Joel Spolsky

Spolsky served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army and graduated from Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry in 1991.⁠[1]

He worked as a program manager on MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry’s Excel team and was responsible for launching VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) in Excel 5.0.⁠[1]

In 2000 Spolsky founded Fog Creek Software with his friend Michael Pryor. The founders had no specific product in mind at first and set out to build a company where they themselves would want to work, “one where programmers were the stars.”⁠[2]

Fog Creek Software went on to create FogBugz, Trello and Glitch. The same year he began writing the blog Joel on Software, and many of its articles were later collected into four books.⁠[1]

Spolsky worked with Jeff Atwood to create Stack Overflow. Atwood began development in April 2008, the site launched on September 15, 2008, and within weeks it became a standard tool for developers.⁠[1][3]

From 2010 to 2019 Spolsky served as Stack Overflow’s chief executive.⁠[1]

On January 5, 2016, Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry published the a16z Podcast episode “a16z Podcast: The Future of Software Development,” drawn from a panel at the a16z 2015 Tech Summit led by Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky, with Gigster founder and chief executive Roger Dickey, SlackSlackSlack is a team communication and collaboration platform developed from an internal tool at Tiny Speck. It organizes work through channels, direct messages, searchable history and integrations, with features including Huddles, Clips, Canvas and AI assistance. Its paid service launched in February 2014, and Salesforce completed its acquisition in July 2021.Open the full entry chief marketing officer Bill Macaitis, GitHub director of field services Matthew McCullough, and Spolsky, then co-founder and chief executive of Stack Overflow. The panel discussed the developer shortage created as software becomes central to every industry, how companies should engage with open source communities and the obligations that come with using open source projects, how to hire development teams, what developers want from employers, and who is responsible and accountable for the code produced.⁠[4]

The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019, under the title “a16z Podcast | The Future of Software Development.”⁠[5]

On January 9, 2017, Atlassian announced it would acquire Trello, a collaboration tool launched in 2011, for about $425 million, including about $360 million in cash and the remainder in Atlassian restricted shares, restricted share units and options subject to vesting; Trello then had more than 19 million registered users, was led by chief executive Michael Pryor, and had raised $10.3 million in 2014 in a round led by Index VenturesIndex VenturesIndex Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in Geneva in 1996. It invests from seed through growth and operates across London, San Francisco and New York, supporting technology companies through a transatlantic network.Open the full entry and Spark CapitalSpark CapitalSpark Capital is a U.S. venture capital firm founded in Boston in 2005, with offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Its early-stage and growth funds back technology businesses across fintech, enterprise software, AI and consumer products. Investments have included Twitter, Tumblr, Oculus, Plaid and Anthropic.Open the full entry.⁠[6]

On September 24, 2019, Stack Overflow named Prashanth Chandrasekar as chief executive, with co-founder and outgoing chief executive Spolsky remaining chairman of the board; the company said it was visited by more than 50 million people each month. “Prashanth is a phenomenal leader,” Spolsky said.⁠[7]

On June 2, 2021, Prosus, the holding arm of Naspers that handles its international investments, announced it would acquire Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion.⁠[8]

The same day Spolsky wrote on his blog that Stack Overflow would join Prosus and continue to operate independently with the same team and plan; he said he had been out of the day-to-day for a while and was helping build HASH with Dei Vilkinsons. The author note at the end of the post states that he chairs the boards of Stack Overflow, Glitch and HASH.⁠[3]

Spolsky is a co-founder and director of HASH. The company, with teams in London, Berlin and New York, builds products that help people organize and process information, and states its mission as helping everyone make better decisions by making powerful tools and AI accessible.⁠[9]

Personal website: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/spolsky (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

HASH: Official website: https://hash.ai/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]