How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub

How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub

(我是如何拒绝微软30w的诱惑，专注于GitHub事业)





当我老去，回顾一生，我想说，“哇，那是一场冒险“；而不是，“哇，我真的很安稳。“





2008 is a leap year. That means that three hundred and sixty six days ago, almost to the minute, I was sitting alone in a booth at Zeke’s Sports Bar and Grill on 3rd Street in San Francisco.I wouldn’t normally hang out at a sports bar, let alone a sports bar
in SOMA, but back then Thursday was “I Can Has Ruby” night. I guess back then “I can has _______” was also a reasonable moniker to attach to pretty much anything. ICHR was a semi-private meeting of like minded Ruby Hackers that generally and willingly devolved
into late night drinking sessions. Normally these nights would fade away like my hangover the next morning, but this night was different. This was the night that GitHub was born.

2008是闰年，这年有366天，大概就在去年的此时此刻，我自己一个人孤伶伶坐在旧金山的第三个街道的某个叫Zeke的球迷酒吧。通常我不会去球迷吧鬼混的，更不会来SOMA这个鸟地方(SOMA是旧金山市场街南区，很多不知天高地厚的鸟人或者团队在这边创业)，不过在那段时间，正好星期四夜晚有一个叫"Ruby,你可以有"的聚会。我感觉那时"XX，这个你可以有"，是很多鸟东西喜欢用的噱头。"Ruby, 你可以有"是一个半私人的聚会，一众热爱Ruby的黑客们通常会把这种聚会演变成通宵畅饮的夜晚。这种聚会一般很快就让人淡忘，就像我前一晚喝得酩酊大醉，第二天又没啥事一样，不过，这个晚上确实不一样，因为诞生了(伟大的)GitHub！





I think I was sitting at the booth alone because I’d just ordered a fresh Fat Tire and needed a short break from the socializing that was happening over at the long tables in the dimly lit aft portion of the bar. On the fifth or sixth sip, Chris Wanstrath walked
in. I have trouble remembering now if I’d even classify Chris and I as “friends” at the time. We knew each other through Ruby meetups and conferences, but only casually. Like a mutual “hey, I think your code is awesome” kind of thing. I’m not sure what made
me do it, but I gestured him over to the booth and said “dude, check this out.” About a week earlier I’d started work on a project called Grit that allowed me to access Git repositories in an object oriented manner via Ruby code. Chris was one of only a handful
of Rubyists at the time that was starting to become serious about Git. He sat down and I started showing him what I had. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to see that it had sparked something in Chris. Sensing this, I launched into my half-baked idea for some
sort of website that acted as hub for coders to share their Git repositories. I even had a name: GitHub. I may be paraphrasing, but his response was along the lines of a very emphatic “I’m in. Let’s do it!”

当时我应该是坐在吧台的，因为刚点了一杯Fat Tire鲜啤，歇一小会，因为刚跟一般鸟人在酒吧的长桌打完口水战。才喝了几口吧，Chris就走了进来。我现在真心疑惑在当时跟Chris这个鸟人算不算是朋友。有时在Ruby碰碰头或者开个会，跟Chiris认识了，不过是随意打个招呼罢了。一般扯得也即是我们geeks寒暄的套话，“你这鸟人的代码看上去很给力啊”，诸于此类。所以我也不知道当时为啥要跟他套近乎，招呼他过来吧台，“老兄，过来喝一杯”。一周前，我开始给Grit这个工程写码，用Ruby，用面向对象去访问远端Git版本库。Chris也是当时为数不多的几个对Git感兴趣的Ruby码农。Chris凑着坐了过来，我就跟他说说我自己有什么料。没说几句，就把Chris这个鸟人打动了。感觉好像把他忽悠了，我就滔滔不绝把我那半成品想法跟他分享了一番，嗯，也就是我们扮演一个巨大无比的集线器，码农们跟我们这个集线器搭上线，把他们的Git版本库在上面分享，社会化的分享，社会化的智慧！当时就定下了名字：Github！其实这个名字有点牵强。不过Chris果然是个鸟人，兴奋无比，“我等不及了，马上去搞吧”。





The next night, Friday, October 19, 2007 at 10:24pm Chris made the first commit to the GitHub repository and sealed in digital stone the beginning of our joint venture. There were, so far, no agreements of any kind regarding how things would proceed. Just two
guys that decided to hack together on something that sounded cool.

