
Why Did Quora Join Y Combinator? - code_devil
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/11/quora-y-combinator/
======
Touche
Since PG has criticized Quora for it's registration wall tactics[1] does this
mean they're going to turn into a good net citizen?

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217449)

~~~
MBCook
That's the thing that _baffles_ me about Quora. I've seen interesting
questions and responses but they're totally unreadable. A decade+ after we all
knew Experts Exchange was a horrid experience and years after Stack Overflow
proved you could _show the content_ and be successful... Quora went right back
there.

~~~
adamnemecek
Protip: if you append '?share=1' to the URL it will display the page without
the blur.

~~~
MBCook
Or I could just sign up for a free account.

I'm not going to play that game. I don't care enough. They've made it hard
enough for me to see if I like their content that I'm not going to try. They
lost their chance at me being a user by treating me like garbage.

I shouldn't have to 'impress the bouncer' to get in to read content they want
me to see.

~~~
adamnemecek
Oh I agree 100%, I was not trying to say that you should not bitch since you
can signup for a free account.

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ForHackernews
"Y Combinator’s growth scientists..."

Seriously? Can we stop fucking calling people who do things that aren't
actually science "scientists"?

~~~
mrkurt
Like we've stopped doing for hackers, engineers, artists, rockstars, etc?

~~~
austinz
Sorry, I missed my mouse target and clicked the wrong button, downvoting you.

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spamizbad
Quora is valued at $900M? Wouldn't that mean its worth more than the
stackexchange network? I'm not sure I understand the rationale behind that.

~~~
sytelus
You don't talk about rational during valuations of startups. It's all paper
money and you put a number that pleases both of the parties. For example, you
can give your friend $100 bill to start a company for leaf blowing and ask him
to sign an agreement that you own 10th millionth of his company. What you just
did in nutshell is value his company as a billion dollar business. This would
just keep snowballing in next series rounds until Facebook is forced to buys
it to protect its turf or they IPO it. After the exit, your company would
falter and eventually evaporate because everybody is out the door after
cashing out. Loosers are be "real" investors (i.e pension companies aka "your
401K"). I'm realizing the startups are game of eventual transfer of money from
pension funds and 401Ks to smart aggressive get-rich-now personality types, at
least 90% of the time.

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diggan
That Quora (or any company for that fact) wants to join YC is pretty obvious.
For me, the non-obvious thing is why YC would like anything to do with Quora.
Maybe I'm missing something but with the bad things going on at Quora, I can't
see what's in it for YC. Sure, a high-profile company that you now have a
small piece in but I didn't think YC would go for companies with a reputation
already. I thought YC was for helping companies starting up and gaining
reputation. I don't really believe "Altman wants a piece of every billion
dollar company".

~~~
rdl
I'm not sure what the financial benefit is for Y Combinator XX, LP, but
there's definitely some value to all the other YC companies in having dangelo
as a YC founder and part of the network.

(I'd have preferred Elon Musk for sure, but I suspect that wasn't on the
table...)

------
nate_martin
While I do understand the reasons for Quora wanting to join YC, I can't help
but feel bad for the one company who will not get to participate now because
of this. Maybe I don't understand YC well enough to make this claim but it
seems like choosing a less established company would be better for both the
company and the partners.

~~~
mck-
We were invited for an interview a few weeks ago. We didn't get in; the
feedback we received was that we should get 10 customers, and reapply in the
future.

I was always under the impression that YC was an accelerator that funds ideas.
We were further along, had a website up with a handful of beta testers and
hundreds of early signups. It wasn't enough apparently.

My hypothesis is that it makes sense from YC's perspective to be more
selective, and pick companies that are more established. They are in a
position to do this, given the ever-increasing number of applicants.. alas,
the rationale of every investor is to pick companies that will have the
highest expected returns..

~~~
bunkat
This was a comment I made a while back. YC is only looking for companies that
have already shown growth or meet some diversification goal. There are so many
applicants with traction there is no need for them to invest in completely
unproven ideas since they can just take a wait and see approach which turns
out to be more profitable.

------
Siecje
One of Quora's problems is requiring users to sign up before they can evaluate
the quality.

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webwielder
I know it's cliche to say, but my god, where did the $141 million go?

~~~
rdl
What has been spent has mostly been spent on salaries. I suspect they're
keeping a much larger buffer than a lot of companies, for two reasons: because
they can raise money cheaply, and because they don't have a clear monetization
path yet, so it might be years before they have meaningful revenue, even if
they discovered the strategy today.

I'd just estimate 250k/person/year loaded cost for their expenses, and it
would probably be accurate -- they're not making big media buys or other non-
personnel expenses. 125k salary ends up being about 250k once all other direct
and indirect costs are factored in.

~~~
elithrar
> 125k salary ends up being about 250k once all other direct and indirect
> costs are factored in.

