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Quora in the next YC batch

blog.ycombinator.com

51–60 of 188 posts

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#51
I think this is just Quora wanting the YC branding to make them more hip. I'm thinking an underhand deal went through to get them in. Quora has the wealth and influence to make that happen. The OP is just preemptive damage control.

Bring on the downvotes.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#52

Funny thing, I visited Quora today, for the first time in a while. Years, maybe: Googled something, Quora near top results, clicked link, "signup" nag screen, results blurred out, left page. I guess I still don't get it. Curious to see what this will be about.

I rarely initialize my use of Quora by visiting the website - I have found immense value in the digest emails they send. They are a mix of things they know I'm explicitly interested in, and generally "interesting" things (presumably defined by popularity). Probably 90% of the time after receive a digest email, I open at least 2 or 3 of the links within. I have tried visiting the site directly and am rarely able to fi…

I've never signed up to the site, but find this quite interesting. Does that mean you only consume the content via email or do you click through? Sounds like a massive headache for Quora in the first case.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#54
post #15

No way they are taking the traditional 7% ~ $120k deal. From Crunchbase they already got $141M fund, and let us be very conservative and say their valuation is just $400M. 7% percent of that is 400,000k*0.07 = 28,000k. I guess Quora will be treated the same as other batch's participants (except I wonder how many of Quora's employee will be physically in SV), but Quora got different deal.

According to their wiki page, Quora's valued at over 900 million after their most recent round of funding.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#56

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.

Or perhaps YC is the one making the pivot? :)

[deleted]

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#58

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.

I wonder if YC is not taking any stake (or a very small stake) in Quora. They do not really need it, perhaps it's just beneficial for both parties. Quora gains a large number of connections, possible companies to fund/buyout, a network of founders to answer questions, complimentary services, and some prestige. YC gains a larger network, another large(ish) player in the tech industry, and potentially some money from a…

I think that's probably the rationale.

Good engineers are hard to find. Quora actually has a lot of smart folks participating -- what better place to find people for your startups and companies than that?

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#59
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely initialize my use of Quora by visiting the website - I have found immense value in the digest emails they send. They are a mix of things they know I'm explicitly interested in, and generally "interesting" things (presumably defined by popularity). Probably 90% of the time after receive a digest email, I open at least 2 or 3 of the links within. I have tried visiting the site directly and am rarely able to fi…

I've never signed up to the site, but find this quite interesting. Does that mean you only consume the content via email or do you click through? Sounds like a massive headache for Quora in the first case.

You really have to visit the site, the emails only contain snippets of conversation.

That being said, the emails are brilliant. I don't know how the content is selected, but almost every time I open one I see something eye-catching enough that I click through.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most normal people won't know how to do this.

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.

EE moved stuff to the very bottom to get around it. but I agree, quora should get nuked from SERPs for this behavior. Despite having an account, it's a pain in the ass to login to see something with results blurred out.
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