第二天晚上，星期五，那天是2007年10月19日晚上10点24分，Chris提交了第一份源码到Github去，算是我们这个公司的一块数字版奠基石了。在那个时候，压根就没有达成什么协议要怎么去把这件事进行下去。就我们两个鸟人一起去hack一些很耍酷的东西。





Remember those amazing few minutes in Karate Kid where Daniel is training to become a martial arts expert? Remember the music? Well, you should probably go buy and listen to You’re The Best by Joe Esposito in iTunes because I’m about to hit you with a montage.

(又是背景知识，粗略翻译，勿笑)记不记得《Karate Kid》这部电源，Daniel通过刻苦修理，成为一个顶级搏斗家。音乐记得不？不记得的话去itunes重温Joe Esposito的那首《You’re The Best》，说这些干嘛，嗯，是为了用电影般的情节打动你！（Tom大鸟貌似很骄傲）





For the next three months Chris and I spent ridiculous hours planning and coding GitHub. I kept going with Grit and designed the UI. Chris built out the Rails app. We met in person every Saturday to make design decisions and try to figure out what the hell
our pricing plan would look like. I remember one very rainy day we talked for a good two hours about various pricing strategies over some of the best Vietnamese egg rolls in the city. All of this we did while holding other engagements. I, for one, was employed
full time at Powerset as a tools developer for the Ranking and Relevance team.

接下来三个月，Chris和我都放弃鬼混，把上班之外的时间拿来筹备和给Github编码。我继续去实现我的Grit项目，同时也设计一下UI。Chris则对Rails app进行扩展。我们俩每周六碰碰头，讨论一下设计，绞尽脑汁想想怎么给我们的产品定个价。记得有一个很鸟大雨的夜晚，我们俩谈了2个小时，还算卓有成效，由大街上的越南蛋卷聊起，对定价策略有了初步的想法。我呢，当时还在一个叫Powerset的公司，是排名和相关性产品组的一个编写工具的码农(搞搜索相关的，技术必须牛叉)。





In mid January, after three months of nights and weekends, we launched into private beta mode, sending invites to our friends. In mid February PJ Hyett joined in and made us three-strong. We publicly launched the site on April 10th. TechCrunch was not invited.
At this point it was still just three 20-somethings without a single penny of outside investment.

到了08年1月中，整整3个月的夜晚和周末都奉献给了Github，我们启动了内侧，发送邀请给我们的好友。2月中，PJ Hyett大鸟也加入我们，实力大增。4月10号我们公布了我们的在站点。(TechCrunch 没有邀请？)在那时，我们3个鸟人都是20出头，没拿到一分钱风投，不容易啊。





I was still working full time at Powerset on July 1, 2008 when we learned that Powerset had just been acquired by Microsoft for around $100 million. This was interesting timing. With the acquisition, I was going to be faced with a choice sooner than I had anticipated.
I could either sign on as a Microsoft employee or quit and go GitHub full time. At 29 years old, I was the oldest of the three GitHubbers, and had accumulated a proportionally larger amount of debt and monthly expenditure. I was used to my six digit lifestyle.
Further confounding the issue was the imminent return of my wife, Theresa, from her PhD fieldwork in Costa Rica. I would soon be transitioning from make-believe bachelor back to married man.

