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Quora Co-Founder Charlie Cheever Steps Back From Day-To-Day Role At The Company
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- ipince 14y agotechcrunch has been down all day for me (on mobile). anyone else experiencing this?
- jval 14y agoUghh, these moments suck. Every startup goes through them but it is just painful to watch founders getting forced out of the companies they started.
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- semilshah 14y agoIt was Adam, not Charlie, that invested in the company.
- thenicepostr 14y agoWasn't that D'Angelo, or did Cheever invest too? According to this it was just D'Angelo. http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/14/quora-raises-50-at-400m-from-peter-thiel-dangelo-puts-20m-of-his-own-money/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/14/quora-raises-50-at-400m-fro...
- rhizome 14y agoTime for the business people to take over.
- k33n 14y agoGood for him. Looks like he's going to enjoy the fruits of his labor. There's no reason to assume he's being forced out.
- vaksel 14y agoisn't there? From what I understand Quora has been pretty stagnant. It failed to go mainstream. Sure the valley people know of it's existence...but most people? not so much
- fruchtose 14y agoYou have to wonder then why Paul Ryan submitted a question to Quora. Was it coordinated, or was Ryan already a Quora user?
- FireBeyond 14y ago"There's no reason to assume he's being forced out." When another officer of the company says "We decided it was best for him to leave the company.", I'm not as sure there's no reason...
- rhizome 14y agoI was actually surprised they used those words.
- hoi 14y agoUsually a founder steps back when there's either disagreements about the roadmap/path or if they realize that the product/company will not become as successful as they though it would be.
- onetimeuse001 14y agoor if they realize that the product/company will not become as successful as they though it would be. I'd put my money on this one ^^, if I had to choose. If growth is 50% month to month founders can learn to "agree to disagree" over a lot of things. Quora was way too overhyped to begin with and maybe they bought their own hype
- programminggeek 14y agoQuora is great for geeks, but I've always found it off-putting that you have to sign in with facebook to see all the content. I understand why they do it, but I just don't much like it. One more point of friction maybe? I'm not sure. Also, a lot of the best discussion on Quora is too "inside baseball" in the tech world. It has amazing discussions on frameworks, scaling, interesting company history on Facebook, Google, etc. but I just can't see people outside of tech using Quora. Why would my non-techie wife use Quora? Why would people who already latched on to Stack Exchange sites, Yahoo Answers, and so on use Quora?
- intellegacy 14y agoInterestingly enough, Quora's beginning userbase may doom it to forever niche status. The people, while intelligent, seem a little edgy and too sure of their opinions. From what I've observed, this attitude is very off-putting to non-techie, normal people who just want to have a conversation and learn something. I have a new vision for a website, targeting those dissatisfied with Quora. You can see it here. http://pozium.com/vision.html http://pozium.com/vision.html
- sedachv 14y agoThere already was a non-edgy, mainstream Q&A site for normal people before Quora got on the scene: Yahoo Answers. This video is a good summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_RaPOOVX1Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_RaPOOVX1Y
- theorique 14y agoThis may be non-PC, but I think the IQs and maturity of the Quora users and their responses is head and shoulders above those of Yahoo! Answers. This may be a function of niche vs wide adoption, or real name usage on Quora, but regardless, it's a very apparent effect.
- intellegacy 14y agoTheir mean IQs surely are. Know what else sometimes comes with smart people? Snark, arrogance, responses that come flying at you. Mainstream people don't want to post on Quora. They're intimidated. One of the insecurities of dumb people is to have their dumb-ness pointed out. In their philosophy to ensure quality answers, they've driven away a lot of potential users. There are some really intelligent, insightful answers on Quora. There's also a lot of attitude. The sad thing is, Quora is a wonderful niche site. But since they've taken VC money and there are so many expectations in the startup world, they've put themselves in a tough situation in regards to growth. Though they should probably stick to the 'intelligent professional' niche, they probably need to pickup more mainstream users to justify valuations; but it's hard to go mainstream now with the userbase they've built up.
- samstave 14y agoI am actually really interested in knowing if his departure is in any way fueled by the recent changes in privacy policies that had some backlash from users. I, for example, deleted my account when I decided I was not trusting of their handling of my data. I refused to continue to participate and quit. I would be really interested if these canges fed this leaving in any way.
- ryanglasgow 14y agoSince it said he was leading the Android app development (which was released a few weeks ago), I doubt he was involved in the privacy policy changes.
- jonknee 14y agoYou don't need to be involved to be against something.
- gojomo 14y agoHe's one of two founders in a company with under 50 employees; he wouldn't be nose-down on a single project unless there'd already been some devolution of roles.
- ryanglasgow 14y agoIt's certainly signals that. The Android app is more or less a port of the iOS app and isn't a project you'd expect a founder to be heavily involved with.
- gojomo 14y agoIf that was his only project, yes. But I've not seen evidence of that; I was suggesting that even if he'd stewarded that Android app project he'd also still, as a founder, be weighing in on things like the "who viewed this" feature and policy.
- ericdykstra 14y agoCharlie is a really smart and humble guy; I respect him a lot. He's definitely someone I look up to as a person and as a leader. He is the one that inspired me to move to San Francisco and join a startup, and I'm grateful for that. Best of luck, Charlie, with whatever direction you decide to go.
- arrowgunz 14y agoAdam D'Angelo answered a question on Quora regarding this: http://www.quora.com/Charlie-Cheever-1/What-is-Charlie-Cheevers-status-at-Quora-as-of-September-11th-2012 http://www.quora.com/Charlie-Cheever-1/What-is-Charlie-Cheev...
- theorique 14y agoIt's kind of a vague, press-release style answer that is short on details though.
- confluence 14y agoAs negative as people are on Quora (oh lookz bubblez!) - I honestly think that they are onto something (as is Google+). They are both interest based social networks - rather than geographically constrained ones (i.e. Facebook and people you know IRL). Think of all those disparate niche forums we all frequent around the web lumped into one easily usable, easily searchable, real-time and real-name network - that's what Quora/Google+ are becoming. Quora/Google+ are essentially specialist forums reimagined - topical discussions based along interest lines with real-time feedback by people you can actually see (instead of geographical/friendship ones and pseudonyms on forums). I go to Facebook (rarely) to catch up with people I know IRL - but with whom I don't really share that much in common (apart form going to school/living nearby). Indeed, outside of Facebook's instant messaging utility - I really have very little use for it (yes I understand that "normal" people differ). I go to Quora/Google+/specialist forums/HN to discuss things I'm interested in with people who are like me. They do have something here - and the fact that they have such a strong hold on so many smart people (see how prolific some are) illustrates this fact. I think reports of Quora's death are greatly exaggerated (especially with their war chest). For more, see here on (you guessed it!) Quora: http://www.quora.com/Hypothetical-Questions/Imagine-its-January-1-2016-and-look-back-and-answer-this-Why-and-how-did-Quora-take-over-the-web http://www.quora.com/Hypothetical-Questions/Imagine-its-Janu...
- ActVen 14y agoAs a Quora user this seems to be a big setback for the company. Charlie has always been more engaged in actually using the product and interfacing with the community. Adam has picked it up a bit lately, but their stats below show who was more engaged with the product. Charlie: Users They Follow - 3474, Topics - 578, Questions - 1240, Answers - 1524, Edits - 36951 Adam: Users They Follow - 587, Topics - 338, Questions - 890, Answers - 848, Edits - 24374 This could certainly just be a result of their focus at the company, but it is interesting.