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Recent open-source IPOs GitLab and Confluent

For the last year, Ive been writing about open-source companies and a wave of developer-centric software companies that are upending the traditional enterprise software marketand will soon collectively be worth more than $1 trillion in combined market capitalization. That day is getting closer ever since GitLab and Confluent went public. The recent IPOs of these two open-source companies portend some larger trends that all software founders and investors should pay attention to. Most importantly, developers are in the drivers seat (and they love open source), and secondly, open source can be highly profitable with the right business models.

Why do GitLab and Confluent today have fully-diluted market caps of approximately $20 billion and $30 billion, respectively? They both sit at the center of a massive societal shift where every company is becoming a software company. Its not enough to deploy the latest enterprise software; the most successful companies today create their own unique software and combine free and commercially-available platforms in unique ways to achieve competitive advantage. And this is the case for organizations in every industry, from transportation and pharma, to education, government, finance, insurance, entertainment, retail, and beyond.

There are five main reasons public open-source software companies are worth billions of dollars and that more are poised to go public at similar valuations.

Strong developer love

With every company becoming a software company, they all need to hire armies of software developers. And in this environment, developers are in the driver's seat. They dictate which platforms they want to use for coding and DevOps, and they mostly want to use open source. Developers love open-source tools because they are nimble, creative, and collaborative in nature, allowing teams to work together around the world and contribute back to community projects. Thus, open-source software companies like GitLab and Confluent, as well as HashiCorp, MongoDB, Elastic, Databricks, and others, are very popular among software developers, who in turn recommend the enterprise versions of these companies products to their bosses. This bottoms-up adoption of open source in the enterprise has driven huge revenue gains for the largest open-source companieswhich all offer commercial versions of their software with added functionality such as security, compliance, quality control, and collaboration.

Huge future customer growth

Whats more, open source is a self-perpetuating growth machine, driving sustainable long-term value for open source companies. As developers worldwide continue to standardize on open-source tools, viral use of these platforms among other developers growsand trust in them increasesmaking it standard practice for more and more companies to adopt the enterprise versions of open source products. Viral uptake of open-source tools has created unstoppable customer growth for open-source companies, and it will only continue to snowball.

Incredible customer retention

When companies adopt paid versions of open-source software, its usually because their developers have been successfully using the free version for quite some time. That means once customers start paying for an enterprise open-source product, they are likely to stick with it. This dynamic causes open-source companies to have high net dollar retention; in other words, once they get customers, those customers stay, and they renew at larger and larger amounts as their own companies grow and engage more fully.

Rise of the cloud

Many open-source companies are now succeeding with a cloud model where they host and manage their own software and provide it as a service to customers. Five years ago, most open-source software was on premise with users first downloading the free public open core, and then later paying to download and largely self-manage a commercial enterprise offering on their own servers. Now, the cloud service model is taking over. GitLab, for example, recently reported in its most recent S-1 that its fully-hosted cloud offering, which they call SaaS, grew from 9% of ARR to 16% between fiscal 2020 and 2021, representing year-over-year SaaS ARR growth of 202%. Confluent has recently reported annual cloud revenue growth of 245% and MongoDBs cloud revenue now represents over half of total revenue. Expect cloud to continue to grow in prominence for open-source companies.

Self-reinforcing product development

The very nature of open source is that it invites collaboration. Developers contribute their expertise (for free) back to the open-core projects that serve as the underlying frameworks for commercial open-source products. For open-source companies, these contributions benefit all current and future customers because their products get stronger and more closely aligned with developer needs. GitLab had about 1,000 contributors to its open core project in 2020 and doubled that number in 2021; each of these contributors adds value to GitLabs foundational technology platform.

Well likely see more open-source companies go public. Companies such as Databricks, Snyk, Grafana, Kong, and Vercel are growing rapidly and represent an intriguing IPO pipeline over the coming years. All in all, with the headwinds behind them, open-source companies that can win the hearts and minds of developers should be well-positioned for growth and eventual public-company success.

HashiCorp, Kong, and Vercel are GGV Capital portfolio companies.

