5 ms·

Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo to leave the company

47 points by markbao 19y ago

mikecotton 19y ago
Jeff Rothschild will likely take over a lot of his portfolio, which is good for Facebook, because that guy is rockstar.
misterbwong 19y ago
If this is true, what's next?
daniel-cussen 19y ago
"D’Angelo is well-liked at Facebook, though he has mostly stayed behind the scenes. His departure is doubtless a blow to the organization — and also an opportunity to bring in a seasoned replacement to handle the site’s continuing expansion." Is there evidence that the "seasoned replacement" is important? I've looked over a few articles at the Harvard Business School library, but I found nothing that conclusively showed "seasoned replacements," especially CEOs, made a positive impact on a startup.
- aston 19y ago
  I think there's probably a lot of precedent for "seasoned replacements" making a positive impact when it comes to technical infrastructure. Not that I can point you to any. But my sense is that most big sites on the web owe a good chunk of their scalability to some experienced ops genius(es).
  - sah 19y ago
    That could be the case at Facebook. I had the opportunity to talk with Jeff Rothschild, Facebook's VP of Technology, last year. He was very obviously both experienced and smart.
    - jgrahamc 19y ago
      He was at Accel at the same time as me... he is definitely both experienced and smart.
- dfranke 19y ago
  Facebook has 500 employees. They haven't been a startup for a long time.
- blader 19y ago
  I'd guess yes. Writing great code, and building a great product with a small team is a very different skillset than managing a medium to large company of dozens to hundreds of engineers.
  - jfarmer 19y ago
    Bingo! Brad Feld has a good article about this phenomenon: http://tinyurl.com/2rwmty http://tinyurl.com/2rwmty
    - xirium 19y ago
      Or access http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2007/10/cto_vs_vp_engin.html http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2007/10/cto_vs_vp_engin.ht...
andreyf 19y ago
This is only a first-hand account, but it seems to me that all of my friends have "gotten over" facebook - the ones that haven't unactivated their accounts as a social statement only check it every once in awhile for messages. Most friend's profiles are out of date, and only a small fraction of people seem to have found facebook apps continuously interesting (which they're sure to let me know with invitations to join them). The novelty of facebook seems to have long worn off. I don't know if this is just me or a broader trend, but if I were in charge of fb, I'd look into it.
- kyro 19y ago
  Well, the community here is definitely different. For every one person like you saying people have gotten over Facebook, there are hundreds of fraternity/sorority/college students that immerse themselves into Facebook day in and day out, uploading tons of pictures and adding applications. It's understandable why people here tend to not give a damn about Facebook. You all have more important and productive things to do with your time. However, there's a whole world of mindless young kids who join groups aimlessly, post pictures of the almost daily college parties, and find joy in spamming friends' walls. I use Facebook, but only as a means to keep in contact with people whom I wouldn't keep in my phonebook. It serves as a nice mediator.
  - tdavis 19y ago
    "I use Facebook, but only as a means to keep in contact with people whom I wouldn't keep in my phonebook. It serves as a nice mediator." I think this is a sentiment of many people either actively or passively; most people have far more "friends" on Facebook than they would truly consider friends. It's more of a place for acquaintances than a place for true friends / people you keep in contact with on a regular basis. It is for this very reason that I maintain that the "killer app" (if there is/can be one) for "web 2.0" is not going to be a social network like Facebook, but something that enhances e-mail to include these popular social network functions (or an app that uses who your correspond with via e-mail as an indication of who your actual friends are and keep you updated on _their_ affairs). My reasoning for this is the fact that, for most people, the relationships we really care about / keep up are still mostly maintained via e-mail more than anything. Sure, we can write on our friends' FB accounts or carry on twitter conversations or us IM, but how many friends do you have that you don't e-mail? E-mail was the killer app for the web to begin with and I don't think its on the way out like many people seem to. Its still the most prolific and convenient communication method for the web.
smoody 19y ago
If true, he's probably just burned out. If I were the CTO for a company that required the coordination of software across 10,000 servers (and growing), I'd need an extended vacation, too.
kul 19y ago
facebook is good for single people
- xirium 19y ago
  Hey! Don't downmod kul! This topic was discussed at the TechCrunch UK meeting on Fri 9 May 2008 ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=183305 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=183305 ) which Harj and/or kul may have attended. Apparently, some people use Facebook solely to get dates with their friends of friends. Apparently, such activity can get intimate relatively quickly and with relatively high probability.
Mistone 19y ago
Congrats to Adam, he's done an amazing jobs scaling facebook to meet the unbelievable growth demands.

