How do you build great software?

A bit of a rambling talk I gave at Brooklyn Beta about the importance of your surroundings. Covering GitHub's approach to software development and the importance of the tools you use.

Transcript

1.  B
2. William Morris If you want a golden rule that will t everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
3. I’m Kyle Neath On the interwebs @kneath
4. I’m ≅ Designer
5. I work at GitHub A better way to make software
6. urbancase.com
8. I <3 engineering beautiful software
9. Software is a force for change in our world
10. Affect a change?
11. Affect a Change.
12. How do you build great software?
13. Conway’s Law Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations
14. What if you could build the best software company in the world?
15. What if you could build the best software company in the world?
16. Let’s try.
17.       Traits of a great software company
18. Bootstrapped to profitability Predictable revenue stream No funding until 100 employees
19. Our customers were our friends We became extremely customer focused
20. We used GitHub to build GitHub We became extremely product focused
21. We hired slowly and carefully We became extremely company focused
23. We are driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose
24. An open source company optimized for happiness
25. No managers No deadlines No top-down roadmap No core hours No mandatory meetings
26. “That’s cool and all when you’re a small company, but eventually you’re going to need management and structure” Everybody Ever
27. 2009 201
28. 2010 201
29. 2011 201
30. NOW October 10, 2012
31. 123 hubbernauts I guess we’re a big company after all
34. Build the best software possible and allow people to pay for it GitHub’s driving principle
35. Favor leadership over management
36. Favor goals over deadlines
37. Favor a shared vision over roadmaps
38. Favor sustainable pace over hourly commitments
39. Favor tangible work over meetings
40. Favor building new tools over using existing shitty ones
41. William Morris If you want a golden rule that will t everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
59. Knyle’s Law Organizations will design software that is a copy of the software they surround themselves with.
60. Your surroundings = your company + your software
61.  Traits of a great organization
62. Remote by default
63. Do real work
64. Open by default
65. Encourage serendipitous interaction
66. Always be classy
67. Create a better future
68. No matter what, love your work
69. We can create a better future by creating better companies
70.  B