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Open Source IPO Boom: What GitLab And Confluent Show Us About The Future Of Software - Forbes

Video games are part of a multibillion-dollar industry in which lucrative employment opportunities abound.

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When you break out the game console to play a video game likeNBA2K, chances are the biggest decision youll have to make is which player or team you want to be. But have you ever considered becoming one of the people who actually designs a game like NBA2K?

Worth an estimatedUS$336 billion, the video game industry isbiggerthan TV, movies and music combined. And since the industry isgrowing at a rapid pace, there are plenty of opportunities to work in this field. From game designers and software engineers who program the games to graphic artists or electrical engineers who design the game consoles, careers in the video game industry abound.

These jobs pay from about$55,000 to $100,000 or moreannually. But somewhat like the NBA itself, the path into the video game industry is filled with tough competition.

As former head of graphics for a large video game company and as head of theLearning Interactive Visualization Experience orLIVE Lab at Texas A&M University, I know firsthand what it takes to land a job in the video game industry. Here are 5 tips on how to do just that.

When it comes time to apply for a job or even an internship at a video game company, it helps to show the games youve created or modified.

Fortunately, game engines, which are the underlying technology for games, are available free of charge and allow you to create your own game.UnrealandUnityare two you may want to try out.

You can also use free software, such asHoudiniandBlender, to create video game assets such as buildings, characters, vehicles and animations.

If its too daunting to create a game from scratch, you can always mod short for modifying an existing game likePortal 2,CivilizationorMinecraft. This is a great start to learning the basics of game design and asset creation.

A game jam is a contest in which participants create a new video game within a set time frame. Game jams are a great way to meet and work with others on a game project and just learn how to design games. Many jams feature video game company representatives. These company reps serve as mentors, judges and coaches. They can give you tips and tricks on how to break into the industry. They can also give you leads on jobs.

Game jams are usually short, like a day or two, but some last a week or more. You can enter a game jam as an individual or as a small team. Some game jams are focused on specific themes such as health, conservation or science and provide resources for teachers and students to participate, such as theGames for Change Student Challenge. Other game jams are open to anyone including professionals, like theGlobal Game Jam. Some game jams are in-person, allowing you to meet face to face with other game designers, artists, developers, industry mentors and game companies, likeChillennium.

Video game conventions are a great way to advance a players career.

Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images

One of the biggest conferences in the U.S. is the annualGame Developers Conferencein San Francisco, which historically has attracted over29,000attendees. In Europe, the annualGamescomconference in Cologne, Germany, has drawn over370,000attendees. SeveralPAX conferenceshappen throughout the year in different locations in the U.S. PAX started out as Penny Arcade Expo before developing into a full conference and exhibition. These conferences enable attendees to find out about new games, meet professionals from the games industry, play games and attend seminars and workshops on topics related to designing and developing games.

A conference likePAX Eastalso provides opportunities for indie developers to showcase their games and get feedback from the public. Most of the conferences will be back in person in 2022 and require a fee to attend or exhibit. The price for tickets can range from $50 to several hundred dollars.

Many high schools,community colleges and universitiesnow offer game design classes.

In addition to these classes, it helps to take classes in math, physics, art and technology, starting in high school if you can. Almost all careers in the video games industry benefit from all of these fields. A game designer trying to create abalanced gamerequires a solid foundation in math and statistics. Balancing a game requires the designer to use math and statistics to ensure that no particular game element such as a particular character or strategy overpowers any other element.

Even if you dont think you will be using math or doing any art, having a basic understanding of both and being able to talk about those subjects with colleagues goes a long way.

In order to create great games, you need to be well versed in the games that are currently being played and have been successful in the past. This means that you should also play games that you normally would not play and even games that you dont like. Not all people like all games. There are many different types of games from entertainment games to educational games, games for health, games for science and many more. Being able to critically look at games and identify which elements work well, which elements could be improved and which elements you might use for your own games will help you become a great game designer.

