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Ben Huh of "I Can Has Cheezburger" is quietly building a humor empire
- aarongough 17y agoVery timely. Just as I start work on a community site... The point I came away with most from this was 'listen to your community'. I think that to an extent you really need to be a part of the community on your site for it to be successful. I think PG & Hacker News are a good example of this...
- kierank 17y agoIf you've ever seen any of the comments on failblog/cheezburger etc, you'd realise that Hacker News isn't a good comparison. Having said that Ben seemed like a nice guy when he had a drink with us in London last year.
- unalone 17y agoHacker News isn't here to make money, and it attracts users because people come for YCombinator. Managing a community is much different when you don't have that, and it's very easy to trip up.
- onewland 17y agoQuietly? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1916286,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1916286,00.... doesn't seem too quiet, and on the internets he's extremely famous.
- rms 17y agoGood mission statement: "We want to make you happy for a few minutes each day." http://failblog.org/2009/09/30/thank-you-for-2-years-of-the-cheezburger-network/ http://failblog.org/2009/09/30/thank-you-for-2-years-of-the-...
- nsrivast 17y agoCould be a perfect user of a micropayment service.
- alanthonyc 17y agoHi Andrew, I like your site and find your interviews generally insightful. However, must you shill for karma points? Not sure what others here think about it.
- rms 17y agoI got the karma points. And there's nothing wrong with submitting your own stuff anyways.
- alanthonyc 17y agoGood point, my bad! You're absolutely right, there's nothing wrong with promoting good stuff.
- unalone 17y agoI think it's fine. He didn't even submit the link; rms, whose name is Kevin, did. If something's good, telling people where they can spread the word is perfectly fine. I like it even more when somebody's manually asking rather than placing a set of generic links on the bottom of every article.
- gsmaverick 17y agoWhat I see in Ben is how much responsibility he takes for his failures and having to fire his employees. This was a very refreshing interview.
- fumbdaggot 17y agoYo Ben Huh! I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish...but /b/chan is the greatest humor site of all time. OF ALL TIME!
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- philwelch 17y agoTop of page: "If you like this interview, vote for it on news.ycombinator.com --Andrew"
- ckinnan 17y agoI'm a big fan of Mixergy-- Andrew's interviews are terrific and from the perspective of aspiring entrepreneurs. Definitely a site that will be of interest to HN readers.
- weaksauce 17y agoIt should also be noted that Andrew is an active HN member and goes by the screen name AndrewWarner. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=AndrewWarner http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=AndrewWarner I also love his mixergy interviews, very inspirational.
- steve19 17y agoThat will be some blog plugin that detects if you were referred from a social networking site, and then asks you for votes.
- MartinCron 17y ago"Rule #6 If you want to be a CEO, get close to other CEOs" I came to this same conclusion the last time I was job seeking and it was a critical decision factor for me, coming from a larger company where I had little contact with any decision makers. The job I wound up taking was the one where the CEO met me for coffee to discuss what the company was all about. That CEO who met me for coffee was Ben Huh. Working at Cheezburger has been one of the most satisfying jobs I have ever had.
- Shanem21 17y agoInspirational dialog