
Why I Quit My CTO Job At Facebook And Started Quora - bjonathan
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
======
nivertech
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
> 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.

------
timruffles
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?

~~~
BenSchaechter
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.

~~~
mikeryan
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.

~~~
jonknee
About.com (acquired for $410m). Last.fm was all advertising supported until
last year (well after the $280m buyout). Hulu has done really well with
advertising. Demand Media. How Stuff Works ($250m). Pet Holdings (Cheezburger
Network). Etc etc. Plenty of web companies do just fine with advertising
dollars.

~~~
mikeryan
Quick note - it looks like About is profitable (50M) it seems like one of the
most profitable arms of NYTimes model. Can't find specifics on HowStuffWorks
yet. Pet Holdings I like, but is it profitable? Hulu the jury is out, they're
just cash flow positive - but they just moved to a pay model. I actually
categorize last.fm and hulu slightly differently in my head then the pure,
text based web plays, but that's okay.

Demand media I was going to actually use as a counter example since they're
not yet profitable ([http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/08/12/where-did-demand-
medi...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/08/12/where-did-demand-medias-
profits-go/))

Last.fm was "hoping" for profitability this year
([http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-interview-cbs-thinks-
la...](http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-interview-cbs-thinks-last.fm-will-
turn-a-profit-this-year/))

~~~
jonknee
Well you counted Facebook as a big success in terms of advertising, but they
aren't exactly raking in cash. To me that puts it similar to Hulu and Demand--
making significant revenue, but the real money comes from an IPO.

For the most part we're not talking public companies, so it's hard to be
completely accurate. But I think it's safe to say that there are a lot of
online advertising funded businesses who are providing strong returns to their
partners/investors.

------
sspencer
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
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.

