9 ms·

Garry Tan moving on from Posterous and joining YC

201 points by j_baker 16y ago

portman 16y ago
This is great. I hope that 2-3 years from now we see large numbers of "designers in residence" at VCs and incubators. See also Jason Putorti's gig (now over) at Bessemer: http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx
- DaniFong 16y ago
  I agree. It's very interesting to see. Andressen Horowitz is following a similar model, too. I'm starting a greentech incubator and intend to have engineers/scientists in residence. A certain kind of person just love the technical issues at hand during the inception of a project.
- fredwilson 16y ago
  i can see how a designer might be impactful at an incubator but i can't see how a designer can be impactful at a VC firm. you really need to have great design on your team not at your investor
danielha 16y ago
Wow, congrats Garry and have fun!
jolie 16y ago
Very deft career move, Garry. You'll have more access to more people, see more fresh ideas, and have a much larger megaphone. Y-C's gonna be awesome for you, but I really can't wait to see what comes next. =)
tommy_mcclung 16y ago
Congrats Gary! Woo!
iamclovin 16y ago
Congrats Garry! Looking forward to more awesomeness.
jw84 16y ago
I remember Garry, like me, arrived early at the Y Combinator pre-party. He had long hair, kind of like every other Asian friend I had so I figured he must be really smart. Stanford smart. I shook his hand and he introduced himself as getting an interview slot too. Naturally we conferred and compared notes. Mine was something weird, a scheduling software--we haven't decided yet. His was a photo blog. Well like a photo blog, but easier, the kicker is you only manage it through email. Oh, I said. That sounds... interesting. Since I was young that was go-to answer for any pitch. The less he explained the more compelling it was. Blogging for your grandma, blogging that anyone can do, blogging that's accessible. I remember asking how long he's been working on it, he said for a few months. I smiled and said he's probably going to get funded. I didn't, it was my fifth try and became my last. Throughout the years Posterous' engineering skills, design skills, and marketing skills have made the platform really awesome. Reading his blog, learning his thought process, and seeing the passion he puts into his work, it's inspiring. Very inspiring. Blogging for grandmas is such a good idea, it's carved a great niche amongst giants WordPress, Blogger, and Tubmlr, and it's growing as a company. Our career paths took really drastic divergence but seeing what you've done in the past three years is one of the examples of the immense potential working in our little crazy world. Congrats and good luck.
- jayair 16y ago
  Well said. I have a great deal of respect for Garry and his work. I'm sure he will excel at his new endeavor. Oh and I've always been struck by his humility both offline and on.
- garry 16y ago
  Thanks for the note Jerry. I really appreciate it.
ptn 16y ago
Congrats, Garry! Could you please make the arrows here on HN bigger? I keep clicking the wrong one. Thanks.
- jeff18 16y ago
  And 2x bigger than that on the iPad please :)
  - ghshephard 16y ago
    I would pay money, right now, to be able to get a version of HN that would somehow solve the IOS interaction issues on the iPad/iPhone. It's always an incredibly painful dance to pinch open the screen so I can figure out how to click on the four elements - "Comments" vs "Article" and "Upvote" vs "Downvote" - I'm not sure how it can be fixed, but boy would life be better if it could. I should track how much time I spend over a month, heck, sometimes over a day, I spend doing that pinch open, pinch open, click dance.
    - jonasvp 16y ago
      Have you tried http://ihackernews.com http://ihackernews.com? I use it on my Droid and it works extremely well.
      - ghshephard 16y ago
        That's pretty darn close - amazing that I'd never heard of it before. I'll send some feedback - it Doesn't let me upvote on comments, and the UP and Down arrows are still pretty close to each other - but it's worlds better than trying to do it through news.ycombinator.com. Very nicely done.
    - didip 16y ago
      +1 for official Hacker News iPhone app. All the 3rd party apps I've tried are frustratingly buggy.
thesethings 16y ago
I'm super happy for Garry, but for selfish reasons, I'm bummed out. I feel like a band i really like was in the studio working on a new album, and a songwriter just left. I guess i was waiting for another shoe to drop in terms of the realization of the Posterous vision. Anyway... congrats to Garry. I saw his TWIST interview a while ago, and thought he seemed really nice and had really interesting ideas.
btipling 16y ago
Does this mean posterous isn't doing well?
- SriniK 16y ago
  They are kicking on all cylinders. User adoption is really nice. I guess it could be more of a personal satisfaction and eventual goal.
- harscoat 16y ago
  While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr? Anecdote: for our Quantter blog, we chose Posterous first. But then Marco Arment (busy) advisor of us, just told us: sthg like "Posterous?? those guys keep on trashing us (ie Tumblr)". While 1st impression preferring Posterous product, the switch to Tumblr was easy because of Posterous aggressive attempt to "poach" another startup users. That was not good karma.
  - swombat 16y ago
    While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr? Huh, what? What evidence is there that Posterous has lost any battle against Tumblr? Just because you chose Tumblr after being advised by one of the founders of Tumblr doesn't mean Posterous has "lost a battle"...
    - harscoat 16y ago
      Traffic, users, unique visitors?
      - swombat 16y ago
        Evidence? And alexa data is pretty useless, since a large amount of traffic to both tumblr and posterous is not on their home domain.
        16y ago
hank53 16y ago
This is a good move. I think Posterous has plateau
jonathanjaeger 16y ago
I'm a Posterous user - I personally enjoy the features and layout. I don't necessarily use it for the community aspect, so I can't really compare it to Tumblr in that respect. I have no use for the email function, so I'm glad they incorporated many other aspects that would appeal to me personally. I was also surprised at how quickly I got a response via a customer service request. Nice. Congrats to Garry Tan - I always equated him to Posterous since I saw him on This Week in Startups. Hope to hear more about his newest endeavors.
chrisbroadfoot 16y ago
Good move, I think! I'm glad you'll be able to provide high impact work to many startups.
fdhjtyjkty 16y ago
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fdhjtyjkty 16y ago
●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● Gold autumn, personality Mes clothing + Shoes, Travel bag that grabs an eye coat + Chao packet Free transport ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------●
b3b0p 16y ago
Garry reached out to me for an interview with Posterous. Although, I didn't get the position in the end I was stoked about the fact he even contacted me in the first place. Thanks Gary! And good luck on your future endeavors with YC!

