Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–9 of 9 posts

Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#1

Post by 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.

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?

(As a guide, perhaps let's define a "startup" as having less than 50 employees and being less than 3 years old.)

Re: Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#2

Post by 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.

Re: Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#3

Post by sinak »

Toph wrote: post #2

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…

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..

Re: Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#5

Post by 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.

Re: Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#6

Post by sinak »

sharemywin wrote: post #5

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 an…

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 :).

Re: Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting?

#7

Post by [deleted] »

sharemywin wrote: post #5

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 an…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN