> The new CEO concerns me. I didn't know who the founder was but I always had the impression it was a lone hacker. They passed the baton. Now it's some old Web 1.0 guy who was the CEO of eFax in the 90's.

This sounds like ageism to me. I don't know if this guy is any good or not, but calling out someone as a 'concern' just because they were successful in the past isn't a good look. Is there anything more substantive behind your concern?

I've never heard "web 1.0 guy" as a pejorative, on top of what you said. For the curious, Michael Crandell is the CEO and he founded Right Scale in 2007 which exited in 2018 with 250 employees. He was EVP at eFax in the early aughts, which would have been somewhere in his twenties. He's a Stanford and Harvard graduate as well as a self-taught programmer in assembly. Here's an interview with him: https://medium.com/authority-magazine/michael-crandell-of-bi...

Kyle Spearrin is still at BitWarden and is listed as the Founder & CTO: https://bitwarden.com/about/ It looks like he lives in Jacksonville, FL and has a lot of hobbies.

Maybe this is some internalization, but thinking about another engineer referring to me, pejoratively, as a "web 1.0 engineer" would probably leave me confused. Am I supposed to be ashamed I played in the early days of the web?

> he founded Right Scale in 2007 which exited in 2018 with 250 employees.

A strong negative signal as far as I am concerned.

For a consumer-oriented software startup, an “exit” is most of the time a polite euphemism for selling the userbase to a juicing machine of some sort; the second place is taken by selling the product to an enterprise-oriented business which doesn’t want the userbase and eventually will, with more or less grace, show them the door.

Therefore, when I see a consumer-oriented, VC-funded startup, I don’t see why I should consider trusting them for even a second. Dine on the free lunch while it lasts, yes; squirrel away every bit of software they’re willing to release, yes; trust, depend on, or invest even a tiniest bit of my time, no.

Right Scale was a cost management platform; this is the product now: https://www.flexera.com/products/cloud-management-platform. I don't think I'd refer to it as consumer oriented. The exit seems to be motivated by a shift to containers, which building cost models for is a significantly different business: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janakirammsv/2018/09/26/flexera...

Based on the interview I linked BitWarden is going down a venture of trying to offer vault-like enterprise secrets management on top of BitWardens tech, which could mean they're trying to monetize the more enterprise side of their business.

I’m with you on all that. Web 1.0… so he has a fundamental understanding of how the Internet works? And was successful before blockchain nonsense came around? Sounds like good qualifications to me.

> I've never heard "web 1.0 guy" as a pejorative

Web 2.0 replaced Web 1.0, right? Is that because Web 1.0 was better or just as good? Or was that because Web 2.0 was an improvement? And we're a good decade or so beyond Web 2.0 now. Surely you're familiar with the term dinosaur in this context. Web 1.0 are the dinosaurs.

If you still think web 1.0 doesn't have any negative connotations there is nothing I can say to change your mind. But I strongly disagree.

You do realize that Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 aren't that far apart in time, right?

Tim Berners-Lee invented the web 1.0 when he was in his thirties in 1989.

Tim O'Reilly and Dale Doughterty, both in their 40s, coined the concept of Web 2.0 in 2004.

Tim Berners-Lee, then in his 50s, coined the semantic or executable web aka Web 3.0 in 2006.

Web 4.0 has no known origin, but the chase for artificial intelligence and machine learning was led by many of the same people from Web 1.0 from engineers to thought leaders. Many of the people who were building back then are only now beginning to peak in their careers. Not to mention, the guy you're talking about would be "Web 3.0" because the company he founded was in 2007 - pretty much the year cloud computing started.

I think, sadly, you're incredibly far down the rabbit hole of ageism.

Ref: https://ijcsit.com/docs/Volume%205/vol5issue06/ijcsit2014050...

> I think, sadly, you're incredibly far down the rabbit hole of ageism.

That doesn't make me wrong.

Is it ageism to say I'd rather have a 23 year old baseball player than a 60 year old one? What about a 23 year old model instead of a 60 year old model? Ageism? Ok. Then I'm an ageist. I'll take the 23 year olds.

'But being a model or a baseball player and working at a tech company are not the same thing'

Ya, I know. But the point stands. Crying ageism doesn't make you right or the person appealing to age wrong.

> That doesn't make me wrong.

Yeah, it does. Just like racism and sexism, being ageist is wrong. You should really re-asses how you look at the world, because your current view stinks.

> Is it ageism to say I'd rather have a 23 year old baseball player than a 60 year old one? What about a 23 year old model instead of a 60 year old model? Ageism? Ok. Then I'm an ageist. I'll take the 23 year olds.

