# Joel Spolsky on Reddit (u/spolsky)

Part of Founders and CEOs on Reddit, researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-07. Interactive version: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/founders-on-reddit/joel-spolsky

Joel Spolsky: Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Fog Creek Software.

- Reddit account: [u/spolsky](https://www.reddit.com/user/spolsky/) (Personal account)
- How we know it's theirs: [His 2011 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gulpx/)
- Where they post, in the records we retrieved: r/IAmA (8), r/BurningMan (7), r/reddit.com (4), r/programming (2), r/worldnews (2), r/aviation (1)
- Known activity in the posts we found: 2005 to 2025
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Spolsky

## Moments

### u/spolsky in r/programming, Sep 9, 2006 · Early days

Replying to the post "5 Reasons Why Joel's Business (Probably) Isn't Like Yours".

> All more or less correct, except that we didn't have very much money to start Fog Creek.
>
> I had enough savings that I could go for 2 years without salary. At the lowest point, Fog Creek owed me personally $50,000 and 2 years of back pay.
>
> We started the company on September, 2000 and took delivery of our first Aeron chairs in January, 2001. Most of the early cash flow came from about four consulting gigs, which gave us a buffer until FogBugz sales started kicking in.
>
> I think pretty much anyone could have done what we did (bootstrap without outside capital) if they were willing to do a few consulting gigs in the first year or so and plow the money back into developing shrinkwrapped software.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/hhqx/5_reasons_why_joels_business_probably_isnt_like/chilz/ · 73 points as of Nov 7, 2026

### u/spolsky in r/IAmA, Apr 20, 2011 · Funny

Replying to a redditor:

> I can confirm that this is indeed Joel.

> Rolex watches cheap: http://joelonsoftware.com/

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gulpx/iama_cofounder_of_stack_exchange_and_fog_creek/c1qemjn/ · 133 points as of Nov 7, 2026

### u/spolsky in r/IAmA, Apr 20, 2011 · The why

Replying to a redditor:

> You have a very aggressive interview process. What are your feelings on self-taught developers? Do you only hire devs with Computer Science degrees?

> I don't care if someone has a computer science degree... I don't think it is much of a predictor of programming ability.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gulpx/iama_cofounder_of_stack_exchange_and_fog_creek/c1qelk6/ · 65 points as of Nov 7, 2026