Betabeat » charlie cheever

If Silicon Valley Isn’t Like High School, Quora Certainly Is

Jessica Roy — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:11:14 -0400

Mr. Cheever (Photo: Quora)

Following the recent announcement that Quora cofounder Charlie Cheever will be taking a backseat role at the company, something of a revolution has begun to foment at the question and answer site so popular among the Valley's elite. For a platform which purports to embrace openness and honesty as its core ethos, its own staff has not been particularly forthcoming about Mr. Cheever's departure.

Social Times points out that a question about Mr. Cheever's status at the company was answered by Quora's other founder, Adam D'Angelo. Users immediately called Mr. D'Angelo out for his disingenuous reply, which was bathed in a thick coat of PR BS. One such indictment--posted by another startup founder--even garnered more upvotes than the original response.

Could Mr. Cheever's departure and the subsequent user backlash be a signal for what's ahead at Quora? Social Times kicks around a variety of theories about what's up at the startup, from a potentially imminent acquisition to flailing user adoption due to the site's inability to scale.

If you've spent any amount of time on Quora, the mean girling and cattiness becomes evident pretty quickly, and nothing turns off new users more than a powerful cabal of close-minded insiders. Doesn't anyone remember why Gawker initiated that whole commenting overhaul? Writes the Times:

Quora still exists primarily in its Silicon Valley echo chamber. The users who wield the most power seem intent on keeping it that way. Too often, once users outside that inner circle begin to make a mark — such as garnering deserved up votes too easily, or by questioning methodology and moderation — a backlash quickly ensues. The less powerful users find themselves down voted to the point of having their answers collapsed into oblivion. Then, they are aggressively pursued and forced to defend their subsequent contributions.

Social Times makes a convincing argument that Quora can't scale because it doesn't want to change the platform's negative dynamics, and in fact is working against the best interests of its own site. Upvotes to that.

What Does It Feel Like To Create ‘Wiener Detection Technology’?

Nitasha Tiku — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:27:39 -0400

(Photo: Quickmeme)

Confession: lately, Betabeat has been on something of a Quora binge. In a fit of heat stroke yesterday afternoon, we found ourselves wishing we could just type "Quora" along with any question and have the answers magically appear. Quora: How many degrees will my apartment be when I get home? Quora: What's a good age to freeze my eggs? But in our estimation, the service's appeal isn't the answers as much as the questions. It's basically a window into the secret preoccupations of the human mind.

Take, for example, one anonymous user's probing query into the development of Airtime, the video chat startup cofounded by Napster alums Sean Parker and Sean Fanning. "What does it feel like," the user asked, "to be the engineer at Airtime who created the wiener detection technology?"

The question has already been viewed 6,460 times and has 190 followers, including Quora founder Charlie Cheever, The Awl's Choire Sicha, and yours truly.

Below the question, the interlocutor goes into more detail about his/her intellectual concerns: "In order to not be chatroulette, Airtime allegedly has software that automatically detects wieners. What challenges did you have in creating this technology, both technically and personally? What other practical applications do you see for this technology?"

The lone response comes from another anonymous prankster, who seems to insinuate that the male population of University Avenue--the Stanford-adjacent hub, home to Facebook's old office--is less than well-endowed.

"The specs we had going in were totally off-base - in field testing, the detection technology had to get even more finite - We used the same numbers from the spec, but instead changed the measurement unit from Inches to centimeters.Our field testing was done in and around University Ave in Palo Alto."

Dick-tecting jokes are all well and good, but he doesn't answer Quora's favorite question: what does it feeeeel like?

Facebook Offspring Quora Raises $50M Round Led By Facebook Investor

Jessica Roy — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:33:19 -0400

Mr. Cheever (flickr.com/techrunch)

Those Facebookers are making it rain and the IPO isn't even scheduled until Friday. The Wall Street Journal reports today that ex-Facebookers Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever have raised a new $50 million round of funding for their Q&A site Quora, led by--surprise!--Facebook board member Peter Thiel.

The news comes on the heels of a New York Times piece that chronicled the new "circle of tech:" collect payout, do a startup.

According to the Journal:

The investment is a sign of how the Facebook "mafia" is flourishing in Silicon Valley, helping to fuel new start-up activity....Mr. Heiliger said one of the key reasons he invested in Quora is because of his friendship with Mr. D'Angelo and Mr. Cheever when they all worked together at Facebook several years ago.

A source told us a few months ago that he didn't have high hopes for Quora, but the company is now apparently valued at $400M. Between this and Instagram, perhaps the Facebook mafia can catchup to PayPal yet.

Update: A source wrote in to tell us that Benchmark Capital also contributed to the round. Well, well.