Over the past quarter, we’ve expanded our cloud and edtech partnerships, watched Stack Overflow for Groups change into an increasing number of embedded within the developer expertise, and made nice strides on our path to profitability. We’ve additionally had many inside discussions as a management workforce about ChatGPT and different generative AI instruments as they’ve quickly entered the mainstream. We’re excited concerning the potentialities Generative AI might maintain for the general public platform because it matures, and we stay up for experimentation round it.
Total, it was a busy and profitable quarter, so though my first replace of 2023 takes place in a basically totally different atmosphere than my first of 2022, my optimism for the longer term has not modified. It’s merely joined by a dose of pragmatism.
Productiveness and effectivity: Twin themes of the brand new 12 months
In as we speak’s financial atmosphere, productiveness and effectivity are extra necessary than ever. For a lot of corporations, these are the themes of the brand new 12 months, and our purpose is to supply productiveness and effectivity to clients by Stack Overflow for Groups, to technologists by our public platform, and to our staff by smarter processes and methods of working.
At a current dinner with senior know-how executives in San Francisco, it was clear this concentrate on productiveness is extensively shared. Each CIO and CTO current spoke of their want to extend productiveness, and most rightly view developer expertise as a key lever in that effort.
In terms of dev expertise, few initiatives are extra impactful than people who encourage cross-org info sharing and cut back toil — the handbook, repetitive administrative work that hampers creativity and innovation.
One Stack Overflow for Groups buyer within the retail area, for instance, estimates that its cloud workforce may liberate 20-30% of its time by eliminating the necessity to reply duplicative questions. This buyer not too long ago went by a fancy merger and mentioned Stack Overflow for Groups linked staff from the much less technologically reworked a part of the group with their new, extra tech-savvy friends. In the end, extra environment friendly information reuse helped it save almost 10,500 hours over the past 12 months and drove significant progress in unifying and codifying vital institutional information.
That’s an unlimited enhance to developer productiveness, which we all know drives developer happiness and retention in flip. The truth is, happiness and productiveness are inextricably linked; our knowledge exhibits that feeling unproductive is the highest driver of developer unhappiness at work — and at present, a workforce of fifty devs loses between 333 and 651 hours per week on common looking for solutions and options.
Stack Overflow for Groups — “A revolution to IT”
As I replicate on the quarter behind us and stay up for what’s more likely to be a unstable 12 months forward, I firmly consider developer expertise is likely one of the handiest methods for organizations to speed up tech modernization whereas coping with tighter budgets, scarcer assets, and better scrutiny on investments. Anecdotally, it appears know-how leaders agree.
I’m enthusiastic about this rising realization and concerning the many organizations who’re utilizing Stack Overflow for Groups as the premise of that have. With Stack Overflow for Groups, corporations are onboarding builders sooner. Their staff are avoiding roadblocks by extra effectively discovering the solutions they want once they want them. And general, corporations that leverage Stack Overflow for Groups are lowering toil and driving innovation by minimizing interruptions and making certain widespread issues solely should be solved as soon as.
The significance of those attributes can’t be overstated. They’re why Stack Overflow for Groups was not too long ago acknowledged in G2’s Winter 2023 report as a Chief within the Data Administration, Q&A Platforms, and Data Base classes.
I’m pleased with the Stack Overflow workforce for his or her continued influence and grateful they’re being acknowledged for it. I particularly love looking our G2 evaluation web page and listening to from individuals like Mahbub who referred to as Stack Overflow for Groups “a revolution to the IT world.”
Extra effectively discover the cloud assets you want
Our work with Stack Overflow for Groups is one a part of our general imaginative and prescient to change into essentially the most beneficial vacation spot for the world’s present and subsequent era of technologists. Our public platform is the opposite key piece of this imaginative and prescient. Within the final quarter, we redoubled our efforts right here, with a selected concentrate on bringing to life our core values of Be taught, Share, Develop; Maintain Neighborhood at Our Heart; and Be Versatile and Inclusive.
First, we expanded our relationship with the massive three cloud suppliers. In the present day, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud all have Collectives on Stack Overflow. This is a vital step in our long-term evolution to permit customers to self-select into smaller communities of follow that may extra effectively be taught, share, and develop collectively.
It’s an necessary second for our clients, too. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud (along with our different Collectives purchasers) can now meet their clients the place they already are and construct a trusted, bilateral connection by which to share correct, cutting-edge info and updates. That features saying new releases, providing direct buyer assist, endorsing solutions to person questions, and reviewing product suggestions from the neighborhood.
Mixed, Stack Overflow already has 1.6 million AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud associated questions and solutions. We’re excited to see that quantity develop with the brand new Collectives.
Be taught and develop by way of Stack Overflow’s new On-line Studying companions
With Collectives, we’re making it extra environment friendly for customers to search out the assist and information they want. In the present day’s launch of On-line Course Suggestions has an analogous purpose.
