Why I Quit My CTO Job At Facebook And Started Quora

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-learned-from-being-cto-of-facebook-why-i-started-quora-and-this-is-why-gen-y-kicks-ass-at-entrepreneurship-2010-9

by bjonathan • 16 years ago

43 15 16 years ago

businessinsider.com

timruffles• 16 years ago

The article makes me quite worried for Quora.

First it's the same old 'users first, monetize later', a distinct problem from monetization strategy: it's a failed mindset where every day you're not charging people is a day you're not learning what you can actually get people to pay for, that is, what constitutes your business.

Secondly he doesn't event start addressing the hard problems of Q&A sites:

1) How to keep the quality of answers high. As soon as more people get on the site, the quality will drop unless there is a smart mechanic to prevent it. All he has is assertion that 'You’re answering questions because ...' as if he knew the answer to that question for the next 100k users who aren't early adopters!

2) How to monetize a Q&A site in the face of approaching commoditization, on a scale that warrants investment. Ads? Really?

BenSchaechter2• 16 years ago

Many very successful sites/businesses are able to monetize just fine off of advertisements. I'm pretty positive people wouldn't pay to use Quora when it launched -- or at least Quora wouldn't have had nearly the same rate of growth had they charged their users initially.

mikeryan2• 16 years ago

I'm not being snarky - but outside of Google and Facebook - who is doing really well with a pure ad model?

Every time I see this now I think of Digg and Reddit, both which seem to be having issues supporting themselves with pure ads. I actually think those two businesses and Quora could likely support a small(ish) staff and make enough revenues to make a decent profit, but I'm not sure that would get them into the decent exit category.

physcab• 16 years ago

I've actually been pretty impressed by the quality of the answers on Quora. I was fairly skeptical at first, but its almost become just as good as wikipedia, but for local knowledge instead of global. Opening it up will pose risks, but right now I'm sold on the implementation.

secret• 16 years ago

Can't one problem solve the other? I know Google Answers flopped, but people were paying for research. What if instead you had to pay for membership like Metafilter? Granted, I don't think that would end up being a huge business, but it's one possibility.

sspencer• 16 years ago

I really don't see the value. Adding to a knowledge base with learned contributors is all well and good, but it seems impossible to scale past a certain point. He seems to shrug off the question as unimportant in the interview, along with shrugging off the idea of monetization.

It's possible that he's just being cagey about some secret sauce, but why bother? I'd think he'd want to create as much buzz as possible if he's figured out a clever way to scale a contributor-driven knowledge base.

adityakothadiya• 16 years ago

Apparently I didn't find his answers were crisp and clear. You could see lot of generalism and diplomacy. I use Quora, and I kind of get it. But I was trying to see how he pitches Quora - as investors or many people say - in 1-2 sentences. I didn't see he pointing out what they really stand for - like the one thing. I didn't see he explaining Quora's differentiating or unique selling points.

I was trying to learn how he explains why they exist. But apparently, I didn't see that spark.

nivertech• 16 years ago

Some of my thoughts about Quora:

1. Quora has a slick realtime UI. But I doubt it will work at large scale - think about Facebook Chat scale.

2. Quora rely heavily on moderators. This will not work at large scale. I can understand Google's algorithmic-only approach, but Quora's human-based approach is just too chaotic.

3. Their topic approach to question categorization is just too simplistic. In essence they are just tags, i.e. folksonomy. No fancy Semantic Web techniques here.

4. Quora has no concept of NPOV - Neutral Point of View. It has a MPOV - Moderator Point of View. They should learn a lot from Wikipedia.

5. Quora has a lot of privacy issues. They also have inconsistent rules about anonymity. You required to register with your real name. You have a choice of answering with you real name or as anon, but you must comment with your real name. You also can't see the name of the person, asking the question, who apparently can add anon comments ...

I can't delete my comments, my questions, my answers and my account at all, since they locked my account, after I added comments about some inappropriate and offensive questions.