Breaking into the games industry is possible with a little bit of work. It can also be hugely rewarding. Just imagine the game you helped create is teaching playersnew knowledge, or helpingplayers heal faster, supporting scientists in thediscovery of new proteinsorentertaining playersfor hours.

Read more:
5 Ways To Break Into The Video Game Industry - Texas A&M University Today

With the mass open source database that is the internet, you have all the resources you need to learn coding available to you, but often the problem with a sea of knowledge is distilling it into drinkable lessons.

Eric Solender is a self-taught computer programmer who teamed with then-fellow students to start Mindstand Technologies atUMBC,then left the unversity to become full-time CTO of the company, which uses AI to improve and measure diversity, equity and inclusion in online communities. This year, Solender was chosen as one of Technical.lys RealLIST Engineers in Baltimore.

Now 23, Solender has been teaching himself the programming skills hes used to build his career since he was 15.

Of course, teaching himself is a relative term, as no man is an island. His own curiosity and industriousness was met with support along the way. Solenderlearned first from watching his dad work as a software engineer at Circleback, Inc., and interning with the firm after passing a high school AP computer science class. At 17, he built a concussion detection tool using the motion controls of Xbox Kinect after suffering his own severe concussion. This led to a position with Columbia-based cybersecurity firm Masterpeace Solutions working with startups. When IoT security startup Zuul became a company after spinning out of Masterpeace Launchpad, Solender worked with that team.

The engine that powered Solenders growth from company to company was his desire to learn and fill the gaps in his knowledge. Below are the tips and tricks hes learned to maximize his acquisition of coding skills.

But before we get into the lessons and advice on how to maximize the journey of a self taught programmer, lets acknowledge the counter argument to self-teaching: learning the skill wrong. Regardless of your primary method of learning to code, whether it be a bootcamp, computer science class or the university of Youtube, it is extremely important to learn the fundamentals of a skillset or language correctly.

Code Academy is what Solender used years ago to learn the basics of Python when it was primarily free. Now it has a paid model but there are still plenty of free resources on the site.

These are libraries Solender sees as the best get started quickly resources in Application Programming Interface or (API) development: FastAPI, which helps build out the web framework using python for beginners. Flask, a quick way to learn and get into web development.

Here are a few more options:

Application of the material is one of the tried and true methods of learning. When getting up to speed with a new coding language, Solender always looks to do a project thatll make himself laugh to solidify a technique into memory.

I dont just do coding exercises, said Solender. I try to come up with some very small contained project I can write in that language that will exercise all the things I need to make sure I understand.

A Texas Hold Em project he completed in the AP computer science course in high school came to mind:

A coding project Eric Solender completed in high school (Courtesy photo)

Heres a demo of the Concussion program he made with the Xbox Kinect:

Another way to work on those skills and create projects that lead to opportunities is contribute to open source projects. Solenders most notable Github project is with Mindstand.

These are books that have survived changes in technology like Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by a group of technologists now known as theGang of Four. Although published over 20 years ago and centered around C++, design patterns such as the Singleton pattern and Factory pattern highlighted in that book are still relevant today.

Another widely-read book is Introduction to Algorithms from MIT Press.

My philosophy is if you can understand the patterns you can adapt them to whatever the modern language is, said Solender.

Object-oriented languages are fundamentally different from learning a functional language. But outside of that distinction, Solender has found that most programming languages are very similar. Learning one after learning another is closer to learning a new dialect than a whole language.

Thats what makes guides like Teach a Python Programmer to Use GO and Java to GO helpful.

For pretty much every language theres a guide someone wrotethatll say heres this in language A. Heres what it looks like in language B, said Solender. And that gets me to a point that I can kind of code in that language. Then I dig really deep into the way youre supposed to [code] in that language.

Solenders journey in tech is an example of what early education and more of an apprenticeship-style model of learning could achieve. Since his sophomore year of high school, hes been working in the tech industry, and it inspired that drive to learn from a variety of resources that arent just formal education.

If you get a little bit of encouragement and you know where to find the resources, you can pretty much teach yourself everything you need to know on your own, said Solender.

