly that Codecademy has a free tier. How SO fits into that wheelhouse isn't entirely clear, but it's clear there's a theme there. And that theme seems to involve keeping the SO Q&A format as-is in some fashion. That seems to be the recurring message

Jeff Atwood

An exciting day! @spolsky called me and let me know. Today's sale of Stack Overflow, most importantly, lets Stack Overflow continue as an independent site -- and also mints 61 new millionaires.

Joel Spolsky

Today we’re pleased to announce that Stack Overflow is joining Prosus. Prosus is an investment and holding company, which means that the most important part of this announcement is 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 business of Stack Overflow will continue to focus on Reach and Relevance, and Stack Overflow for Teams. The entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now.

This is, in some ways, the best possible outcome. Stack Overflow stays independent. The company has plenty of cash on hand to expand and deliver more features and fix the old broken ones. Right now, the biggest gating factor to how fast we can do this is just how fast we can hire excellent people.

And the CEO of SO

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. As the acquisition is finalized, and we continue to partner with Prosus, I will keep you all posted through my regular quarterly blog posts and Teresa Dietrich, our Chief Product and Technology Officer, will do the same in her quarterly community blog posts.

Lest you think I'm just shooting from the hip here, they're looking for a VP of community management. That was announced weeks ago. If you're not in good shape, and selling from a point of weakness, you don't put out stuff like that.

Yes, it would be easier with some people still here to partake and tell us it will be fine. But I don't think this bodes poorly for the community. Only time can truly tell, though...

This is all still very new and it will likely be months before we see any major impacts but from everything I'm hearing - this is a good thing. Prosus has an interest in building community - which is great, since that's something that makes our sites thrive and so making the public sites a place for people to work together more easily and ensure excellent content - that's what we all want, right? :) — Catija, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 20:21
It's been pretty obvious that they've tried to sell for several years now. Particularly shortly after the "firing moderators" debacle when they started to fire staff left & right, cutting down costs. — Lundin, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 8:35
They always say it's "exciting changes" and it always means "changes that affect the users in a negative way" — Dunfield, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 14:44
@miken32 ...and if you had worked hard at SO for years, helping to turn it into the product it is today and was one of those newly minted millionaires, how would you respond to someone that made your comment? — JeffC, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 22:00
Why, my monocle might just pop right out into my caviar dish! — miken32, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 22:10
@JeffC The premise that Stack Overflow's staff have worked hard, at anything, is laughable. If they had, the features that we've been requesting for years would've been implemented. — Ian Kemp, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 22:13
Per Joel's comment "plenty of cash on hand to expand and deliver more features and fix the old broken ones", I'm kinda looking forward to Wasabi 2.0 ! — gbarry, Commented Jun 4, 2021 at 20:28
I've removed the sub-discussion about wealth and who should get it. If you want to discuss economic theories, there are some Stacks better suited. — Machavity, Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 23:09
Why did SO get sold for only $1.8b if Slack was sold for $27b? isn't SO way more valuable? — Nike, Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 23:38
"scaling communities in high-growth markets globally, Prosus can help accelerate Stack Overflow’s growth" seems to indicate that there would be a push to increase net revenue, regardless of what the current format is or is not in the process. That the people who benefit most from this sale are adamant everything is going to remain the same is rather irrelevant to the fact that the purchase changes SO into a product to be commoditized instead of a knowledge base to be expanded; perhaps both can coexist, but that is not a guarantee. — Travis J, Commented Jun 18, 2021 at 19:28
@miken32 I don't think the world needs jealous, bitter commenters either. I can't imagine if you had the nous to create a successful business, you would refuse the cash. But there's the rub, people who can't love to snipe at thoise who do. SE/SO has made the lives of innumerable people better, I;m glad some people are getting rich from that. Good for them. — Mr. Boy, Commented Apr 4, 2022 at 13:27

Cesar M · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-02 18:42:23Z

Teresa Dietrich (Our Chief Product Officer) answered this on MSE, since it's a pretty similar question I'll quote her directly:

The TL;DR is not much this year. We have our current strategy, roadmaps and plans for this year and continue to be focused on those. It’s business as usual, as it says in our blog post, we would be operating independently. The leadership team is staying, including me. Most of the company just found out about this today and many are in shock and excited about the future. Prosus is very community-focused and excited about what you all have built. As we start to plan for 2022, I think we will see more opportunities to invest in our public platform sites and community. I will be publishing my State of the Stack blog and meta post this month and will go into more detail there.