You say Facebook has privacy issues? At least Facebook has no moderators.

6. Most of the questions on Quora are just UGC junk, like: "Why Asian girls don't date Black guys?", "Why White girls don't date Asian guys?", etc.

Then there are some pseudo-political questions, like: "Who will stop Israel?" and "Does the State of Israel have a right to exist? Why or why not?", etc.

A lot of questions are so called "Questions containing assertions", i.e. a troll questions asked by anons. If they want quality questions, they shouldn't allow anon. questions.

Some people try to ask a technical/programming questions, but they better go to StackOverflow.com and like, if they want a quality answer.

The only quality answers are on topics related to startups, entrepreneurs, angels and VCs.

So in short: Quora is a glorified forum software and a niche social network for Silicon Valley professionals (i.e. investors and entrepreneurs).

pclark• 16 years ago

> 1. Quora has a slick realtime UI. But I doubt it will work at large scale - think about Facebook Chat scale.

I don't see why you've came to the conclusion about #1. Can you elaborate? It isn't like Quora bombards you with stuff that requires action right now, like Chat does.

> 2. Quora rely heavily on moderators. This will not work at large scale. I can understand Google's algorithmic-only approach, but Quora's human-based approach is just too chaotic.

Quora doesn't rely heavily on moderators, it relies heavily on the community. There are admins, but most of the "moderation" is done via users - eg: assigning topics, editing titles, policing users.

> 3. Their topic approach to question categorization is just too simplistic. In essence they are just tags, i.e. folksonomy. No fancy Semantic Web techniques here.

It has a taxonomy. Quora knows that Starcraft 2 is a video game, and a child of the Starcraft computer game series, which is made by Blizzard, and so on: http://www.quora.com/StarCraft-II/ontology

> 4. Quora has no concept of NPOV - Neutral Point of View. It has a MPOV - Moderator Point of View. They should learn a lot from Wikipedia.

I agree that there could be issues with stuff like answers written to sound authoritative when they're wrong.

> 5. Quora has a lot of privacy issues. They also have inconsistent rules about anonymity. You required to register with your real name. You have a choice of answering with you real name or as anon, but you must comment with your real name. You also can't see the name of the person, asking the question, who apparently can add anon comments ...

I'm not sure of your point. Quora used to allow anonymous comments whenever, and it was a nightmare for the community. You can ask and answer questions anonymously. If you asked the question you can comment anonymously, and if you answer a question you can anonymously comment on your answer. This is useful as you can clarify your answer via comments without revealing who you are.

I think Quora actually takes privacy really seriously. You can delete your comments, but you cannot delete questions/answers permanently, I agree this is lame.

> 6. Most of the questions on Quora are just UGC junk, like: "Why Asian girls don't date Black guys?", "Why White girls don't date Asian guys?", etc.

Like most UGC, its one of the situations where 5% of the content is insanely valuable/brilliant and the rest grey area nonsense. That 5% of content on Quora that is valuable is life changing content from some of the smartest domain experts that'll teach you invaluable stuff.

Also that 95% of junk is what creates a community - Quora already has its own memes and in jokes.

> The only quality answers are on topics related to startups, entrepreneurs, angels and VCs.

Quora has fascinating content regarding Fashion, Cooking, Dating and Video Games. What you're seeing (all the great startup content) is simply their initial early adopter market. It's changing - it isn't like Quora is a ghost town outside of the Startup topics. I think this just takes time and passion for other topics.

I use Quora quite a bit, I think it's fun, I think it's interesting. I think their design is brilliant. I think their goal is ambitious but I haven't seen the customer acquisition models I expected to really see them nail other topics - yet. If you're working on a startup you should just read this: http://www.quora.com/Startups/best_questions

and learn. then win. then contribute back to Quora.

Why I Quit My CTO Job At Facebook And Started Quora

Related Stories