4 ms·

I Am Sam Altman, Reddit Board Member and President of Y Combinator. AMA

65 points by sandmansandine 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- dangrossman 11y ago
  This submission isn't an AMA, it's a link to the AMA. He's answering questions over on reddit.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - hobs 11y ago
      Didn't downvote you, but as he didn't post it here, it's probably not the right idea to set an expectation that he will, and HNers love etiquette as much as they love computers.
    - caminante 11y ago
      Don't stoke downvotes[1]; I took hn:dangrossman's comment as a helpful nudge and thought about a similar, clarifying response. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - monsterix 11y ago
        Thanks I am aware of those. These guidelines are rarely followed anymore. I've been seeing/feeling negativity over here for a long enough time now. Don't know when, but I'll surely quit HN soon. It's like a habit that I have to get out of.
        caminante 11y ago
        Honestly, I thought of a bunch of responses, but deleted all of them to settle for... "No worries. Don't let downvotes get you mad during summer on a Friday." ;-)
        monsterix 11y ago
        Ha ha! I left a message for a sufficiently long time to get a little more of those madvotes from them... It hardly matters you know. :D Yeah, have a good Friday!
ThomPete 11y ago
reddit has more than $50MM in the bank, which will last many many years. At some point the business needs to be profitable. Monetizing AMAs does not seem like the right way to do it to me, but again, Steve's call. Ads will work but it'd be great to figure out something better that actually makes reddit better. What worries me is the trend of Silicon Valley darlings like Reddit, Uber and AirBnB that aren't profitable but still in business. From a monetization point of view Reddit isn't going to be different than any other news channel out there. It's not a question of quality and never really have been. Not enough people pay for quality content. Yet newspapers and VCs keep this illusion alive. It seems like lots of VCs trying to milk companies that aren't making any money. There is probably something I am not understanding but it seems like the emperor gas no clothes and it's only a question about when the boy is going to say the obvious. Whats going on?
- hn9780470248775 11y ago
  I find it hard to believe that Airbnb is not profitable; they have a well-defined monetization and are wildly popular.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Well maybe they are, but not enough to not need more funding. http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/27/airbnb-2/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/27/airbnb-2/ Think about that valuation, think about Uber that makes 400m a year and looses the same. How many years do they have to be in business to make those money back and ever honor that valuation? It's completely absurd IMO, but as I said there might be something I am not understanding.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      They can be profitable and still be in a position where they can convert investment dollars into new market share. If you've got a machine that you can pour money into and get even more money out, why wouldn't you use it? Especially in 2015, when money for companies like Airbnb is cheap.
mythz 11y ago
"I receive about 1200 and send about 200 (emails per day)" - Wow, not sure how he gets anything done with that amount of context switching.
- cj 11y ago
  Delegation.
- Einstalbert 11y ago
  In a world where crowd sourced moderation is the norm, why they don't hire some dependable, low-paid college kids to help triage that amount of communication is so very strange to me. You do realize these people work for near "resume boost" only, right? I suppose the biggest issue isn't in a 20-something intern being able to field thousands of words a day, but rather in trusting them not to leak anything or generally tow the line. Personally, I hope voat.co focuses more on the community rather than the sum of a few corporate-bound individuals.
- tzs 11y ago
  A large number of emails does not necessarily imply a large number of context switches.
caminante 11y ago
On a meta note, I'm curious what parameters are ideal for AMA's. I say this as Sam's AMA has been up for 3 hrs, has ~1k comments, yet you have to scroll past a drove of noisy, repetitive posts. Forgive me for overgeneralizing, but I seem to get turned away as the audience for these things increase.
- werid 11y ago
  The android AMA app is decent. Website, not so much.
- bsilvereagle 11y ago
  Check out r/tabled, it really helps cut down on the clutter
PopeOfNope 11y ago
Does anybody else find it weird that he kept asking about an android app when there are many reddit android apps that work just fine? I'd like to know what he's looking for in an android app that he hasn't seen yet. I personally use 'reddit is fun'.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dangrossman 11y ago
This submission isn't an AMA, it's a link to the AMA. He's answering questions over on reddit.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - hobs 11y ago
    Didn't downvote you, but as he didn't post it here, it's probably not the right idea to set an expectation that he will, and HNers love etiquette as much as they love computers.
  - caminante 11y ago
    Don't stoke downvotes[1]; I took hn:dangrossman's comment as a helpful nudge and thought about a similar, clarifying response. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - monsterix 11y ago
      Thanks I am aware of those. These guidelines are rarely followed anymore. I've been seeing/feeling negativity over here for a long enough time now. Don't know when, but I'll surely quit HN soon. It's like a habit that I have to get out of.
      - caminante 11y ago
        Honestly, I thought of a bunch of responses, but deleted all of them to settle for... "No worries. Don't let downvotes get you mad during summer on a Friday." ;-)
        monsterix 11y ago
        Ha ha! I left a message for a sufficiently long time to get a little more of those madvotes from them... It hardly matters you know. :D Yeah, have a good Friday!