For now, if you want to know more, we have a bit more detail on our blog post.

So maybe more programmers, more community manager and more implemented feature requests, but it's not clear and also could remain the same or something else. A selling is surely not business as usual though. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 9:35

3 revs, 2 users 83% · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-02 17:13:29Z

17

Officially, for the time being, nothing.

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. As the acquisition is finalized, and we continue to partner with Prosus, [Prashanth] will keep you all posted through [his] regular quarterly blog posts and Teresa Dietrich, our Chief Product and Technology Officer, will do the same in her quarterly community blog posts.

edited Jun 2, 2021 at 17:13

community wiki

3 revs, 2 users 83%
Makoto

8

joelonsoftware.com/2021/06/02/kinda-a-big-announcement also seems to confirm not much change for now: "the most important part of this announcement is 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 business of Stack Overflow will continue to focus on Reach and Relevance, and Stack Overflow for Teams. The entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now"
– Tinkeringbell
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 16:58
14

The qualifier is that nothing for now will change. I can't forecast the future so I'm going to just rely on the moment here @Tinkeringbell.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 17:00
30

I give it a week, two weeks tops, for this to change
– Zoe Mod
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 17:22
15

@Zoe a missed 6 to 8 opportunity ....
– rene
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 17:31
13

so, keep on destroying the community to funnel paid products, business as usual
– Kevin B
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 17:37
6

@KevinB: Anything not officially stated by the company in explicit and unambiguous language is all otherwise rumors and innuendo.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 17:40
2

@Tinkeringbell: But big changes often happen about 2 years in, either disastrous (euphemism "restructuring") or much-needed innovation (like expanding into the learning part).
– Peter Mortensen
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 6:21
9

Let me put it this way: they paid a handsome amount of money for the right to claim that they own the Stack Overflow brand. That was not charity, there is going to have to be a return on investment. I can't really believe that with the way the site is now that amount of money is going to be made back and turned into profit in a timeframe that investors are comfortable with. That does not imply that StackOverflow.com is going to change, but I am pretty darned sure that different very commercial things are going to be launched under the brand name. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
– Gimby
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 14:30
2

I compare it to Minecraft; Microsoft paid an exorbitant amount of money not for Minecraft: Java Edition but for "Minecraft" - the brand name that the entire world knows, and made sure to expand on the amount of products that can be bought related to that brand. But Minecraft: Java Edition is still there, going strong.
– Gimby
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 14:33
1

@Gimby But Minecraft is something one can buy. How do I buy a StackOverflow? Can I maybe buy visitors to my questions or reputation, a question ban breaker maybe? It seems much less straightforward to make money out of SO than out of Minecraft. SO, the company, tried that for years. I understand the value of the brand though. If I talk with others they call SO only the site who has all the answers and where everyone goes to.
– NoDataDumpNoContribution
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 15:12
2

@Gimby: If I recall that story correctly, Microsoft acquired the company Mojang and also Minecraft. Microsoft didn't just take the brand with it, they brought the company with it and invested in it so that it could continue to grow. All of its myriad editions (yes, even Java edition) are supported and maintained and updated by Mojang.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 15:13
3

@Gimby: Unlike Stack Overflow, which has made its business on the work of free or volunteer labor, Minecraft is something that people can buy and have an immediate investment in. We have literal essays and mountains of prose written about "the best way to ask a question" and trying to dissect those is no small feat for the average passer-by. The products that Stack Overflow wants to sell us are its enterprise Stack Overflow edition and the hiring portal, which...okay, they might work, but there's already a crowded space for those.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 15:15
2

@Makoto "it's probably best for us to not kid ourselves about what had made the site so profitable." The countless hours of unpaid labor of experts in their field, I guess. But is the site really that profitable? My impression was always that volunteers here rely on the site to remain essentially free to access. Doing work for free that results in a product that is available for free can probably be justified. But who would do free work for a purely commercial product? That might limit the profitability.
– NoDataDumpNoContribution
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 17:01
3

That's the beauty of it @Trilarion. The products with actual price tags are their hiring portal and Stack Overflow Teams, not the main site. The main site is really what gets people to the front door and what gets people to talk about the site as a whole. The reputation of Stack Overflow allows it to carry on through other product chains and other product ventures, which is what brings the revenue in. So it's technically not us professionals that are directly turning them a profit, but without us professionals, those products would never have been possible.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 17:04
2

@Trilarion: Anyone could copy the questions of Stack Overflow and republish them so long as they abide by CC-by-SA. There's dozens of copycat sites that do that today. But that's not where the profitability in the site lies. It's the fact that people come to Stack Overflow at all to do their technical Q&A which makes it the household name and juggernaut it is today.
– Makoto
Commented Jun 3, 2021 at 17:05

| Show 12 more comments

Adriaan · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-06 11:03:48Z

Note: This post is being updated to show the actual changes associated with the roadmap I described in 2021.

