Avram Joel Spolsky (; born 1965) is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of ''Joel on Software'', a blog on software development, and the creator of the project management software

Trello Trello is a web-based, kanban-style, list-making application developed by Atlassian. Created in 2011 by Fog Creek Software, it was spun out to form the basis of a separate company in New York City in 2014 and sold to Atlassian in January 2017 ...

. He was a Program Manager on the

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows, macOS, Android (operating system), Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a ...

team between 1991 and 1994. He later founded

Fog Creek Software Glitch, Inc. (previously known as Fog Creek Software, Inc.) is a software company specializing in project management tools. Its products included Project management software, project management and Content management system, content management, ...

in 2000 and launched the ''Joel on Software'' blog. In 2008, he launched the

Stack Overflow In software, a stack overflow occurs if the call stack pointer exceeds the stack bound. The call stack may consist of a limited amount of address space, often determined at the start of the program. The size of the call stack depends on many fa ...

programmer Q&A site in collaboration with

Jeff Atwood Jeff Atwood (born 1970) is an American software developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur. He co-founded the question-and-answer network Stack Exchange, which contains the Stack Overflow website for computer programming questions. He is the o ...

. Using the Stack Exchange software product which powers Stack Overflow, the

Stack Exchange Network Stack may refer to: Places * Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group * Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland People * Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...

now hosts over 170 Q&A sites.

Biography

Spolsky was born to

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

parents and grew up in

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

, New Mexico, and lived there until he was 15. His family then moved with him to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, where he attended high school and completed his military service in the

Paratroopers Brigade The 35th Paratroopers Brigade (, ''Hativat HaTzanhanim'') is an Israeli military airborne infantry brigade. It is a selective unit, which accepts new recruits following physical tryouts and interviews, and consists of volunteers. It forms a m ...

. He was one of the founders of the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Hanaton Hanaton () is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located twelve kilometers north of Nazareth near the Arab town of Shefaram, it falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In it had a population of . Etymology The biblical name ...

Lower Galilee The Lower Galilee (; ) is a region within the Northern District of Israel. The Lower Galilee is bordered by the Jezreel Valley to the south; the Upper Galilee to the north, from which it is separated by the Beit HaKerem Valley; the Jordan Rift ...

. In 1987, he returned to the United States to attend college. He studied at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

for a year before transferring to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, where he was a member of

Pierson College Pierson College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1933, it is named for Abraham Pierson, a founder and the first rector of the Collegiate School, the college later known as Yale. With just under ...

and graduated in 1991 with a BS ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. Spolsky started working at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

in 1991 as a program manager on the

team, where he designed Excel Basic and drove Microsoft's

Visual Basic for Applications Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no ...

strategy. He moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1995 where he worked for

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

and

Juno Online Services Juno Online Services, also called simply Juno, is an Internet service provider based in the United States. It originated as a free email service and later expanded its offerings. Juno is a subsidiary of United Online, which in turn is a subsidi ...

. In 2000, he founded Fog Creek Software and created the ''Joel on Software'' blog. ''Joel on Software'' was "one of the first blogs set up by a business owner". In 2005, Spolsky co-produced and appeared in '' Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks'', a documentary documenting Fog Creek's development of

Project Aardvark Glitch, Inc. (previously known as Fog Creek Software, Inc.) is a software company specializing in project management tools. Its products included project management and content management, and code review tools. Fastly acquired the company in 20 ...

, a remote assistance tool. In 2008, Spolsky co-founded

, a question and answer community website for software developers, with

. He served as CEO of the company until Prashanth Chandrasekar succeeded him in the role on October 1, 2019. After Stack Overflow's sale in June 2021 for $1.8 billion, Spolsky stepped down as the company's Chairman. In 2011, Spolsky launched

, an online project management tool inspired by

Kanban Kanban ( meaning signboard) is a scheduling system for lean manufacturing (also called just-in-time manufacturing, abbreviated JIT). Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, developed kanban to improve manufacturing efficiency. The ...

methodology. The tool was acquired by

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australia, Australian-United States, American proprietary software company that specializes in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management. Domicile (law), Domiciled in ...

in January 2017 for $425 million. In 2016, Spolsky announced the appointment of

Anil Dash Anil Dash (; born September 5, 1975) is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, Prince scholar and writer. He is the Head of Glitch and VP of Developer Experience at Fastly. Career In 1999, Dash launched his personal weblog, dashes.com ( ...

as Fog Creek Software's new CEO, with Spolsky continuing as Stack Overflow's CEO and as a Fog Creek Software board member. The company has since been renamed

Glitch A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...

. Following its sale to Fastly in May 2022, Spolsky stepped down as Chairman. ''salon.coms Scott Rosenberg described one of Spolsky's work as an example of good writing "about their insular world in a way that wins the respect of their colleagues and the attention of outsiders.".

Personal life

In 2015, Spolsky announced his marriage to his husband, Jared, on social media and his blog. In 2015, he reports on his own website that he lives on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

Publications

* * * * *

References

External links

Joel on Software
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spolsky, Joel 1965 births American emigrants to Israel Israeli male bloggers American male bloggers American bloggers American male non-fiction writers Living people People from Albuquerque, New Mexico American computer programmers American software engineers American technology writers American computer businesspeople Israeli businesspeople Microsoft employees University of Pennsylvania alumni Yale University alumni Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish bloggers American LGBTQ businesspeople LGBTQ people from New Mexico LGBTQ Jews 21st-century American non-fiction writers Businesspeople in software 21st-century American Jews

Biography

Personal life

Publications

See also

References

External links