47 points by markbao 19y ago

mikecotton 19y ago

Jeff Rothschild will likely take over a lot of his portfolio, which is good for Facebook, because that guy is rockstar.

misterbwong 19y ago

If this is true, what's next?

daniel-cussen 19y ago

"D’Angelo is well-liked at Facebook, though he has mostly stayed behind the scenes. His departure is doubtless a blow to the organization — and also an opportunity to bring in a seasoned replacement to handle the site’s continuing expansion." Is there evidence that the "seasoned replacement" is important? I've looked over a few articles at the Harvard Business School library, but I found nothing that conclusively showed "seasoned replacements," especially CEOs, made a positive impact on a startup.

aston 19y ago
I think there's probably a lot of precedent for "seasoned replacements" making a positive impact when it comes to technical infrastructure. Not that I can point you to any. But my sense is that most big sites on the web owe a good chunk of their scalability to some experienced ops genius(es).
- sah 19y ago
  That could be the case at Facebook. I had the opportunity to talk with Jeff Rothschild, Facebook's VP of Technology, last year. He was very obviously both experienced and smart.
  - jgrahamc 19y ago
    He was at Accel at the same time as me... he is definitely both experienced and smart.
dfranke 19y ago
Facebook has 500 employees. They haven't been a startup for a long time.
blader 19y ago
I'd guess yes. Writing great code, and building a great product with a small team is a very different skillset than managing a medium to large company of dozens to hundreds of engineers.
- jfarmer 19y ago
  Bingo! Brad Feld has a good article about this phenomenon: http://tinyurl.com/2rwmty http://tinyurl.com/2rwmty
  - xirium 19y ago
    Or access http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2007/10/cto_vs_vp_engin.html http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2007/10/cto_vs_vp_engin.ht...

andreyf 19y ago

This is only a first-hand account, but it seems to me that all of my friends have "gotten over" facebook - the ones that haven't unactivated their accounts as a social statement only check it every once in awhile for messages. Most friend's profiles are out of date, and only a small fraction of people seem to have found facebook apps continuously interesting (which they're sure to let me know with invitations to join them). The novelty of facebook seems to have long worn off. I don't know if this is just me or a broader trend, but if I were in charge of fb, I'd look into it.

kyro 19y ago
Well, the community here is definitely different. For every one person like you saying people have gotten over Facebook, there are hundreds of fraternity/sorority/college students that immerse themselves into Facebook day in and day out, uploading tons of pictures and adding applications. It's understandable why people here tend to not give a damn about Facebook. You all have more important and productive things to do with your time. However, there's a whole world of mindless young kids who join groups aimlessly, post pictures of the almost daily college parties, and find joy in spamming friends' walls. I use Facebook, but only as a means to keep in contact with people whom I wouldn't keep in my phonebook. It serves as a nice mediator.
- tdavis 19y ago
  "I use Facebook, but only as a means to keep in contact with people whom I wouldn't keep in my phonebook. It serves as a nice mediator." I think this is a sentiment of many people either actively or passively; most people have far more "friends" on Facebook than they would truly consider friends. It's more of a place for acquaintances than a place for true friends / people you keep in contact with on a regular basis. It is for this very reason that I maintain that the "killer app" (if there is/can be one) for "web 2.0" is not going to be a social network like Facebook, but something that enhances e-mail to include these popular social network functions (or an app that uses who your correspond with via e-mail as an indication of who your actual friends are and keep you updated on _their_ affairs). My reasoning for this is the fact that, for most people, the relationships we really care about / keep up are still mostly maintained via e-mail more than anything. Sure, we can write on our friends' FB accounts or carry on twitter conversations or us IM, but how many friends do you have that you don't e-mail? E-mail was the killer app for the web to begin with and I don't think its on the way out like many people seem to. Its still the most prolific and convenient communication method for the web.

smoody 19y ago

If true, he's probably just burned out. If I were the CTO for a company that required the coordination of software across 10,000 servers (and growing), I'd need an extended vacation, too.

kul 19y ago

facebook is good for single people

xirium 19y ago
Hey! Don't downmod kul! This topic was discussed at the TechCrunch UK meeting on Fri 9 May 2008 ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=183305 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=183305 ) which Harj and/or kul may have attended. Apparently, some people use Facebook solely to get dates with their friends of friends. Apparently, such activity can get intimate relatively quickly and with relatively high probability.

Mistone 19y ago

Congrats to Adam, he's done an amazing jobs scaling facebook to meet the unbelievable growth demands.