Forward looking statement

Overall, I think what we will see in the near term is no significant changes, perhaps some minor investments (For example, Collectives); in the mid term, an alteration to the way that advertising is served (For example The Future of our Jobs Ad slots, "Reach and Relevance", and Privacy Changes) and some phasing out of underperforming facets of the exchange (For example, Jobs and Dev Story); in the long term a purchase by another firm as profitability here wanes (For example, the Layoffs on May 10 2023 and the Layoffs on October 16 2023), probably a large tech company who would put this to good use somewhere.

Don't worry too much though, this place makes enough money and has a large enough community to survive the process. Just focus on creating good content that stands the test of time. Maybe even have some fun and help someone along the way.

State of SO at the time of sale

What happens to Stack Overflow is no longer up to anyone here; not the CEO, the board, no one, has a say in the future of the business of Stack Overflow.

What happens is purely up to the outlook of whomever decided to purchase the platform. Seeing as how they spent $1.8B it means that there is a serious investment in the success of the site and overall product, so that is good. However, what that also means is that this is now going to be purely governed by monetary milestones from either an oversight board or an investment group.

Everyone cited - Atwood, Spolsky, Prashanth - they all strongly mention money as what is changing. Money always comes with strings attached when it is influenced by such a large group. There will now more than likely be consequences for parts of the exchange failing to perform financially.

Let's all be clear though, Prosus didn't purchase Stack Overflow... Naspers did. The CEO and board are who make large purchases like this, and Naspers (who fully owns Prosus) is the CEO and board for Prosus. Bob van Dijk is the current CEO of both Naspers and Prosus. Naspers was founded as a publication company, with the mission statement "for the free unimpeded expression of public opinion on all major issues". So, while having someone like Bob there who has experience from eBay and Allegro, and a general outlook of having free expression, it would seem a good fit. One would hope this place was left in good hands.

On the other hand, Naspers is so big that it has its hands in both good and bad places. While the "corporate learning companies" segment seems good, there are also a wide variety of other internet segments which may have a conflict of interest with regards to the way we see advertising.

"Just focus on creating good content..." I wish it would be possible. The number or newly registered users and questions went up since the beginning of 2020, but the ratio of answers to question is barely 1:1 now and long time users are never to be seen again. Going through the new questions on the homepage mostly bad content is served. I don't want to waste my time searching for something answerable there. The only valuable activity to me left is improving existing content by editing. That's still fun. If anything I will work on building a non-profit alternative with all the valuable content. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 17:48
Sorry you feel that way. From my perspective, over enforcement is what has dropped the answer to question ratio, as questions which would generally have more than 1 answer are now discouraged through interpretation. The semantic focus is ridiculously skewed in the wrong direction, and as a result, questions which users enjoy are no longer as common. If everyone in tech had to suddenly stop asking people "here is a my situation, how would you approach that?" then nothing would get done, which is exactly what has happened here. If anything, zeal is to blame for this more than new users or Prosus — Travis J, Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 16:52
There is surely something to it, I agree. Many questions could be salvaged with a bit of patience while the initial impulse rather seems to be to close as much as possible. On the other hand I see like 95% (my estimation) of new questions without any research and so many of them are trivial but not very interesting to answer. I blame the laziness of people for the high amount of low quality questions but I'm not sure who to blame for the absence of high quality questions. Often enough I find answers to the problems I encounter already and don't need to ask at all. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 17:43
Just a small comment on a possible evolution of Q&A either by StackOverflow/Naspers or by anyone else: I would like to see better matchmaking between those with questions and those with answers. I know which kind of questions I'd like to answer but I don't want to spend much time on finding those first. I guess that a good chunk of Q&A done right would deal with bringing the right kind of people together and that there is still room for improvement. I basically don't mind if others have different criteria for what is worth their time, the system could just would work better for everyone. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 18:05

What will happen to Stack Overflow now that it has been sold to Prosus for $1.8 Billion?

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