[usrusr]

Has stackoverflow ever had a bootstrappy phase of profitability or has it been a VC bonfire ever since inception? If the latter is closer to the truth, I find it a little too easy to talk down the person in charge of keeping investors happy for showing signs of desperation instead of continuing rose-tinted visions from the early days. (if it has been profitable, yeah, shame on you for cutting up the goose that laid golden eggs in search for more)

[moberley]

I think that it did. It was initially created by only a few people in 2008 [1] but then Joel Spolsky wrote a blog post about seeking VC investment in early 2010 [2] and the series A was announced in May that year [3]. The VC investment round was around the same time as the company announced the free Stack Exchange network for other topics not covered by their original site [4].

1. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/09/15/stack-overflow-lau... 2. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2010/02/14/raising-money-for-... 3. https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/05/04/announcing-our-series-... 4. https://web.archive.org/web/20100416154936/http://blog.stack...