There are 60 year old models, what is wrong with that? Only somebody who is ageist thinks somebody can't be model at 60. As for the baseball player, they are not discriminated by age, but by physical condition. If a 60 year old player could have the same physical impact as a 23 year old, then why not?

When it comes to the industry we're in, physical condition is not a discriminator. We are knowledge workers. Older workers tend to (not always) have much more knowledge and experience. Which is why they are paid more and end up in leadership positions (as in this case).

Your comments assume that the guy stopped learning in 1989. How do you know that he's not keeping up with the times? How do you know that he can't understand the modern world, as you imply? And do you even know what it means to be an executive? It doesn't mean knowing all the latest features of the React. It means setting a strategy (with fellow executives) for successful growth of the business. These things are as old as time (well, as old as capitalism). Having a talented CTO paired with a shrewd/experienced CEO is a good setup. It doesn't guarantee success, but it's more likely to succeed than with inexperienced executives.

Here's another way of looking at it. Replace "old" in your original sentence with "black", "woman", or "gay":

- Now it's some black Web 1.0 guy who was the CEO of eFax in the 90's.

- Now it's some Web 1.0 woman who was the CEO of eFax in the 90's.

- Now it's some gay Web 1.0 guy who was the CEO of eFax in the 90's.

How do those sentences make you feel?

Your comments are ageist and you should realise that discrimination is unacceptable. It would be wise to stop digging.

I like my software written by nerds, not business guys from the dotcom era.

You can try to poke holes in that with whatever isms you want, it's still true. And I'm not alone.

It’s a good thing you’re practicing what you preach and not pigeon holing anyone then.

The "new" CEO has been at the helm since 2019. Long before the mentioned funding in 2022.

We don't really have a HQ since we are a 100% remote company.

Source: I am the Bitwarden founder.

Can you maybe touch a bit on the intended relationship between you and the VC? Are there plans to do aggressive monetization of Bitwarden?

As a long time user, I'm a bit concerned as well.

Bitwarden has had VC investors for years, long before the mentioned 2022 funding. I think our track record to date shows how we operate in this relationship. We specifically choose partners that align with our vision, not just anyone that comes off the street wanting to throw money at us (though there are many). Our health as a company afford us this luxury.

Bitwarden is and has been monetized since the beginning. There are no plans to change how we monetize our products. It's working well for us.

Thanks, then this all seems to be much ado about nothing. Cheers!

that or check back in a year when the founder will say, "... the realaties of the market..."

You could ask them, you’re replying to the founder right now, after all.

I know. I've watched this cycle repeat time and time again. 'We would never' (six to twelve months pass) 'Well never say never'.

Then why raise an additional $100m?

To grow faster. To be able to fund new projects that could be of higher value to people willing to pay extra.

You know, how you don't just save all of your life for a house - but get a mortgage and enjoy a house now, not in 50 years.

But if I had tonnes of cash, I wouldn't get a mortgage.

No company will eever say that thereyare plans for aggresive monetezation. They will always say everything stays the same - open-source mindset etc.

Until 2 years later there is a license and pricing change. One that will make it 10 times more expensive - or the free/open-source version will be crippled.

And the UI will suck because they've made it an Electron app so they can have a universal platform...

The clients are fully FOSS, and there is a FOSS server reference application, too. What could go wrong? (Famous last words Inc.)

FWIW: I've been using this application for the past years. I pay 12 USD or so a year, though I self-host. I just pay as a thank you since I still use the FOSS client, and the price is very reasonable.

1Password is hardly even a competitor as it is a completely different price range, and different product. It isn't FOSS at all, there's a vendor lock-in (in contrast to Bitwarden), and it is 3x as expensive at the very least. They're miles apart.

And 1Password does not propose self-hosting anymore, which is why I am stuck to version 7 for my personal vault. At work, we use Bitwarden self-hosted solution. I could even use an encrypted text file to store my passwords if there were no self-hosting solution anywhere. It gives you an idea at how much I do not want my infos to be on the Internet somewhere.

Thanks for an excellent product. I'm a long term paid subscriber, and very happy with Bitwarden :-)

Thanks, awesome product! Happy user for many years.

Hey man, thank you for creating Bitwarden.

I'm just a normal tech-lover guy who works in the marketing field. I have made my family & 2 agencies switch to Bitwarden and they all love it.

I have stored more than 400 passwords and more than 30 debit + credit cards in it. Though I don't need a paid plan but I'm paying $10 per year just to support the developers.

Just want to echo other comments, thanks so much for bitwarden I've been using it for years and it has changed my family's life. Even managed to get my aging parents to use it instead of their paper notebook

Thank you for a great product. Carry on.

I have been self-hosting for a few years now with zero complaints. Keep doing what you’re doing, and thank you.