所以我一直在Powerset全职工作，7月1好我听说Powerset被微软砸了1个亿收购，那时挺有趣的(也是Tom大鸟接下来要显摆的)，正因为被收购了，我面对两个选择，去微软上班，或者全职投身于Github。那时我29了，3个人里面算最老的鸟，悲催的是，我欠的债务也是最多的，每个月大手大脚惯了，花销也最大。我不经意养成了6位数消费的生活作风(鄙视啊)。事情变得更复杂的是我老婆在Costa Rica念完PhD回来鸟，一瞬间，我还算一个自以为是的单身汉转变成一个已婚人士。





To muddy the waters of decision even more, the Microsoft employment offer was juicy. Salary + $300k over three years juicy. That’s enough money to make anybody think twice about anything. So I was faced with this: a safe job with lots of guaranteed money as
a Microsoft man –or– a risky job with unknown amounts of money as an entrepreneur. I knew things with the other GitHub guys would become extremely strained if I stayed on at Powerset much longer. Having saved up some money and become freelancers some time
ago, they had both started dedicating full time effort to GitHub. It was do or die time. Either pick GitHub and go for it, or make the safe choice and quit GitHub to make wheelbarrows full of cash at Microsoft.

微软那边，也是在搞浑这水，我的offer很给力，工资不算，3年额外30w的安置费(外企真愉快啊，记得某人说他跑去星巴克，第一个月交了15w的税，估计就是从这安置费里面扣的)。这一大笔钱，任何人都会想太多。所以，一个选择是一个很稳定的工作而且有一大笔钱同时还是一个微软男，另一个选择是你去创业，但压根不知道有没有钱，有多少钱。我也知道，如果我留在Powerset越久，Github那班家伙肯定也鸭梨山大，没我不行啊。他们那班鸟人也真心不容易，好不容易存了点小钱，成为自由职业者，打算全身心投入Github。那个时候很关键，继续做或Github死掉。所以，我只能选择其一，继续把Github做起来，或者去微软拿一大堆钱(Tom形象描绘成推着一手推车的钞票回家)，后者自然是最安全的。





If you want a recipe for restless sleep, I can give you one. Add one part “what will my wife think” with 3,000 parts Benjamin Franklin; stir in a “beer anytime you damn well please” and top with a chance at financial independence.

如果你想要找一个让自己翻来覆去都睡不着的妙方，听我说说。加入1份"我老婆怎么想"同时再加入"3000份本杰明.富兰克林怎么想"，最后搅拌入"随时啤酒，随地愉快"和"一个机会让你真正财政独立"。(Tom大鸟也纠结了很久)





I’ve become pretty good at giving my employers the bad news that I’m leaving the company to go do something cooler. I broke the news to my boss at Powerset on the day the employment offer was due. I told him I was quitting to go work full time on GitHub. Like
any great boss, he was bummed, but understanding. He didn’t try to tempt me with a bigger bonus or anything. I think deep down he knew I was going to leave. I may have even received a larger incentive to stay than others, on account of my being a flight risk.
Those Microsoft managers are crafty, I tell you. They’ve got retention bonuses down to a science. Well, except when you throw an entrepreneur, the singularity of the business world, into the mix. Everything goes wacky when you’ve got one of those around.

我发现自己已经擅长让老板听到我的坏消息，辞职去干点很牛逼的事情。微软那份offer即将到期的时候，我跑去跟我老板说了这个坏消息。我告诉他我要辞职，去专心做我的GitHub。我老板也是一个不错的人，虽然对我的决定失望，还是表示理解。他压根不去用高薪和奖金来挑逗我。我想他本身就清楚我要走的。其实啊，比起其他人，公司给我更大的诱惑让我留在公司的，因为考虑到我其实一早就有点想变心离开。我告诉你，那些微软的经理很精明，对于想离开的人，他们会更大程度的挑逗你，他们对于如何用挽留奖金对付员工真是炉火纯青啊。商业社会就是如此，当你置身于此，也就见怪不怪了。





In the end, just as Indiana Jones could never turn down the opportunity to search for the Holy Grail, I could no less turn down the chance to work for myself on something I truly love, no matter how safe the alternative might be. When I’m old and dying, I plan
to look back on my life and say “wow, that was an adventure,” not “wow, I sure felt safe.”

最后总结吧，一如Indiana Jones(请wiki)永远不会放弃找寻圣杯，我也不会放弃给自己热爱的事业工作，无论其他选择是如何如何的安全。当我老去，回顾一生，我想说，“哇，那是一场冒险“；而不是，“哇，我真的很安稳。“