Today I'm talking to Prashanth Chandrasekar the CEO of Stack Overflow – a highly specialized kind of social network, with a really unique business model. If you don't know Stack Overflow is a major part of the modern software development landscape: it’s where developers come together, ask questions, and get answers about how to build software, including actual code they can use in their own projects. It’s basically a huge question and answer forum. More than 100 million people visit Stack Overflow every single month. The company also sells Stack Overflow as an internal forum tool that big companies can use for their own teams: Microsoft, Google, Logitech—you name it, they’re using Stack Overflow to coordinate conversations between their engineers.

The platform has a long reputation of elitism; Prashanth himself is a developer and he told me his own first experience on Stack Overflow was a negative one. In fact, he took over as CEO about three years ago, after a pretty serious moderation controversy that saw several longtime Stack Overflow moderators quit. I wanted to talk to Prashanth about how it works, how the company makes money, and how to grow such a specialized user base while still being welcoming to new people.

Links:

Stack Overflow Sold to Tech Giant Prosus for $1.8 Billion

Stack Overflow helps millions of developers do their jobs every single day. Its new CEO says the next stage of its growth is selling to businesses.

Big Tech's hiring freeze unlocks rich talent pool for U.S. startups

Stack Overflow raises $85M in Series E funding to further accelerate SaaS business

Chris Dixon thinks web3 is the future of the internet — is it?

Stack Overflow Has a New Code of Conduct: You Must 'Be Nice'

Code of Conduct - Stack Overflow

Eight great sites that offer online classes

The other side of Stack Overflow content moderation

Everything you need to know about Section 230

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23185361

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.

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The people who make your apps go to Stack Overflow for answers – here's how it works