Stack Overflow analysis discovered the primary and infrequently most tough problem in a technologist’s studying journey is determining the place to start out. Our Chief Product Officer, Teresa Dietrich, spoke about this problem in depth throughout her Movement State discuss, and as Stack Overflow evolves the platform to empower technical communities to be taught, share, and develop collectively, we needed to prioritize this necessary neighborhood want.
“Every thing strikes so quick and the supply of fact modifications usually and issues which are previous can simply be actively dangerous to be taught.”
Nameless Developer, Stack Overflow qualitative analysis
With as we speak’s On-line Course Suggestions launch, you’ll start to see related programs from two fashionable on-line studying platforms, Udemy® and Pluralsight®. These course suggestions will seem as an advert module on the right-hand aspect of query pages on Stack Overflow. We hope this makes it simpler for technologists — 70% of whom are studying a brand new know-how a minimum of yearly — to search out applicable, trusted assets. Udemy and Pluralsight had been chosen as launch companions for precisely this cause; our 2022 Developer Survey discovered many respondents are already turning to those suppliers for his or her on-line studying wants.
On-line Course Suggestions and our new Collectives are further steps on our path to offering all of the assets you want in a single place. Sooner or later, we might broaden on them by serving to the communities on Stack Overflow and the Stack Trade community uncover extra trusted high quality content material and assets; discover, construct, and share studying paths; create much more centered, linked communities; and have entry to hands-on studying alternatives.
A 12 months of steady enchancment
As we concentrate on driving productiveness and effectivity with all our merchandise, we’re doing the identical internally. The purpose is steady enchancment within the 12 months forward, and we’re always soliciting suggestions throughout our public platform and paid merchandise with that in thoughts. Primarily based on person suggestions and our personal qualitative and quantitative analysis, we’re investing in areas the place there’s a transparent alternative to unravel developer and know-how issues.
The Staging Floor is a good instance. This new public platform function (which is able to initially be discovered solely on Stack Overflow) will permit new askers to obtain steering from extra skilled neighborhood members earlier than posting their first questions publicly.
We consider Staging Floor will make our neighborhood extra welcoming and inclusive by making it simpler for first-timers to be taught Stack Overflow’s norms and greatest practices. An expanded beta is coming quickly and an MVP later this calendar 12 months.
Along with Staging Floor, we’re additionally intently monitoring ChatGPT and different generative AI instruments, and we’re pondering by their influence on the neighborhood and merchandise. Generative AI is evolving quickly, and new use instances and dangers seem every day. The neighborhood is actually engaged on the problem; we noticed a 20% year-over-year spike in questions and solutions with AI-related tags following ChatGPT’s launch, which reversed an general AI-related tag decline of 12% YoY.
We share the neighborhood and world’s pleasure concerning the potential of generative AI. Our Product and Engineering groups are exploring all potentialities, and as typical, we are going to replace and discover alternatives to deliver you into the dialog each time attainable.
Stack Overflow has at all times been constructed by the neighborhood for the world. I need to take a second to spotlight the vital function of our moderators on large points like ChatGPT and on numerous smaller day-to-day occurrences. In 2022, our ten most lively moderators (out of 600 complete) responded to over 440,000 content material flags (requests for moderator motion) — and our most lively moderator of that group handled 104,000 flags alone.
Stack Overflow’s success is in a big half attributable to their tireless contributions, and on this 12 months’s version of Stack Provides Again, we’re happy to donate over $54,000 on behalf of our moderators to Medical doctors With out Borders, the Digital Frontier Basis, Ladies Who Code, the Worldwide Rescue Committee, and UNICEF.
Our path to profitability
The subsequent 12 months will inevitably deliver extra surprises and disruptive improvements. Nevertheless, we’re well-positioned for FY2024 no matter what occurs on the earth round us. The neighborhood is robust and rising; our Stack Overflow for Groups product is more and more mission vital; our firm surpassed 500 Stackers for the very first time; and our path to profitability is evident.
The truth is, on the Prosus and Naspers Capital Markets Day in December, I walked by that path and highlighted the important thing function of Stack Overflow for Groups on it. That’s to not say our Adverts and Worker Branding companies aren’t necessary. Quite, it’s an indication of how sturdy Stack Overflow for Groups’ efficiency has been.
Within the first half of FY23, greater than 50% of Stack Overflow income got here from Stack Overflow for Groups — a SaaS product that solely launched in 2018. We consider Stack Overflow for Groups is a strong, sustainable, and all-weather progress engine for this firm.
2022 was about investing in that engine and within the firm as an entire. 2023 is concerning the pivot from progress in direction of turning into worthwhile once more — simply as we had been in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Regardless of the financial volatility round us, there’ll at all times be a marketplace for organizations who assist clients succeed of their know-how transformations. We stay up for driving productiveness, effectivity, and transformation for our clients and customers within the 12 months forward.
Tags: ceo quarterly submit
