Jan 2, 2019 · 42m · a16z
a16z Podcast | What Software Developers (and Therefore Every Company) Need
Jeff Lawson · 11m spoken Ben Uretsky · 10m spoken Chris Wanstrath · 10m spoken Peter Levine · 6m spoken Michael Copeland · 54s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this a16z podcast panel moderated by Peter Levine, the founder-CEOs of GitHub, Twilio, and DigitalOcean discuss how software creation has replaced hardware as the primary tech constraint. They detail how developer-first platforms, bottom-up purchasing, and operational simplicity are reshaping the software industry and enterprise buying.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 3.1 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 1.0 The host pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 25:35 State actors lagging on open source
Chris Wanstrath dismisses state-sponsored cybersecurity premises as misguided, arguing that governments lag 10 to 20 years behind in understanding developer code sharing and are attempting speech suppression.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 27:50 Open source monetization challengePeter Levine directly challenges open source business models, stating that failing to monetize open source creates a race to the bottom, prompting Jeff Lawson to banter back about profitability.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:55 Shift from high-stakes IT to developer speedJeff Lawson provides a thorough historical breakdown showing how multi-tenancy replaced 3-year $3M IT sales cycles with 36-minute developer prototypes.
The host holds their own ▶ 34:50 Citing venture thesis on Red HatPeter Levine demonstrates domain expertise by citing his published thesis 'Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat' to challenge founders on open source monetization dynamics.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software Development as a Market and Developer Needs | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Peter sets up a thoughtful premise that software development has shifted into an independent market over the last five years. Chris Wanstrath and Ben Uretsky collaboratively expand on this, highlighting how human software creation has replaced hardware as the primary tech bottleneck. | |
| Shift in Enterprise Buying: From High-Stakes IT to Developer Prototypes | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Peter frames the roles of GitHub, DigitalOcean, and Twilio before asking Jeff Lawson about buying trends in legacy versus modern companies. Jeff details how multi-tenancy shifted power from high-stakes $3M IT procurement to developers building prototypes in 36 minutes. | |
| The Origins and Vision Behind GitHub | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Peter asks Chris Wanstrath to explain the origins of Git and GitHub. Chris gives a lighthearted recount of building on Linus Torvalds' tool to solve developer communication and social coordination problems. | |
| The Creation of Twilio and Telecom as Software | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Peter inquires how Twilio selected telecom APIs as its core market focus. Jeff explains the historical friction of traditional telecom projects and how turning communications into programmable software empowered developers. | |
| DigitalOcean's Growth and Focus on Simplicity | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Peter highlights DigitalOcean's rapid growth as the second-largest cloud provider despite AWS's dominance. Ben Uretsky explains that AWS grew overly complex for developer needs, whereas DigitalOcean won on simplicity and viral word-of-mouth. | |
| Authentic Developer Marketing and Enterprise Expansion | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Jeff notes developers view traditional corporate sales reps in clown suits, after which Peter asks Chris about alleged cyberattacks on GitHub from China. Chris rejects simple hacking narratives, explaining state actors are decades behind in understanding open information sharing and speech suppression. | |
| Open Source Monetization and Cloud Infrastructure Strategies | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Peter brings up the economic difficulty of monetizing open source without entering a race to zero. Ben explains how DigitalOcean uses open infrastructure like KVM to foster open source projects without forcing cloud vendor lock-in. | |
| The As-a-Service Shift: Building vs. Operating Software | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks how non-open-source Twilio attracts open source developers, referencing his thesis 'Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat'. Jeff explains that while writing software is easier, operating cloud-scale infrastructure is harder, driving demand for managed as-a-service providers. | |
| Developer Pragmatism and the Future of Software Maintenance | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Chris responds to Peter's thesis by advocating for developer pragmatism over open-versus-closed ideology. Both Chris and Jeff emphasize that the real value in software engineering lies in maintaining, debugging, and running software at scale rather than writing lines of code. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Wanstrath: Developer capacity has replaced hardware as tech's primary constraint
“Now we're getting to a place where you can, on your phone, go get CPUs and bandwidth, and the real constraint is software, and really you can't order more software. What you have to do is Get more people to create software because it's all powered by humans, s…”
Uretsky: DigitalOcean attracts 4 million monthly visitors via 1,500 developer tutorials
“So, to date, we've published 1500 tutorials that talk about how to leverage open source software. We're educating developers worldwide on how to write code, how to deploy applications, And we're drawing in four million unique visitors a month to this community…”
Lawson: A working software prototype is worth a thousand sales calls
“The prototype is worth a thousand sales calls.”
Wanstrath: Slack and Twilio succeed by easing the developer collaboration paradox
“There's almost this paradox where we are working on computers all day, but it's very hard for us to work with each other, and this is why you see, I think, things like Twilio and even Slack blowing up, is like, finally, there's an easy way for me to work with …”
Wanstrath: Communication is software's hardest problem; technical issues can wait
“The communication part is the hardest part and the most important part, and the technical part, you have unlimited amount of time to figure out later, and so we're really focused on the communication part”
Lawson: Software projects should never take three years due to changing assumptions
“Nothing in software takes three years, right? Because you assume everything will be different three years from now.”
Lawson: iPhone call apps are merely touchscreen versions of push-button phones
“If you want to make a phone call, the only change that's really happened in a 150 years was dialing with an operator, to dialing with a rotary, to dialing with a push button. Now open up the phone app on your iPhone. Super computer in your pocket. It's still j…”
Uretsky: Over half of DigitalOcean's signups come from word-of-mouth recommendations
“And even to this day, over half of our customer signups come through a word of mouth recommendation, keeping our cost of acquisition really low and essentially creating a viral component to our business, which is really unheard of to think about, you know, a u…”
Lawson: Developer marketing pairs consumer acquisition funnels with enterprise spending power
“I often say the developer market is like, you're doing customer acquisition like a consumer business. Like a massive funnel. Right, lots of developers coming, kicking the tires, like a consumer business, but unlike any other consumer business, they have the ab…”
Wanstrath: Only 30% of GitHub's web traffic originates from North America
“Only 30% of GitHub's traffic comes from North America”
Wanstrath: Governments are 10 to 20 years behind on understanding online sharing
“So the idea that a state government or a state actor would be understanding the nuances of sharing information and what that means and what's harmful and not harmful It's ridiculous. They're at least 10 to 20 years behind on that.”
Wanstrath: Cyberattacks on GitHub aimed to suppress speech, not steal data
“And it's not about hacking or stealing information or trying to get passwords from us. It's about suppressing Speech.”
Uretsky: The majority of software on DigitalOcean virtual machines is open source
“The virtual machines that run on our cloud the majority of the software that's loaded on them is also open source.”
Uretsky: VMware's vCloud failed to gain traction due to its proprietary nature
“If we were running a VMware cloud, it wouldn't make sense to run open source, ah, on top of it, which is why I think VMware's, like, vCloud initiative hasn't necessarily hid the traction that they wanted to see.”
Lawson: Building software is getting easier, but operating it is getting harder
“While building software is getting easier, operating it is getting harder.”
Wanstrath: By 2020, every company will use both open and closed source
“And I think four years from now, there won't be a single business on the planet that only uses closed source or only uses open source.”
Wanstrath: GitHub will become less interesting as execution takes priority over storage
“GitHub is actually gonna get less interesting in the future, and it's gonna be less about, I can grab an open source project and run it, and more about where do I run it? What are the systems it integrates into? And so, GitHub is really awesome, I think, for m…”