5 Mistakes Investors Make When Reading GitHub Signals

Five common mistakes when interpreting GitHub signals for investing: (1) Confusing GitHub stars with engineering traction - stars measure social interest, not engineering output. (2) Ignoring private repos - some of the best startups keep all code private. (3) Overweighting absolute velocity - a 500-commit company is not necessarily better than a 50-commit company. (4) Missing spike context - not all velocity spikes are positive (docs sprints, bot activity, one-time migrations). (5) Treating signals as investment decisions - GitHub engineering acceleration (commit velocity + contributor growth) is a sourcing tool, not a diligence replacement.

References

[1] GitHub Octoverse 2024: GitHub Blog