How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub (2008)
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2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderMy story, along similar lines: Microsoft was recruiting me for two years, starting in 1994, while at my first startup. I kept saying no. I left the startup to work, by myself, on an early ORM for Java, (back in JDK 1.0.2 days). Microsoft approached me again, offered to buy my technology for a close to $1M, give me lots of equity (back when that stock was growing quickly), and roll out my product, (this was before Microsoft dumped Java)…
To put things in perspective, Microsoft also paid Jerry Seinfeld something like a million dollars a minute for his on-screen time, or $183,000 a second. $300,000 over three years (almost 95 million seconds) works out to be 1.73162648 nano-jerries. Nice to know what you're worth.
Thought this was being posted because Microsoft acquired GitHub. Came to find more scandalous deeds.
What unit suffix is 'l'
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 548
- Total comments
- 175
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-10-20 | How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHubFirst breakout | mojombo | 224 | 68 |
| 2012-07-11 | How I Turned Down $300l from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub | willf | 3 | 1 |
| 2013-05-25 | How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub (2008)Best thread | hendzen | 276 | 89 |
| 2014-02-18 | How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub (2008) | sgpl | 4 | 0 |
| 2017-01-27 | How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to Go Full-Time on GitHub | skynode | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-06-04 | How I Turned Down $300K from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub (2008)Latest 20+ point return | troydavis | 39 | 17 |