This is the #1 myth of social media startups - that you can be in the red at this phase and easily turn it all around. People forget that Facebook was ~$50m in the black before they even took a series A.
I know him personally and collaborated with him on some things while he was running Digiforce. It was always a stealth operation, but I know that the technology was real and that it was legitimately acquired. I know that doesn't amount to much reliability on a forum, but I use my real name for my username, so you can see I'm not making this up.
I only kept in limited contact with him after he went to Facebook, but from my experience with him in Raleigh, he's a stand up guy. I'm inclined to believe his story, because if he was incompetent he wouldn't have run FB's growth for several years before going to Snapchat.
This article is the embodiment of the South Park, San Francisco stereotype of the guy enjoying the smell of his own farts.
The idea that they might be living in a bubble that is totally out of sync with 95% of America (geographically speaking) is unfathomable to an elitist.
Exactly. Nothing in this article even talked about technology specific startups at all. It could apply to a craft beer company as much as a new SaaS product.
Just because most of what yishan says is probably true, that doesn't mean he's not tactically omitting details.
For instance, you can go to any of the right-leaning or conspiracy related subreddits and find posts where they show collusion between SRS and CTR. Evidence that is completely undeniable, like mods of SRS and r/politics also modding pro-Hillary or anti-Trump subreddits.
When one side says CTR has totally taken over the site, and the other says they're not involved at all, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
I left California (L.A.) for Raleigh three and half years ago and my quality of life skyrocketed. The pay is the same, the worst N.C. commute is half of the best California commute, and my mortgage is the same cost as my 650 sq ft apartment was.
If no one's willing to give you that info, at any of those stages, it's a good sign that they're not going to be up front with you about equity at all.
The simple truth is that people who outsource development to firms in developing nations are trying to get more than they're willing to pay for, which has never worked - ever.
