Quora in the next YC batch • Hacker News Board

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#121

Post by ceejayoz » Sat, May 10, 2014, 12:59 AM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #109

meritt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.

There are 20 million programmers in the world, that is the maximum S.O. can get. There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora. Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery. I am not saying which one is more valuable, perhaps S.O. is more monetizable.

StackExchange has much more than just programming sites, and I've done all sorts of discovery via the "questions from other StackExchange sites" ad units and sidebars.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#122

Post by torbit » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:03 AM UTC

troymc wrote: post #46

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a webapp that lets us take/make bets on things like this? Not for money of course, but purely to gauge sentiment.

Or better yet, is there a webapp that lets us ask questions and post answers for others?

quick pic polls http://polarb.com/

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#123

Post by mhartl » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:08 AM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #109

meritt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.

There are 20 million programmers in the world, that is the maximum S.O. can get. There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora. Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery. I am not saying which one is more valuable, perhaps S.O. is more monetizable.

that is the maximum S.O. can get

This is why they formed a parent company with a broader focus (Stack Exchange). Joel Spolsky wrote more about their thinking here:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#124

Post by jfoster » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:20 AM UTC

benwilber0 wrote: post #114

gedrap wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Quora is a totally different product, content wise. You don't go to Quora for programming help unless it's hello world in php. You go there for /r/iama type of questions. Or it's just my usage, largely influenced by the weekly email.

Reddit is devouring that use-case. I'm not sure where Quora fits in.

I don't use Quora very much, but I have noticed that it seems to be very focused on the identity of the person replying, and even the identity of upvoters. It feels like a great place for senior management in organisations to answer questions about topics related to their roles.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#125

Post by jfoster » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:27 AM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #2

I'd love to hear more about why. It makes sense for YC (and is probably being treated as a normal investment rather than "Adam filled out a YC application and did a 10 minute interview"), however I feel like it makes Quora seem weak.

Usually deals are all about the capital/equity/valuation balance, right? Perhaps YC was able to make this a better deal for themselves and Quora by getting them to take part in a YC batch. The hypothesis may be that the other YC startups are so much more likely to succeed after being heavily exposed to an already quite successful startup.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#126

Post by johncoogan » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:35 AM UTC

razfar wrote: post #80

dangelo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for including us!

It would be awesome if you could give more info to the community regarding your decision to join YC!

I'm itching to know more too, but I'm sure we will all learn plenty in due time. From the post: "they’re participating in the batch like any other company". To me, that means Quora will be participating in demo day, and I'm sure their will be reporter coverage of their pitch. Really excited to see what's in store!

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#127

Post by silencio » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:42 AM UTC

xcntktn wrote: post #64

seanalltogether wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the rest of us will forget 10 minutes from now. I really don't understand why people give quora a free pass on this when expertsexchange was nuked by the rest of the online community for inventing these tactics.

There is a weird hivemind effect on display here and in other various Silicon Valley discussion circles where there is an unstated but very solid agreement that certain companies are "cool" and thus receive the most charitable interpretation of their plans and financial situations, but others which do essentially the same thing are run out of town on a rail, so to speak. Take for example the story from today about Ap…

iHeartRadio is owned by Clear Channel and is advertised on their radio stations and billboards. My mother used to listen to a Clear Channel radio station and whenever I would listen with her, every other group of ads mentioned iHeartRadio back in like, 2010 and earlier. Before Spotify was available in the US, even. Now I see that said radio station has replaced all of their custom players to just redirect to iHeartRadio's streaming or music playlists.

That they have a lot of users by going that route is completely unsurprising. Not sure about paid, cause I'm pretty sure it's always been a free service so there is no paid subscription.

Clear Channel is also on such a different level from Spotify and Pandora right now that I'm quite sure that HN would start caring a lot more about iHeartRadio if it weren't owned by the 800 pound gorilla in the industry as opposed to the two startups. Only if iHeartRadio was owned by the record labels themselves could people care less, really.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#128

Post by caseyj » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:48 AM UTC

gedrap wrote: post #94

3pt14159 wrote: post #26

Quora needs to change. I get the weekly emails that they make me double click to get though (the UI here is awful, but it doubles page views) and that is basically it. They need to change, which is why I think YC is such a good fit for them. The deal was probably $1 for 0.1% or something like that. Mostly symbiotic relationship. Quora needs the reboot cred and YC likes shiny people.

>> make me double click to get though I really don't like it. At first I thought that a link is broken or something.

oh, I didn't realize it does double click. I clicked the link and it redirected me to their home page and that's it for me.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#129

Post by gojomo » Sat, May 10, 2014, 1:53 AM UTC

tyang wrote: post #112

namenotrequired wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since neither his comment nor his profile mention it, I'll mention here for those unaware that this guy is co-founder of Stack Exchange.

If true, thanks for disclosing. Amazed commenter failed to disclose. Transparency and conflicts, people!

If that bugs you, think a bit about how the conflicts of upvoters/downvoters are totally obscured.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#130

Post by timdellinger » Sat, May 10, 2014, 2:05 AM UTC

meritt wrote: post #70

dude_abides wrote: post #11

Hard to imagine what's in it for Quora. - Network connections? Their CEO is the former CTO of Facebook. - Help with fundraising? They raised $80mm at $900mm valuation not more than a month ago. I strongly suspect Quora is planning a huge pivot which they feel is ambitious but doable in 3 months, and YC believes in the value of this pivot; that is the only plausible explanation I can think of.

Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.

stack exchange = tell me a fact

quora = tell me a story