Artsy CTO here. Interestingly for the first 2 years we were conquering the frontier of nearest neighbor search applied to art, using some pretty new algos. Then ElasticSearch just built something 10x better and we tossed our entire codebase. I wish we just did it in the open, the advantage was quickly lost to a stronger open-source effort.
I mean, exactly? When you had some novel tech, you kept it to yourself. Now that you have market power, you develop out in the open. Perfect game plan.
Or don't do it. Whatever works for you. I don't know if it would be as appropriate at my current company, but I certainly see it as an option, having experienced the benefits.
