How Github (No Longer) Works
summary
Company updates a number of concrete practices: GitHub stays 60% remote, embraces staff-only feature flags and moves from fragile staging to dynamic branch servers deployed via Hubot, letting internal teams exercise experimental features in production. Organization hits Dunbar-ish scale (~150–250 people), shifts to small focused teams with a primarily responsible person instead of traditional bosses — effectively no technical managers — and extends onboarding with buddy weeks and longer mentorship so hires actually ship.
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chapters (34)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:19HOW GITHUB (NO LONGER) WORKS
- 1:10BUILDING A STARTUP
- 1:24BE SUPER TRANSPARENT
- 1:48START ANOTHER COMPANY
- 2:36GITHUB AIN'T NO SECRETIVE JERK
- 3:06GITHUBBER FOR ALMOST FOUR YEARS
- 3:54TALKS CIRCA 30-75 EMPLOYEES
- 4:23DUNBAR'S NUMBER AN IMAGINARY EMPLOYEE NUMBER THAT HACKER NEWS FETISHIZES WILL KILL YOUR COMPANY
- 5:31150 CHANGES THINGS
- 6:52TWO-MINUTE RECAP
- 7:05GITHUB IS 60% REMOTE
- 7:39ASYNCHRONOUS
- 8:50DEPLOYS
- 9:36RARELY DEPLOY TO INDIVIDUAL SERVERS OR SUBSETS
- 11:04FEWER DEPLOYMENT TARGETS LEAD TO SIMPLER DEPLOY LINES
- 11:34WE ALSO SPIN UP DYNAMIC BRANCH SERVERS
- 14:12WE MOSTLY STOPPED USING EXTERNAL BETA TESTERS
- 16:55KEEP INFORMATION ACCESSIBLE BUT INDOCTRINATE LONGER
- 19:13IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
- 19:34EVEN HARDER FOR REMOTE WORKERS
- 23:19SUDDENLY IT WAS EASIER TO LEASE OFFICE SPACE
- 23:54THE TECH INDUSTRY IS CRAZY
- 24:29BOOTSTRAPPING WAS THE KEY FOUNDATION
- 25:18TEAMS BECAME MORE IMPORTANT
- 25:44DRIVE-BY OPINIONS ARE LESS VALUABLE
- 27:04PEOPLE LEAVE TEAMS IF THEY AREN'T ACTIVE
- 28:03PROTECTS AGAINST NEGATIVE FEEDBACK
- 28:45ROOMS ARE CHEAP
- 29:51SOME TEAMS HAVE A PRP (PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE PERSON)
- 30:351-2 DEVELOPERS 1-2 DESIGNERS
- 31:43DINKY LITTLE ARDUINO MOTION TRACKING KINECT VIDEO CAPTURE
- 32:11REMOTE WORK REQUIRES MORE WORK
- 33:04INFORMAL! CONVERSATIONS ARE HARD
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