201 points by j_baker 16y ago

This is great. I hope that 2-3 years from now we see large numbers of "designers in residence" at VCs and incubators. See also Jason Putorti's gig (now over) at Bessemer: http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx

DaniFong 16y ago
I agree. It's very interesting to see. Andressen Horowitz is following a similar model, too. I'm starting a greentech incubator and intend to have engineers/scientists in residence. A certain kind of person just love the technical issues at hand during the inception of a project.
fredwilson 16y ago
i can see how a designer might be impactful at an incubator but i can't see how a designer can be impactful at a VC firm. you really need to have great design on your team not at your investor

danielha 16y ago

Wow, congrats Garry and have fun!

jolie 16y ago

Very deft career move, Garry. You'll have more access to more people, see more fresh ideas, and have a much larger megaphone. Y-C's gonna be awesome for you, but I really can't wait to see what comes next. =)

tommy_mcclung 16y ago

Congrats Gary! Woo!

iamclovin 16y ago

Congrats Garry! Looking forward to more awesomeness.

jw84 16y ago

I remember Garry, like me, arrived early at the Y Combinator pre-party. He had long hair, kind of like every other Asian friend I had so I figured he must be really smart. Stanford smart. I shook his hand and he introduced himself as getting an interview slot too. Naturally we conferred and compared notes. Mine was something weird, a scheduling software--we haven't decided yet. His was a photo blog. Well like a photo blog, but easier, the kicker is you only manage it through email. Oh, I said. That sounds... interesting. Since I was young that was go-to answer for any pitch. The less he explained the more compelling it was. Blogging for your grandma, blogging that anyone can do, blogging that's accessible. I remember asking how long he's been working on it, he said for a few months. I smiled and said he's probably going to get funded. I didn't, it was my fifth try and became my last. Throughout the years Posterous' engineering skills, design skills, and marketing skills have made the platform really awesome. Reading his blog, learning his thought process, and seeing the passion he puts into his work, it's inspiring. Very inspiring. Blogging for grandmas is such a good idea, it's carved a great niche amongst giants WordPress, Blogger, and Tubmlr, and it's growing as a company. Our career paths took really drastic divergence but seeing what you've done in the past three years is one of the examples of the immense potential working in our little crazy world. Congrats and good luck.

