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Layoffs hit Quora

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Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#141

Post by bschwindHN »

codingslave wrote: post #23

Any company that relies on SEO content is basically going to disapear. Google search and their new NLP technology is just extracting the question and answers from content like that on Quora, significantly reducing their page hit volumes. Not only that, other lower ranked content can be verified to be "true" using neural network based NLP, meaning that the value of content has gone down. Google stole the business of q…

To be honest I'm happy to hear quora is struggling. It was always an annoying page to use.

I'll be happy to see Yelp go down too, I don't like the idea of extortion under the threat of bad reviews.

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#142

Post by TomVDB »

yamrzou wrote: post #55

I used to enjoy Quora, but it lost its charm and I quit once my feed became mostly filled with questions such as: - As a software engineer, what makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it? - What did your mother say that made your jaw drop? - What can I learn in one minute that will be useful for the rest of my life? Those open questions just feel clickbait-y, with no real value added. I occasionally see questio…

These kind of questions where most likely generated by paid question askers who receive a cut of the ad revenue.

I have first hand knowledge of somebody who made pretty good money doing exactly that. His rule of thumb was: the dumber the question, the more profitable it was for him.

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#143

Post by tanilama »

plerpin wrote: post #65
codingslave wrote: post #23

Any company that relies on SEO content is basically going to disapear. Google search and their new NLP technology is just extracting the question and answers from content like that on Quora, significantly reducing their page hit volumes. Not only that, other lower ranked content can be verified to be "true" using neural network based NLP, meaning that the value of content has gone down. Google stole the business of q…

Have you considered that Quora is failing because it's user-hostile? I do not visit Quora links on Google because I know it's going to tease me with a snippet and force me to login.

I think it is just irrelevant to the web today. I don't think Quora has a future to be an independent business.

To me Quora is just a more entitled/self-righteous version of Reddit, and much less fun.

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#144

Post by blackrock »

Quora’s web page restrictions were always annoying.

You can search for something from Google, and the site allows you to view the page. Then the page suggests other links, and when you click on it, it forces you to sign in.

The trick is to copy that link, and open the page in a new incognito window.

I don’t know why they did it this way, but it’s thoroughly annoying, and I try to avoid visiting the site if I can. And I roll my eyes whenever that site comes up in a search result.

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#145

Post by codingslave »

manigandham wrote: post #50

Quora is a site that is somehow successful despite its product development decisions. They seem to constantly make the site and community worse with every update. There's still a decent amount of amazing valuable answers from real verified experts but the experience of using it is horrendous and I've completely stopped trying to write anything anymore.

Yeah I think the downfall of quora is partly due to their product managers decision making and the machine learning recommendation engine. Both of which are abysmal even with all that Harvard and Stanford talent they have

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#147

Post by [deleted] »

gsich wrote: post #136
kinkora wrote: post #59

Not sure if a bit of confirmation bias on my side but seems like there is a recent big uptick of layoffs at Silicon Valley companies? Popular ones like Quora, TripAvisor, Ebay, Mozilla, Uber, 23andMe, etc we hear about but among my own network, i am even hearing it from smaller startups & businesses. Just wondering if it is just me but I am surmising that it seems to indicate a wider systematic.. issue? Maybe issue i…

GMAFIA, not FAANG.

[deleted]

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#149

Post by TulliusCicero »

echelon wrote: post #132
scarmig wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you rent a one bedroom for 4k in SF. You can do better than this, but let's go with it. And suppose your mortgage is 2k, and you make a solid salary of 200k in Atlanta. It seems like a no brainer to move. But you're ignoring the fact that someone of equivalent experience could get a paycheck of 500k here. That pay differential swamps trying to optimize by tightening the budget.

My total comp (salary plus RSUs) is 400k, and my (now fully vested and liquid) stock options are worth 2.5M. I realize not everyone can replicate that, but I did this in Atlanta, not SF. I also can drive 7 minutes to work or run 30 minutes on the Beltline and shower when I get in. There are more trees here than SF, and we have full seasons. It's also way more diverse. Not everyone is in tech. The dating scene is grea…

SF is pretty much exactly what it's made out to be. The odds of getting a high paying job in tech are vastly higher in the bay area than in Atlanta, and SF is much friendlier to non-car methods of transportations. That said, yeah it's expensive as all hell.

> The dating scene is great.

Yeah, assuming you're a dude, the gender balance in Atlanta is probably much better, plus you're making excellent money in an area with much fewer people making bank; in SF, making 250k isn't even really that unusual, that's a mid-level dev position at Google, not even senior.

Re:diversity, I find there's this thing in the states where people count the percentage of black and Hispanic people as highly relevant to diversity, but Chinese and Indian people don't count, hence all the articles about how big tech companies are "mostly just white guys". Because the bay area really isn't very white, compared to the US as a whole.

Re: Layoffs hit Quora

#150

Post by asveikau »

echelon wrote: post #132
scarmig wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you rent a one bedroom for 4k in SF. You can do better than this, but let's go with it. And suppose your mortgage is 2k, and you make a solid salary of 200k in Atlanta. It seems like a no brainer to move. But you're ignoring the fact that someone of equivalent experience could get a paycheck of 500k here. That pay differential swamps trying to optimize by tightening the budget.

My total comp (salary plus RSUs) is 400k, and my (now fully vested and liquid) stock options are worth 2.5M. I realize not everyone can replicate that, but I did this in Atlanta, not SF. I also can drive 7 minutes to work or run 30 minutes on the Beltline and shower when I get in. There are more trees here than SF, and we have full seasons. It's also way more diverse. Not everyone is in tech. The dating scene is grea…

Hello friend. I would advise against making these numbers so public and traceable to your name.
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