4 ms·

I know very little about David Karp. But after reading this, I'm a bit surprised that he decided to sell Tumblr. The way Marco talks about David's disinterest

by stevenj 13y ago

I know very little about David Karp. But after reading this, I'm a bit surprised that he decided to sell Tumblr. The way Marco talks about David's disinterest in money, and his singular obsession with Tumblr, made me think he wouldn't even consider selling it to someone else. I'd be curious to hear his reasons for selling, as oppose to doing a strategic investment like Facebook did with Microsoft at one point.

snambi 13y ago
I guess everyone gets bored of their passion after a while.
- swamp40 13y ago
  Why lock himself in to a 4 year deal, then?
Y0YO 13y ago
I think he was waiting for a billion dollar. That's why he didn't really cared about money at first, but building a billion dollar company.
vineet 13y ago
I believe they were running out of money and needed to do more work to bring revenues appropriately up. Yahoo allows them to not need to focus on revenues, as they already have a large and established an ad sales team.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  In contrast, another VC round surely would have forced them to focus on revenues, perhaps even at the expense of user experience and product quality.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Not to mention, could they get a favorable VC round given their poor revenues?
    - dakrisht 13y ago
      Probably not based on their numbers. VCs wanted an exited. They are on the board. People don't consider how little control the founders of this company had post-rounds. It was the VC's play.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  Seems like a free lunch though - isn't Yahoo buying them presumably because they foresee a way to monetize Tumblr, possibly in contradiction to David's desired direction of the product?
  - vineet 13y ago
    I believe David is ok with advertising. He just doesn't want it to be the main focus of his effort. The fact that Tumblr has huge growth and Yahoo has one of the largest Ad Sales teams in the world, means that this merger will in-my-opinion be v.successful. My bet/hope is that with more resources from Yahoo, David will pick and influence more parts of Yahoo than just Tumblr.
    - alttab 13y ago
      My guess is a twenty something riding a billion dollar wave into yahoo hq isn't going to make friends quickly. Influencing yahoo as one person might prove difficult. All the best though.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
imjk 13y ago
I think that's actually the point of the piece: David is so focused on product that he doesn't want to deal with things like operations or revenue that the deal makes sense. Yahoo will take care of those things, and David can focus on the only thing he cares about, product.
- piokoch 13y ago
  I am not sure if David had any power to decide about the deal with Yahoo. If he took money from Venture Capital he might have very, very little impact on bussiness side of Tumblr.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  This seems disingenuous to me. A key part of creating a great "product" is that it continues to support itself. Having a great product without having some sort of a revenue stream isn't being hyper-focused - it's being negligent. Congrats to David on everything, but it seems very odd to try & separate "product" from the revenue that it should generate if it's going to be a business.
  - moogleii 13y ago
    Not so much to me. There are legions of artists creating non-software works/products/pieces/whatever that have to worry about non-existent revenue stream (or don't worry about it at all). Greatness in their craft is not really linked to the money at all. Some people may link the two with software, but there's really no innate reason to do so (see many OSS projects). Exterior costs such as servers, software, hardware etc create the impression of a link, but innately, I don't think there is one. Let me rephrase your sentence that makes more sense to me: A key part of creating a great "business" is that it continues to support itself.
  - tinco 13y ago
    That's just from the business perspective. From the consumer perspective revenue does not matter at all. The art of business is to make the greatest product you can without revenue _detracting_ from it. The Steve Jobs mindset here is that if you just disregard the revenue all together and just focus on building the most absolute great product you can imagine people will use it and love it. Making a revenue of that is not 'product' it is business, and it seems perfectly reasonable to hire a businessman for that (and not let him influence you too much, and try not to get fired for that like Steve did..).
chetanahuja 13y ago
Maybe this could explain : http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/50931471868/jesus-christ-silicon-valley http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/50931471868/...
return0 13y ago
Would you want to work your whole life on one product? Maybe he felt it was good enough.

by stevenj 13y ago

snambi 13y ago

I guess everyone gets bored of their passion after a while.

swamp40 13y ago
Why lock himself in to a 4 year deal, then?

Y0YO 13y ago

I think he was waiting for a billion dollar. That's why he didn't really cared about money at first, but building a billion dollar company.

vineet 13y ago

I believe they were running out of money and needed to do more work to bring revenues appropriately up. Yahoo allows them to not need to focus on revenues, as they already have a large and established an ad sales team.

hkmurakami 13y ago
In contrast, another VC round surely would have forced them to focus on revenues, perhaps even at the expense of user experience and product quality.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Not to mention, could they get a favorable VC round given their poor revenues?
  - dakrisht 13y ago
    Probably not based on their numbers. VCs wanted an exited. They are on the board. People don't consider how little control the founders of this company had post-rounds. It was the VC's play.
bentcorner 13y ago
Seems like a free lunch though - isn't Yahoo buying them presumably because they foresee a way to monetize Tumblr, possibly in contradiction to David's desired direction of the product?
- vineet 13y ago
  I believe David is ok with advertising. He just doesn't want it to be the main focus of his effort. The fact that Tumblr has huge growth and Yahoo has one of the largest Ad Sales teams in the world, means that this merger will in-my-opinion be v.successful. My bet/hope is that with more resources from Yahoo, David will pick and influence more parts of Yahoo than just Tumblr.
  - alttab 13y ago
    My guess is a twenty something riding a billion dollar wave into yahoo hq isn't going to make friends quickly. Influencing yahoo as one person might prove difficult. All the best though.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

imjk 13y ago

I think that's actually the point of the piece: David is so focused on product that he doesn't want to deal with things like operations or revenue that the deal makes sense. Yahoo will take care of those things, and David can focus on the only thing he cares about, product.

piokoch 13y ago
I am not sure if David had any power to decide about the deal with Yahoo. If he took money from Venture Capital he might have very, very little impact on bussiness side of Tumblr.
joelrunyon 13y ago
This seems disingenuous to me. A key part of creating a great "product" is that it continues to support itself. Having a great product without having some sort of a revenue stream isn't being hyper-focused - it's being negligent. Congrats to David on everything, but it seems very odd to try & separate "product" from the revenue that it should generate if it's going to be a business.
- moogleii 13y ago
  Not so much to me. There are legions of artists creating non-software works/products/pieces/whatever that have to worry about non-existent revenue stream (or don't worry about it at all). Greatness in their craft is not really linked to the money at all. Some people may link the two with software, but there's really no innate reason to do so (see many OSS projects). Exterior costs such as servers, software, hardware etc create the impression of a link, but innately, I don't think there is one. Let me rephrase your sentence that makes more sense to me: A key part of creating a great "business" is that it continues to support itself.
- tinco 13y ago
  That's just from the business perspective. From the consumer perspective revenue does not matter at all. The art of business is to make the greatest product you can without revenue _detracting_ from it. The Steve Jobs mindset here is that if you just disregard the revenue all together and just focus on building the most absolute great product you can imagine people will use it and love it. Making a revenue of that is not 'product' it is business, and it seems perfectly reasonable to hire a businessman for that (and not let him influence you too much, and try not to get fired for that like Steve did..).

chetanahuja 13y ago

Maybe this could explain : http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/50931471868/jesus-christ-silicon-valley http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/50931471868/...

return0 13y ago

Would you want to work your whole life on one product? Maybe he felt it was good enough.