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So you want to be a software developer? Advice on getting started from self-taught programmer-turned-CTO Eric Solender - Technical.ly

Wednesday November 17, 2021 10:20 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today released iOS 15.1.1, a minor update that comes almost a month after the launch of iOS 15.1.

The iOS 15.1.1 update can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to Settings > General > Software Update.

According to Apple's release notes, iOS 15.1.1 improves call drop performance on iPhone 12 and 13 models, so users who have been experiencing dropped calls should see improvements after installing the update. It appears to only be available for devices in the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 families, including Pro models, so users with other devices won't see the update.

Apple today released iOS 14.8, marking the eighth major update to the iOS operating system that came out in September 2020. iOS 14.8 comes two months after the release of iOS 14.7, an update that introduced MagSafe Battery Pack support.The iOS 14.8 update can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new...

Apple today released an iOS 12.5.5 update for older iPhones and iPads that are not able to run the current version of iOS, iOS 15.The update can be downloaded over-the-air by going to the Settings app, tapping on "General," and selecting the "Software Update" option.There's no word yet on what's included in the iOS 12.5.5 update, but according to Apple's release notes, it is a security...

Apple today released iOS and iPadOS 14.8.1, minor updates to the iOS and iPadOS 14 operating systems. iOS and iPadOS 14.8.1 come more than a month after the release of iOS and iPadOS 14.8, another security fix update.The iOS and iPadOS 14.8.1 updates can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, ...

Late last month, Apple issued an unusual standalone software update to macOS users called "Device Support Update," which it said was to "ensure proper updating and restoring for iOS and iPadOS devices with Mac." While no other details were provided, it was assumed that the update added support for recently released devices, including iPhone 13 models, the new iPad mini, and the...

Apple today released iOS 15.0.2, the second update to the iOS 15 operating system that was released in September. iOS 15.0.2 comes a week and a half after the launch of iOS 15.0.1, a bug fix update.The iOS 15.0.2 update can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to Settings > General >...

Apple today released iOS 15.0.1, which is the first official update to the iOS 15 operating system that was released in September. iOS 15.0.1 comes two weeks after the launch of iOS 15, and it is a bug fix update.The iOS 15.0.1 update can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to Settings...

Apple today released iOS and iPadOS 14.4.1, minor security updates that comes more than a month after the release of the iOS 14.4 update.The iOS and iPadOS 14.4.1 updates can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to Settings > General > Software Update.According to Apple's release...

Apple today released iOS and iPadOS 14.7.1, minor bug fix updates that come just a week after the release of iOS 14.7, software that introduced new Apple Card features and support for the MagSafe Battery Pack.The iOS and iPadOS 14.7.1 updates can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the new software, go to...

Apple today released iOS 14.7, marking the seventh major update to the iOS operating system that came out in September 2020. iOS 14.7 comes two months after the launch of iOS 14.6, a major update that added Apple Card Family Support, Podcast Subscriptions, and more.The iOS 14.7 update can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the...

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Apple Releases iOS 15.1.1 With Call Improvements for iPhone 12 and 13 Models - Mac Rumors

More News22 Nov 2021 | 10:50 PM

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) A 26-year-old man was arrested from Okhla area for allegedly murdering his 37-year-old woman friend, police said on Monday.

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) The Kerala government on Monday told the Supreme Court that 12 Rohingya refugees were currently living in the state, however, they were not having any links with the terror outfit ISIS.

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) President Ram Nath Kovind presented the gallantry awards for 2020, including a Veer Chakra to Wing Commander (now Group Captain) Abhinandan Varthman, who shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet a day after the Balakot airstrike.

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday visited the Bangladesh High Commission on the occasion of their Armed Forces Day, and said the relation between the two countries is going through a 'golden phase'.

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar Chaudhary on Monday took a dig at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, after the latter vowed to transfer Rs 1,000 per month in the bank account of every woman over 18 years of age in Punjab if AAP is voted to power in the upcoming Assembly elections and termed it as a "hollow" promise.

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Today we offer our CoWin platform to the entire world free, and have made it open source software: PM at Sydney Dialogue - United News of India