404 Deno CEO not found
Recorded: March 21, 2026, 10 p.m.
| Original | Summarized |
404 Deno CEO not found – David Bushell – Web Dev (UK) dbushell.com Menu 404 Deno CEO not found Subscribe Blog RSS feed Notes RSS feed Combined RSS feed Mastodon Bluesky Friday 20 Mar Play Synthesised Audio Opinions are mixed on this post. Sometimes I miss the mark with my blunt tone. In hindsight I can see why parts come across as mean-spirited. I’ve chosen my words poorly. Feedback noted, I will strive to be more positive.The Nero reference was for the sake of a dumb pun and a slight on AI imagery, not a serious attempt to compare Dahl. Sorry for my stupidity.If another toxic Hacker News thread is all that this post spawns, I sincerely apologise.I visited deno.com yesterday. I wanted to know if the hundreds of hours I’d spent mastering Deno was a sunk cost. Do I continue building for the runtime, or go back to Node?Altdeno.com 404 not found error page stating: Sorry, there was an issue loading this pageWell I guess that pretty much sums up why a good chunk of Deno employees left the company over the last week.Layoffs are what American corpo culture calls firing half the staff. Totally normal practice for a sustainable business. Mass layoffs are deemed better for the moral of those who remain than a weekly culling before Friday beers.The Romans loved a good decimation.† If I were a purveyor of slop and tortured metaphors, I’d have adorned this post with a deepfake of Ryan Dahl fiddling as Deno burned. But I’m not, so the solemn screenshot will suffice.† I read Rome, Inc. recently. Not a great book, I’m just explaining the reference.Deno’s declineA year ago I wrote about Deno’s decline. The facts, undeterred by my subjective scorn, painted a harsh picture; Deno Land Inc. was failing.Deno incorporated with $4.9M of seed capital five years ago. They raised a further $21M series A a year later. Napkin math suggests a five year runway for an unprofitable company (I have no idea, I just made that up.)Coincidentally, after my blog post topped Hacker News — always a pleasure for my inbox — Ryan Dahl (Deno CEO) clapped back on the offical Deno blog:There’s been some criticism lately about Deno - about Deploy, KV, Fresh, and our momentum in general. You may have seen some of the criticism online; it’s made the rounds in the usual places, and attracted a fair amount of attention.Some of that criticism is valid. In fact, I think it’s fair to say we’ve had a hand in causing some amount of fear and uncertainty by being too quiet about what we’re working on, and the future direction of our company and products. That’s on us. Reports of Deno’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - Ryan DahlDahl mentioned that adoption had doubled following Deno 2.0.Since the release of Deno 2 last October - barely over six months ago! - Deno adoption has more than doubled according to our monthly active user metrics.User base doubling sounds like a flex for a lemonade stand unless you give numbers. I imagine Sequoia Capital expected faster growth regardless. The harsh truth is that Deno’s offerings have failed to capture developers’ attention. I can’t pretend to know why — I was a fanboy myself — but far too few devs care about Deno. On the rare occasions Deno gets attention on the orange site, the comments page reads like in memoriam.I don’t even think the problem was that Deno Deploy, the main source of revenue, sucked. Deploy was plagued by highly inconsistent isolate start times. Solicited feedback was ignored. Few cared. It took an issue from Wes Bos, one of the most followed devs in the game, for anyone at Deno to wake up. Was Deploy simply a ghost town?Deno rushed the Deploy relaunched for the end of 2025 and it became “generally available” last month. Anyone using it? Anyone care? The Deno layoffs this week suggest only a miracle would have saved jobs. The writing was on the wall.Speaking of ghost towns, the JSR YouTube channel is so lonely I feel bad for linking it. I only do because it shows just how little interest some Deno-led projects mustered.AltGitHub star history chart comparing NPMX to JSRJSR floundered partly because Deno was unwilling couldn’t afford to invest in better infrastructure. But like everything else in the Deno ecosystem, users just weren’t interested. What makes a comparable project like NPMX flourish so quickly? Evidently, developers don’t want to replace Node and NPM. They just want what they already have but better; a drop-in improvement without friction.To Deno and Dahl’s credit, they recognised this with the U-turn on HTTP imports. But the resulting packaging mess made things worse. JSR should have been NPMX. Deno should have gone all-in on package.json but instead we got mixed messaging and