I find an additional $125k to be a stretch, but I also have no data to back
this up. I'd be curious to see the breakdown for this: $125k + some share of
insurances, office spare per square meter, equipment, training, social events,
etc - what else?

~~~
bmm6o
That's the standard rule of thumb, that your cost to your employer is roughly
double your salary. Of course it depends on tax rates, insurance rates,
quality of benefits, etc. But if you are just estimating for a company you
don't have much knowledge about there isn't a much better number to use.

------
guyinblackshirt
Adam D'Angelo responded to this question himself:

[http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-20...](http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-2014-Y-Combinator-batch/answer/Adam-DAngelo?srid=hDKh&share=1)

quote:

There are a bunch of reasons why it's valuable for Quora to be a YC company:
We'll have Sam and all the other partners to help us. We get to be part of the
YC community / alumni network of founders. We get access to all the resources
of YC.

We were raising money anyway, so there was no overhead in letting YC
participate - this ends up the same for us as if we had just raised slightly
more money from Tiger. And independent of the benefits to Quora, I think it
will be fun personally to participate in some of the YC events. I hope my
perspective can help some of the other companies.

------
amirmc
I found the following interesting:

 _" ... but a source tells us “Altman wants a piece of every billion dollar
company, every unicorn.” "_

Just thinking aloud here so bear with me. In time, no-one will remember how
much of the company YC took. Just that YC was an investor. If this plays out,
then YC gains access to the people that _built_ those companies and has them
taking part in the sessions where others are just starting out. In other
words, this kind of play might just be a long term investment.

Overall, if there's a company that gets very successful _outside_ the YC
umbrella, this is a way to bring them into the fold (assuming the founders can
be persuaded to give up the time).

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Theodores
The question is 'why did Y Combinator allow Quora to join'.

The article points out the obvious problems with Quora. However, what I don't
understand with some of these large VC backed web efforts that do not make
money, is, why don't they try the obvious 'run a few adverts' business model
in selected regions.

They could run adverts on Quora for those folk in Australia (where advertising
is generally as predominant as the U.S.) and see how many people click through
the ads or ignore the site because they cannot stand the adverts. It is not
rocket science.

But, instead of trying to earn some actual money, they stay on the speculative
bubble. It is as if they are putting off the inevitable. If the BBC can run
ads for international viewers but not licence fee paying Brits, then why
cannot the likes of Quora, Pinterest or any of these other web behemoths do
something similar, just run a few ads outside the home market? If it doesn't
work then they can take the adverts off. It is something that can be
experimented with, it is not like it would a one time 'lose virginity' thing
that cannot be undone.

I personally find Quora to lack some authenticity. It is like those cults that
have all the religious symbols, rituals and names yet you know they are not
'real'. (I know 'real' religions are fake, but the fakery is not immediately
evident, their traditions have evolved rather than been adopted). With Stack
Overflow, no matter how poor a question is, you know there is someone that
_needs_ that answer (or at least needed it once). With Quora you feel people
don't ask questions 'as if their life depended on it' and there is no
altruistic reason to answer anything. If you are to answer to 'puff up your
profile' (as per getting points on SO or even here), then, is there any
feeling that those 'points' are worth anything? Who cares!!!

I don't feel Quora have built up a body of knowledge that is worth anything.
If they closed tomorrow then nobody would be stuck in their job, or left
unable to do research or feel that some library had been burnt to the ground.

Looking at how Wikipedia is funded - essentially a charity with no capitalist-
entity overheads like marketing - looks to me like it is extremely clever and
shrewd.

~~~
001sky
It's unlcear if they are being practical or cynical, but this let's everyone
"use their imagination" when doing valuations. TLDR: "No data" is better than
"bad data"...That is the strategy.

------
d0m
Dunno, it seems like people are over-thinking it. Adam is definitely a great
addition to the alumni and if he believes he can get enough value of YC, why
not?

------
hadoukenio
Ironically not asked _on_ Quora.

~~~
yonasb
[http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-20...](http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-2014-Y-Combinator-batch/answer/Adam-DAngelo)

~~~
bmm6o
Make it [http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-20...](http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-2014-Y-Combinator-batch/answer/Adam-DAngelo?share=1) so you don't have to
log in to read that answer.

~~~
revelation
This best explains why Quora joined YC. They surely need some advice when they
are going down the way of the Experts exchange.

~~~
rdl
I don't like the registration-required thing either, but as a Quora user from
2010, the users really fall into two major use cases:

1) People who are active users of the site, for whom registration isn't an
issue. There really is a lot of value being signed in if you're actively using
the site, with notifications, drafts, credits, voting preferences weighting
what you see, etc.

2) People who come to Quora for a specific answer to something via SERP. They
generally want one answer, and it's probably reasonable to ask them to log in
if they're going to use the rest of the site. If 50% more bounce due to reg-
requested than not, it still doesn't hurt things too much.

