[HN Gopher] Mitchell reflects as he departs HashiCorp
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       Mitchell reflects as he departs HashiCorp
        
       Author : manojlds
       Score  : 169 points
       Date   : 2023-12-14 21:27 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.hashicorp.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.hashicorp.com)
        
       | fishnchips wrote:
       | Drop the "Hashi". Just Corp. It's cleaner.
       | 
       | Jokes aside, it's an end of an era. Mitchell has always been one
       | of my role models both as an amazing engineer and a really
       | decent, humble human being. I'm really looking forward to other
       | amazing things he's going to build.
        
         | teeray wrote:
         | CorpyCorp could work
        
           | quickthrower2 wrote:
           | CorpyMcCorpFace
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | ExVMwareCorp may work.
        
       | password4321 wrote:
       | Is there any one individual or group responsible for HashiCorp's
       | switch to BSL?
       | 
       | From what I saw Mitchell let go of running the company and now
       | that HashiCorp is not so cool anymore it's time to get out.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | They built a ton of value, were unable to capitalize on it
         | (just like early Docker), and when they tried to capture the
         | value of the thing they built it pissed off the open source
         | ecosystem (and all the profitable companies) built on top.
         | 
         | They should have thought about this a long, long time ago.
         | 
         | I feel for the smaller companies, but I feel for big companies
         | that come in and plunder because of open license terms.
        
         | voytec wrote:
         | > Is there any one individual or group responsible for
         | HashiCorps switch to BSL?
         | 
         | IBM, would you choose to trust statements[1] posted from a
         | throwaway account
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579504
        
       | gobins wrote:
       | Looking forward to what Mitchell does next. I have always enjoyed
       | reading his code, a fantastic role model.
        
         | glenngillen wrote:
         | This is what he's working on atm, including regular updates on
         | progress: https://mitchellh.com/ghostty
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | The sense I always got from the outside (I don't know him
       | personally), is that Mitchell is just a really good engineer that
       | wants to build great products.
       | 
       | Nothing more.
       | 
       | He's honest about what he's passionate about. Hence why he went
       | from running the company to stepping back to being an IC.
       | 
       | I've got a lot of respect for that.
       | 
       | Below is his personal website, for those who haven't read his
       | posts.
       | 
       | https://mitchellh.com
        
       | debarshri wrote:
       | It is interesting to see how hashicorp went from an underdog
       | company with vagrant to a company to aspire for with terraform,
       | nomad, consul, vault to something that orgs and community dread,
       | all within a decade.
       | 
       | Standards that they have set are still industry wide relevant.
       | But you can see they are on a negative path.
        
         | jen20 wrote:
         | This is a weird take. If anything, Nomad, Consul and Vault are
         | on the ascent, as the realities of the CNCF ecosystem set in
         | for people with results to deliver.
        
       | m1keil wrote:
       | Honestly feels a bit like the end of another great company - Chef
       | (Adam Jacob).
       | 
       | Great tooling, built with great engineers but business realities
       | forced it to take some unfortunate turns.
       | 
       | I do hope Hashicorp will manage to find its stride and not end up
       | as some bullet point in a long "solutions" portfolio of some
       | software conglomerate.
       | 
       | And thank you Mitchell for all the work. Can't wait to see what
       | is coming next from you.
        
         | lamroger wrote:
         | Forgot about Chef... Good times...
        
       | revskill wrote:
       | No mention about what's next ? Hm, why.
        
         | jethronethro wrote:
         | Doubt there's anything sinister or shady about that. Maybe he
         | doesn't have any plans. Or maybe he just doesn't feel like
         | sharing those plans or doesn't feel obliged to share them.
        
           | revskill wrote:
           | My guess (could be wrong): He no longer enjoy writing Go.
        
         | brcmthrowaway wrote:
         | Something AI related no doubt
        
         | pphysch wrote:
         | He's been working hard on a really cool modern terminal
         | emulator the last couple years, among other things I'm sure.
         | 
         | https://mitchellh.com/ghostty
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Kids are a thing that can be next.
        
       | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
       | I don't really have hard feelings toward him or his company. But
       | the end result of his company's most well-known tool (Terraform)
       | has been to create a giant immovable rock that many of us are
       | forced to toil against every day. Our cries for change go
       | unheeded, our pull requests rejected. Its unnecessary kludginess,
       | lack of important features, and insistence on "opinionated"
       | behaviors that nobody wants, create unnecessary pain, toil and
       | instability. The weight and scope of its impact has meant that no
       | alternative is acceptable, nor even feasible to create.
       | Thankfully, their licensing change seems to have done what the
       | community could not: create a viable alternative, that we pray
       | one day might adopt the changes we've been begging for. (Although
       | to be honest, I don't _really_ expect change.) So, to Mitchell, I
       | 'm glad you're getting rich (cash those shares out now before the
       | stock plummets more!) and getting out. But I also hope you never
       | make another OSS tool again.
        
         | leetrout wrote:
         | This negativity is unnecessary.
         | 
         | Mitchell has had little to do with the issues Terraform faced
         | and how things went. That responsibility belongs to others in
         | eng leadership.
        
         | dewey wrote:
         | > But I also hope you never make another OSS tool again.
         | 
         | What a sad thing to say. If you picked a free open source tool
         | that was not right for your use case maybe you should blame
         | yourself.
        
       | cgopalan wrote:
       | Mitchell is the only person I can think of who went through the
       | cycle of tinkerer/IC -> founder -> CXO and then back to IC in his
       | own company. Also, his writings on Zig has been tremendously
       | helpful for someone like me who is curious about it. Huge respect
       | from a fellow IC!
        
       | mitchellh wrote:
       | We've gone full circle! I originally launched Vagrant here on HN
       | in 2010, which was at the top of HN very briefly for the day. Now
       | here I am 14 years later witnessing my departure post in that
       | very same spot. A strange experience! Thanks for the support over
       | the years. A lot of the initial community for the projects I
       | helped start came from here.
        
         | awsanswers wrote:
         | I built a career following in your vision. Thank you 1000x
        
         | philbert101 wrote:
         | Well deserved Mitchel! Thank you for Vagrant, Packer, Consul,
         | Vault and Terraform, all of which I used back in my DevOps
         | days.
        
         | leetrout wrote:
         | Congratulations, Mitchell!
         | 
         | Many accomplishments and the ability to change an entire
         | industry. One of a kind!
         | 
         | Can't wait to see what else you get up to.
        
         | jtreminio wrote:
         | My first major foss was heavily based around Vagrant (PuPHPet).
         | It was a joy building on top of your tooling to make web
         | engineers lives easier.
         | 
         | Thank you for your work, it was great while it lasted!
        
           | ezekg wrote:
           | Some of my first OSS work was also based on Vagrant
           | (https://github.com/ezekg/tj). I eventually turned that into
           | a commercial desktop app, built on top of that CLI project.
           | Ultimately, the project didn't work out, but it was a big
           | step in my open source and entrepreneurial journey.
           | 
           | ty, mitchellh!
        
         | jamestimmins wrote:
         | Congrats on what you've accomplished here. Building an
         | industry-standard company and then carefully planning your exit
         | on your own terms is a huge win.
         | 
         | I (selfishly) hope whatever is next is still hacker adjacent,
         | bc your work has been a big inspiration to a lot of us. Best of
         | luck to you!
        
         | fb03 wrote:
         | Thank you for all your hard work, man!
        
         | jackson-mcd wrote:
         | Congrats!
        
         | sytse wrote:
         | Congrats on all your accomplishments Mitchell and looking
         | forward to what you'll create next.
        
         | gigapotential wrote:
         | Congrats! You've Terraformed the industry!
        
       | mugivarra69 wrote:
       | terraform move killed it
        
       | nodesocket wrote:
       | I use HashiCorp software nearly daily and think Terraform was the
       | biggest eureka! moments for me. I've held HashiCorp since the
       | IPO... Hasn't gone as planned so far, but holding on. Honestly, I
       | expect an acquisition like Slack (just my hunch).
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-14 23:00 UTC)