Bijan Sabet

Stack Exchange (fka Stack Overflow)

I “met” Joel Spolsky before he met me.

My developer friends were active followers of his popular blog, Joel On Software. And often would send me links to great posts like Craftsmanship (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Craftsmanship.html).

After reading gems like that I had to follow along as well.

For a long time I have been active in various message boards. That’s how my personal relationship with the internet started. I got so much out of being active in various online communities based on my passions about photography, audio/video equipment, media software etc.

But along the way I wanted more from message boards. They simply weren’t keeping up which I wrote about here: http://bijansabet.com/post/39556615/thinking-about-message-boards

When I first saw Stack Overflow I was blown away with three things. The extraordinary thinking behind creating a network that provided the best answers. the ability for users to get recognition for the value they provide. and of course the quality of content, specifically great answers. Basically, they fixed my beef with message boards.

When i met Joel (@spolsky) and his cofounder Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror) the service made even more sense. Joel and Jeff are so thoughtful and purposeful about how they make decisions, how they think about their role on the web and how they make software.

Stack Exchange is the new name of the company because the company is more than Stack Overflow. Stack Exchange is a network of other great sites that use the same platform to provide the best answers for other communities like cooking, photography and others.

This morning Joel wrote about the new name and the new round of funding http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/03/a-new-name-for-stack-overflow-with-surprise-ending/.

I am over the moon to be an investor in this company.

(sorry for the lack of links and likely typos. wrote this on my phone).