The case where registration links suck are when you're writing something and
send a link yourself to other people. They added the "share this elsewhere"
functionality, but I hate it when I write something, post it on
FB/twitter/etc., and then people can't read it due to registration wall.

There's probably a much better way to do registration-requested than what
they're doing now; all inbound links are open, but some kind of lightweight
account created, and then a prompt to register including your _existing_
browsing history, upvotes, etc. (otherwise they're trashed) after you
navigate. Maybe make it a brief status area thing to start, then an
interstitial, then a modal, etc. Give the user a clear benefit for registering
even after 3-4 pages, rather than making it a binary wall.

~~~
dollaaron
Those two categories have some overlap though. I had an account on quora, and
for browsing the site the requirement is fine, but when searching for
something and stumbling on to content from quora (especially on a mobile
device where typing is a chore), the added frustration was enough to make me
delete my account.

------
omarforgotpwd
because they're not cool anymore

------
michaelochurch
People are trashing Quora because they don't understand the source of its
value: its data. Facebook has connections that are mostly of low meaning.
Twitter has a few pithy 140-character comments and the success thereof on its
own social graph. Quora has thoughtfully-written answers to interesting
questions, and counts some of the most interesting and intelligent people
among its users (and that will improve as it grows). If you are, say, trying
to find a quality co-founder or high-level employee, what Quora has to offer
is much more valuable.

On the surface, Y Combinator gains a lot more than Quora. Y Combinator gains
some really strong people in the Summer 2014 session. The average Quora
engineer is probably as strong as, or stronger than, the average YC founder.
Quora gains an HR liability, because once a firm joins YC, every employee is
going to want the social access implicit in being part of YC. That's scalable
at 4 or 6 people, but not at 77. I'm sure this has been worked out and
special-cased, but I think that the Summer 2014 is going to revolve around
Quora, the latter having at least a couple dozen people demanding the YC
access.

So, here's my theory, and it's just speculation because I don't have inside
knowledge. If you have a Quora login, you can read a more extensive analysis
here: [http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-20...](http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-did-Quora-join-
the-2014-Y-Combinator-batch/answer/Michael-O-Church)

Essentially, Quora has a wealth of natural language data written by some of
the most intelligent people in at least one industry. Given that talent
searching/recruiting is a billion-dollar problem (acqui-hires prove that
_mediocre_ talent is worth millions per head; imagine what verified stuff,
backed by state-of-the-art NLP rather than executive hunches, is worth) this
is pure gold. In fact, it's bilaterally beneficial. Talent wants to be
discovered, and others want to find it, and currently the process is reliant
on social networks (mostly, centered in San Francisco and New York) that are
far past tapped-out. "Network-based" hiring leads to same few people being
highly sought and paid millions while the rest live in obscurity, and it hurts
both sides. If someone can make the job/co-founder market more efficient,
there's immense value-add potential there.

Quora probably has the data, right now, to solve this problem to a large
degree. The issue for Quora is that the data is, relative to the interests of
business and people in it, completely unlabeled. Unsupervised learning is
hard, yo. It's still unclear whether the guy with 382 upvotes on that machine
learning question actually knows what he's talking about. (He probably does;
but how do you know if those 382 people know anything?) After all, LinkedIn
endorsements and recommendations have a well-known inverse property
(controlling for age and professional experience, the more someone has, the
less qualified that person is). Quora's best "labels" for its data are
internal social proof statistics, and it's going to need something of external
value if it wants to convince the larger world that its data means something.

This is, I would guess, the first stage of a long-term partnership between
Quora and Y Combinator. Quora has a wealth of data from all over the world
that, properly read, would be of massive use in talent discovery. YC is an
improvement on VC, which itself is a 20th-century-style guild system based on
reputation and personal relationships _but YC has labelled data_ relevant to
very high talent labels, which is of immense value if you're Quora (and if I'm
right about Quora's long-term monetization/value-add strategy, and who knows
if that's true). Even though only a small percentage of Quora's data will
become labelled in joining forces with YC, it becomes a semi-supervised
problem, which is easier to solve.

Why do I think this is a data play (and a brilliant one, at that)? Frankly,
the HR headache is such an issue that I can't see Quora doing it unless it
would lead to a quantum improvement in its ability to execute.

~~~
ForHackernews
> counts some of the most interesting and intelligent people among its users
> _(and that will improve as it grows)_

But will it really? [https://answers.yahoo.com/](https://answers.yahoo.com/)

~~~
michaelochurch
It will have more intelligent people, I'd guess. Average quality will go down.
So long as Quora can continue to find the good content, it's not a problem.

~~~
ForHackernews
It depends if they have the will and the staffing to do the kind of curation
that's necessary. Or if they can develop an AI that will do it for them.

