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The company was "built" by Ryan Finley, and completely profitable before Dave Goldberg even heard of the company. Survey Monkey was 10 years old before Dave Go

The company was "built" by Ryan Finley, and completely profitable before Dave Goldberg even heard of the company. Survey Monkey was 10 years old before Dave Goldberg was even hired. Let's not rewrite history here. Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg both go home at 5:30, but neither are even close to founders. I don't mean to diminish their accomplishments, but "built a billion dollar business" is misleading.

rdouble 14y ago
It's a lot easier to go home at 5:30 when someone else is doing the work that gets done after 5:30.
- xradionut 14y ago
  It's a lot easier to have children when you treat young, single, nonparent co-workers like cogs that can work late and do your work.
  - myoung8 14y ago
    For what it's worth, this isn't the case at SurveyMonkey.
suyash 14y ago
agree, is Survey Monkey really a worth a billion plus dollars?
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  Yes, it is. They do $100M in revenue, and it all pretty much flows to the bottom line. They have less than 200 employees and no matter what you assume for compensation, they are tremendously profitable.
  - joering2 14y ago
    To me, its an astonishing achievement. People, we are talking here about a simple two-pages PHP script that stores information from users input into database. Something a junior programmer can knock off in less than 4 hours, easily. Why on earth somebody, anybody, would paid monthly a hard dollar for that, no idea! Their exec team should go sell sand on African deserts; they would came back trilionaires.
    - nacs 14y ago
      I've never used Surveymonkey nor do I have any affiliation with them but this is such a crass and insulting comment. Pretty much every web app is a "take input and stick it into a database". Could a rough prototype of a survey system be made in 4 hours? Possibly, but to state that the entire app could be built in 4 hours by a "junior programmer" and claim their executive team is selling BS is offensive and asinine.
    - damoncali 14y ago
      Four hours, huh? And here they've wasted 14 years working on it. They must be some kind of dumb.
    - Ovid 14y ago
      Every time I've worked anywhere, no matter how simple the problem domain seemed, it always turned out to be far more complicated than I thought at first. Eventually you'll learn that too.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      The company I work for makes good money from several clients who came to us in desperation after a junior programmer knocked out a "simple two-pages PHP script that stores information from users input into a database" that were not in any way fit for purpose. In one case we quoted for a job, were told someone else offered to do it for half the amount, and had the client come to us 6 months later and beg us to redo it from scratch. Underestimating complexity is extremely easy. E.g. your "two pages PHP script" that can be done in four hours is not going to be account for hosting it, for templates for various design needs, for proper analytics afterwards. If you have to spend 4 hours every time recreating it, and then additional time afterwards for analytics, that very quickly becomes worth paying for.
- damoncali 14y ago
  They just did a financing that put them at something like $1.3B - and not a typical VC round of monopoly money - they borrowed money to swap out investors and buy out employees - sort of an exit, but not really. A home run by any standard.

rdouble 14y ago

It's a lot easier to go home at 5:30 when someone else is doing the work that gets done after 5:30.

xradionut 14y ago
It's a lot easier to have children when you treat young, single, nonparent co-workers like cogs that can work late and do your work.
- myoung8 14y ago
  For what it's worth, this isn't the case at SurveyMonkey.

suyash 14y ago

agree, is Survey Monkey really a worth a billion plus dollars?

jcampbell1 14y ago
Yes, it is. They do $100M in revenue, and it all pretty much flows to the bottom line. They have less than 200 employees and no matter what you assume for compensation, they are tremendously profitable.
- joering2 14y ago
  To me, its an astonishing achievement. People, we are talking here about a simple two-pages PHP script that stores information from users input into database. Something a junior programmer can knock off in less than 4 hours, easily. Why on earth somebody, anybody, would paid monthly a hard dollar for that, no idea! Their exec team should go sell sand on African deserts; they would came back trilionaires.
  - nacs 14y ago
    I've never used Surveymonkey nor do I have any affiliation with them but this is such a crass and insulting comment. Pretty much every web app is a "take input and stick it into a database". Could a rough prototype of a survey system be made in 4 hours? Possibly, but to state that the entire app could be built in 4 hours by a "junior programmer" and claim their executive team is selling BS is offensive and asinine.
  - damoncali 14y ago
    Four hours, huh? And here they've wasted 14 years working on it. They must be some kind of dumb.
  - Ovid 14y ago
    Every time I've worked anywhere, no matter how simple the problem domain seemed, it always turned out to be far more complicated than I thought at first. Eventually you'll learn that too.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    The company I work for makes good money from several clients who came to us in desperation after a junior programmer knocked out a "simple two-pages PHP script that stores information from users input into a database" that were not in any way fit for purpose. In one case we quoted for a job, were told someone else offered to do it for half the amount, and had the client come to us 6 months later and beg us to redo it from scratch. Underestimating complexity is extremely easy. E.g. your "two pages PHP script" that can be done in four hours is not going to be account for hosting it, for templates for various design needs, for proper analytics afterwards. If you have to spend 4 hours every time recreating it, and then additional time afterwards for analytics, that very quickly becomes worth paying for.
damoncali 14y ago
They just did a financing that put them at something like $1.3B - and not a typical VC round of monopoly money - they borrowed money to swap out investors and buy out employees - sort of an exit, but not really. A home run by any standard.