reddit has more than $50MM in the bank, which will last many many years. At some point the business needs to be profitable. Monetizing AMAs does not seem like the right way to do it to me, but again, Steve's call. Ads will work but it'd be great to figure out something better that actually makes reddit better. What worries me is the trend of Silicon Valley darlings like Reddit, Uber and AirBnB that aren't profitable but still in business. From a monetization point of view Reddit isn't going to be different than any other news channel out there. It's not a question of quality and never really have been. Not enough people pay for quality content. Yet newspapers and VCs keep this illusion alive. It seems like lots of VCs trying to milk companies that aren't making any money. There is probably something I am not understanding but it seems like the emperor gas no clothes and it's only a question about when the boy is going to say the obvious. Whats going on?

hn9780470248775 11y ago
I find it hard to believe that Airbnb is not profitable; they have a well-defined monetization and are wildly popular.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Well maybe they are, but not enough to not need more funding. http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/27/airbnb-2/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/27/airbnb-2/ Think about that valuation, think about Uber that makes 400m a year and looses the same. How many years do they have to be in business to make those money back and ever honor that valuation? It's completely absurd IMO, but as I said there might be something I am not understanding.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    They can be profitable and still be in a position where they can convert investment dollars into new market share. If you've got a machine that you can pour money into and get even more money out, why wouldn't you use it? Especially in 2015, when money for companies like Airbnb is cheap.

mythz 11y ago

"I receive about 1200 and send about 200 (emails per day)" - Wow, not sure how he gets anything done with that amount of context switching.

cj 11y ago
Delegation.
Einstalbert 11y ago
In a world where crowd sourced moderation is the norm, why they don't hire some dependable, low-paid college kids to help triage that amount of communication is so very strange to me. You do realize these people work for near "resume boost" only, right? I suppose the biggest issue isn't in a 20-something intern being able to field thousands of words a day, but rather in trusting them not to leak anything or generally tow the line. Personally, I hope voat.co focuses more on the community rather than the sum of a few corporate-bound individuals.
tzs 11y ago
A large number of emails does not necessarily imply a large number of context switches.

caminante 11y ago

On a meta note, I'm curious what parameters are ideal for AMA's. I say this as Sam's AMA has been up for 3 hrs, has ~1k comments, yet you have to scroll past a drove of noisy, repetitive posts. Forgive me for overgeneralizing, but I seem to get turned away as the audience for these things increase.

werid 11y ago
The android AMA app is decent. Website, not so much.
bsilvereagle 11y ago
Check out r/tabled, it really helps cut down on the clutter

PopeOfNope 11y ago

Does anybody else find it weird that he kept asking about an android app when there are many reddit android apps that work just fine? I'd like to know what he's looking for in an android app that he hasn't seen yet. I personally use 'reddit is fun'.