

Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting? - sinak

I've just decided to leave my startup, and am thinking about where to go next. As part of that, I'm trying to figure out which startups in the Bay Area seem the most interesting, exciting, and disruptive.<p>7 years ago it seemed obvious to me that the answer to that question was Facebook, but now it's less than clear. So I figure perhaps HN can help - what do you think is the most exciting startup in the Bay Area, and why?<p>(As a guide, perhaps let's define a "startup" as having less than 50 employees and being less than 3 years old.)
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sharemywin
In 2005 facebook was just a way for univeristy students to connect. Myspace
had 26 million users and facebook only had 11 million. I'm not sure without
talking with the insiders personally would you have the insight to even guess
what strategies they were thinking of using to get ahead. Liking, walls, third
party api for games all of these things drove it's growth. all those things
were influenced by outside ideas and probably weren't even on the list of
things todo at that time.

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sinak
True, but it was pretty obvious to me early on that it had massive potential.
I actually have an email conversation with Dustin Moskovitz from the Summer of
2005; I reached out and offered to help them expand to Europe (I was studying
at college in England at the time) after I saw how crazy my Harvard friends
were about it all. Unfortunately it ended up not working out :).

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Toph
As you can imagine, this is HIGHLY subjective. What is interesting to you may
not be interesting to me and vice versa. From your Facebook example, aside
from the fact that it had "huge" growth potential, I can't decipher reasons
for why YOU personally found it to be the _most_ interesting for its era. That
makes it hard to quantify or recommend anything. Perhaps you can elaborate a
bit more? Sorry, wish I could give a better response at this time.

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sinak
Yeah, you're point on subjectivity is very true. I think Facebook had (and
still has) quite massive societal as well as economic value. I think that's
what I'm looking for. But interested to see what startups and areas are most
exciting, and why..

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mchahn
Definitely Leap Motion.

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brittonrt
The one you are about to start, right? ;)

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sinak
:). I hope so!