confused docs.I could continue but it would just be cruel to dissect further. I’ve been heavily critical of Deno in the past but I really wanted it to succeed. There were genuinely good people working at Deno who lost their job and that sucks. I hope the Deno runtime survives. It’s a breath of fresh air. B*n has far more bugs and compatibility issues than anyone will admit. Node still has too much friction around TypeScript and ECMAScript modules.So where does Deno go from here? Over to you, Ryan.Ryan…Where is Deno CEO, Ryan Dahl?Tradition dictates an official PR statement following layoffs. Seems weird not to have one prepared in advance. That said, today is Friday, the day to bury bad news. I may be publishing this mere hours before we hear what happens next…Given Dahl’s recent tweets and blog post, a pivot to AI might be Deno’s gamble. By the way, it’s rather telling that all the ex-employees posted their departures on Bluesky. What that tells you depends on whether you enjoy your social media alongside Grok undressing women upon request. I digress. Idle speculation has led to baseless rumours of an OpenAI acquisition. I’m not convinced that makes sense but neither does the entire AI industry.I’m not trying to hate on Dahl but c’mon bro you’re the CEO. What’s next for Deno? Give me users anyone a reason to care. Although if you’re planning a 10× resurgence with automated Mac Minis, I regret asking. Subscribe Blog RSS feed Notes RSS feed Combined RSS feed Mastodon Bluesky Written by human All opinions are my own and not those of a large language model. 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David Bushell’s commentary, published on March 20, 2026, offers a pointed, and largely critical, assessment of Deno’s trajectory, culminating in the unsettling question of its current leadership, specifically the whereabouts of CEO Ryan Dahl. Bushell’s analysis centers around a rapid decline, marked by substantial layoffs, underwhelming user adoption, and a series of missteps within the Deno ecosystem, ultimately questioning the viability of the runtime itself. The core of Bushell’s argument rests on the perception that Deno, despite initial excitement and a significant seed and Series A funding investment of $4.9 million and $21 million respectively, failed to gain sustained developer traction. The timing—a release barely over six months after Deno 2.0—proved problematic, with adoption seemingly lagging behind expectations, especially considering the investment. Bushell highlights the critical, yet poorly addressed, issues with Deno Deploy, plagued by inconsistent performance and a lack of developer engagement, illustrating a concerning disconnect between the product’s design and the community’s needs. The author’s use of rhetorical devices, such as the reference to Roman decimation, underscores a sense of impending failure and suggests a lack of foresight within the company’s development. The piece draws a parallel between Deno’s struggles and the broader trends within the JavaScript ecosystem, noting the preference for familiar tools like Node and NPM, and the appeal of incremental improvements versus radical shifts. Bushell’s description of the confusion surrounding HTTP imports and packaging further emphasizes the lack of a clear, cohesive strategic vision within Deno. The author's observation on the exodus of employees, primarily documented on the social media platform Bluesky, suggests a climate of uncertainty and diminishing confidence within the company. The reference to “Rome, Inc.” – a novel purportedly detailing corporate decay – further bolsters this perception of a company spiraling out of control. Adding to the sense of disarray is Bushell’s skepticism regarding Dahl’s actions. The author questions the lack of a proactive PR response to the layoffs, suggesting it's symptomatic of a delayed and potentially poorly conceived strategy. The speculation about a potential OpenAI acquisition, presented with a degree of ironic detachment, reflects a broader industry anxiety surrounding the rise of artificial intelligence and reveals a critical eye toward Dahl’s potential maneuvering. Despite his overarching critiques, Bushell expresses a residual hope for the survival of the Deno runtime itself, acknowledging the positive aspects of the runtime’s design. He acknowledges the good intentions of the team and expresses his sadness for the job losses. Ultimately, David Bushell’s piece functions less as a straightforward critique and more as a cautionary tale—a detailed examination of how ambition, timing, and a lack of community engagement can contribute to the downfall of a promising technology, leaving the reader pondering the uncertain future of Deno and the whereabouts of its CEO, Ryan Dahl. |