Garry Tan moving on from Posterous and joining YC

http://garry.posterous.com/moving-on-and-thanks

by j_baker • 16 years ago

201 34 16 years ago

garry.posterous.com

portman• 16 years ago

This is great. I hope that 2-3 years from now we see large numbers of "designers in residence" at VCs and incubators.

See also Jason Putorti's gig (now over) at Bessemer:

http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx

DaniFong• 16 years ago

I agree. It's very interesting to see. Andressen Horowitz is following a similar model, too.

I'm starting a greentech incubator and intend to have engineers/scientists in residence. A certain kind of person just love the technical issues at hand during the inception of a project.

fredwilson• 16 years ago

i can see how a designer might be impactful at an incubator but i can't see how a designer can be impactful at a VC firm. you really need to have great design on your team not at your investor

danielha• 16 years ago

Wow, congrats Garry and have fun!

jolie• 16 years ago

Very deft career move, Garry. You'll have more access to more people, see more fresh ideas, and have a much larger megaphone.

Y-C's gonna be awesome for you, but I really can't wait to see what comes next. =)

tommy_mcclung• 16 years ago

Congrats Gary! Woo!

iamclovin• 16 years ago

Congrats Garry! Looking forward to more awesomeness.

jw84• 16 years ago

I remember Garry, like me, arrived early at the Y Combinator pre-party. He had long hair, kind of like every other Asian friend I had so I figured he must be really smart. Stanford smart.

I shook his hand and he introduced himself as getting an interview slot too. Naturally we conferred and compared notes. Mine was something weird, a scheduling software--we haven't decided yet. His was a photo blog. Well like a photo blog, but easier, the kicker is you only manage it through email.

Oh, I said. That sounds... interesting. Since I was young that was go-to answer for any pitch. The less he explained the more compelling it was. Blogging for your grandma, blogging that anyone can do, blogging that's accessible. I remember asking how long he's been working on it, he said for a few months. I smiled and said he's probably going to get funded.

I didn't, it was my fifth try and became my last.

Throughout the years Posterous' engineering skills, design skills, and marketing skills have made the platform really awesome. Reading his blog, learning his thought process, and seeing the passion he puts into his work, it's inspiring. Very inspiring.

Blogging for grandmas is such a good idea, it's carved a great niche amongst giants WordPress, Blogger, and Tubmlr, and it's growing as a company.

Our career paths took really drastic divergence but seeing what you've done in the past three years is one of the examples of the immense potential working in our little crazy world.

Congrats and good luck.

jayair• 16 years ago

Well said. I have a great deal of respect for Garry and his work. I'm sure he will excel at his new endeavor.

Oh and I've always been struck by his humility both offline and on.

garry• 16 years ago

Thanks for the note Jerry. I really appreciate it.

ptn• 16 years ago

Congrats, Garry! Could you please make the arrows here on HN bigger? I keep clicking the wrong one. Thanks.

jeff18• 16 years ago

And 2x bigger than that on the iPad please :)

ghshephard2• 16 years ago

I would pay money, right now, to be able to get a version of HN that would somehow solve the IOS interaction issues on the iPad/iPhone. It's always an incredibly painful dance to pinch open the screen so I can figure out how to click on the four elements - "Comments" vs "Article" and "Upvote" vs "Downvote" - I'm not sure how it can be fixed, but boy would life be better if it could.

I should track how much time I spend over a month, heck, sometimes over a day, I spend doing that pinch open, pinch open, click dance.

thesethings• 16 years ago

I'm super happy for Garry, but for selfish reasons, I'm bummed out.

I feel like a band i really like was in the studio working on a new album, and a songwriter just left.

I guess i was waiting for another shoe to drop in terms of the realization of the Posterous vision.

Anyway... congrats to Garry. I saw his TWIST interview a while ago, and thought he seemed really nice and had really interesting ideas.

btipling• 16 years ago

Does this mean posterous isn't doing well?

SriniK• 16 years ago

They are kicking on all cylinders. User adoption is really nice. I guess it could be more of a personal satisfaction and eventual goal.

harscoat4• 16 years ago

While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr?

Anecdote: for our Quantter blog, we chose Posterous first. But then Marco Arment (busy) advisor of us, just told us: sthg like "Posterous?? those guys keep on trashing us (ie Tumblr)". While 1st impression preferring Posterous product, the switch to Tumblr was easy because of Posterous aggressive attempt to "poach" another startup users. That was not good karma.

swombat4• 16 years ago

While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr?

Huh, what? What evidence is there that Posterous has lost any battle against Tumblr? Just because you chose Tumblr after being advised by one of the founders of Tumblr doesn't mean Posterous has "lost a battle"...

harscoat4• 16 years ago

http://blog.posterous.com/hey-tumblr-users-got-comments-want...

pg• 16 years ago

No, actually. Nothing has changed at Posterous. Garry was just feeling burned out.

hank53• 16 years ago

This is a good move. I think Posterous has plateau

jonathanjaeger• 16 years ago

I'm a Posterous user - I personally enjoy the features and layout. I don't necessarily use it for the community aspect, so I can't really compare it to Tumblr in that respect. I have no use for the email function, so I'm glad they incorporated many other aspects that would appeal to me personally.

I was also surprised at how quickly I got a response via a customer service request. Nice.

Congrats to Garry Tan - I always equated him to Posterous since I saw him on This Week in Startups. Hope to hear more about his newest endeavors.

chrisbroadfoot• 16 years ago

Good move, I think!

I'm glad you'll be able to provide high impact work to many startups.

b3b0p• 16 years ago

Garry reached out to me for an interview with Posterous. Although, I didn't get the position in the end I was stoked about the fact he even contacted me in the first place. Thanks Gary! And good luck on your future endeavors with YC!

Garry Tan moving on from Posterous and joining YC

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