Why Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood are Brilliant A-Holes

I strongly disagree that Joel & Jeff have built their FogBuz/StackOverflow for the sole purpose of cashing in on conferences. FogBuz & StackOverflow aren't under the 'guise' of helping the community. They actually are incredible resources.

Just because these two are putting on conferences does not mean that they didn't create very valuable resources.

I think this author is also wrong about the costs of putting on a conference, but the key is that if the conferences don't offer value, they won't last and they won't get attendance. A conference is a product just like anything else, if the product is bad, people won't pay for it.

How dare they make money!!!!!!!!