jayair 16y ago
Well said. I have a great deal of respect for Garry and his work. I'm sure he will excel at his new endeavor. Oh and I've always been struck by his humility both offline and on.
garry 16y ago
Thanks for the note Jerry. I really appreciate it.

ptn 16y ago

Congrats, Garry! Could you please make the arrows here on HN bigger? I keep clicking the wrong one. Thanks.

jeff18 16y ago
And 2x bigger than that on the iPad please :)
- ghshephard 16y ago
  I would pay money, right now, to be able to get a version of HN that would somehow solve the IOS interaction issues on the iPad/iPhone. It's always an incredibly painful dance to pinch open the screen so I can figure out how to click on the four elements - "Comments" vs "Article" and "Upvote" vs "Downvote" - I'm not sure how it can be fixed, but boy would life be better if it could. I should track how much time I spend over a month, heck, sometimes over a day, I spend doing that pinch open, pinch open, click dance.
  - jonasvp 16y ago
    Have you tried http://ihackernews.com http://ihackernews.com? I use it on my Droid and it works extremely well.
    - ghshephard 16y ago
      That's pretty darn close - amazing that I'd never heard of it before. I'll send some feedback - it Doesn't let me upvote on comments, and the UP and Down arrows are still pretty close to each other - but it's worlds better than trying to do it through news.ycombinator.com. Very nicely done.
  - didip 16y ago
    +1 for official Hacker News iPhone app. All the 3rd party apps I've tried are frustratingly buggy.

thesethings 16y ago

I'm super happy for Garry, but for selfish reasons, I'm bummed out. I feel like a band i really like was in the studio working on a new album, and a songwriter just left. I guess i was waiting for another shoe to drop in terms of the realization of the Posterous vision. Anyway... congrats to Garry. I saw his TWIST interview a while ago, and thought he seemed really nice and had really interesting ideas.

btipling 16y ago

Does this mean posterous isn't doing well?

SriniK 16y ago
They are kicking on all cylinders. User adoption is really nice. I guess it could be more of a personal satisfaction and eventual goal.
harscoat 16y ago
While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr? Anecdote: for our Quantter blog, we chose Posterous first. But then Marco Arment (busy) advisor of us, just told us: sthg like "Posterous?? those guys keep on trashing us (ie Tumblr)". While 1st impression preferring Posterous product, the switch to Tumblr was easy because of Posterous aggressive attempt to "poach" another startup users. That was not good karma.
- swombat 16y ago
  While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr? Huh, what? What evidence is there that Posterous has lost any battle against Tumblr? Just because you chose Tumblr after being advised by one of the founders of Tumblr doesn't mean Posterous has "lost a battle"...
  - harscoat 16y ago
    Traffic, users, unique visitors?
    - swombat 16y ago
      Evidence? And alexa data is pretty useless, since a large amount of traffic to both tumblr and posterous is not on their home domain.
      - 16y ago

hank53 16y ago

This is a good move. I think Posterous has plateau

jonathanjaeger 16y ago

I'm a Posterous user - I personally enjoy the features and layout. I don't necessarily use it for the community aspect, so I can't really compare it to Tumblr in that respect. I have no use for the email function, so I'm glad they incorporated many other aspects that would appeal to me personally. I was also surprised at how quickly I got a response via a customer service request. Nice. Congrats to Garry Tan - I always equated him to Posterous since I saw him on This Week in Startups. Hope to hear more about his newest endeavors.

chrisbroadfoot 16y ago

Good move, I think! I'm glad you'll be able to provide high impact work to many startups.

fdhjtyjkty 16y ago

●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● Gold autumn, personality Mes clothing + Shoes, Travel bag that grabs an eye coat + Chao packet Free transport ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------● ●------ http://u.ly/73I http://u.ly/73I ------●

fdhjtyjkty 16y ago

b3b0p 16y ago

Garry reached out to me for an interview with Posterous. Although, I didn't get the position in the end I was stoked about the fact he even contacted me in the first place. Thanks Gary! And good luck on your future endeavors with YC!