Garry Tan moving on from Posterous and joining YC(garry.posterous.com)
garry.posterous.com
Garry Tan moving on from Posterous and joining YC
http://garry.posterous.com/moving-on-and-thanks
15 comments
Congrats, Garry! Could you please make the arrows here on HN bigger? I keep clicking the wrong one. Thanks.
And 2x bigger than that on the iPad please :)
I would pay money, right now, to be able to get a version of HN that would somehow solve the IOS interaction issues on the iPad/iPhone. It's always an incredibly painful dance to pinch open the screen so I can figure out how to click on the four elements - "Comments" vs "Article" and "Upvote" vs "Downvote" - I'm not sure how it can be fixed, but boy would life be better if it could.
I should track how much time I spend over a month, heck, sometimes over a day, I spend doing that pinch open, pinch open, click dance.
I should track how much time I spend over a month, heck, sometimes over a day, I spend doing that pinch open, pinch open, click dance.
Have you tried http://ihackernews.com? I use it on my Droid and it works extremely well.
That's pretty darn close - amazing that I'd never heard of it before. I'll send some feedback - it Doesn't let me upvote on comments, and the UP and Down arrows are still pretty close to each other - but it's worlds better than trying to do it through news.ycombinator.com. Very nicely done.
+1 for official Hacker News iPhone app. All the 3rd party apps I've tried are frustratingly buggy.
Very deft career move, Garry. You'll have more access to more people, see more fresh ideas, and have a much larger megaphone.
Y-C's gonna be awesome for you, but I really can't wait to see what comes next. =)
Y-C's gonna be awesome for you, but I really can't wait to see what comes next. =)
I'm super happy for Garry, but for selfish reasons, I'm bummed out.
I feel like a band i really like was in the studio working on a new album, and a songwriter just left.
I guess i was waiting for another shoe to drop in terms of the realization of the Posterous vision.
Anyway... congrats to Garry. I saw his TWIST interview a while ago, and thought he seemed really nice and had really interesting ideas.
I feel like a band i really like was in the studio working on a new album, and a songwriter just left.
I guess i was waiting for another shoe to drop in terms of the realization of the Posterous vision.
Anyway... congrats to Garry. I saw his TWIST interview a while ago, and thought he seemed really nice and had really interesting ideas.
This is great. I hope that 2-3 years from now we see large numbers of "designers in residence" at VCs and incubators.
See also Jason Putorti's gig (now over) at Bessemer:
http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx
See also Jason Putorti's gig (now over) at Bessemer:
http://www.bvp.com/team/Jason-Putorti.aspx
I agree. It's very interesting to see. Andressen Horowitz is following a similar model, too.
I'm starting a greentech incubator and intend to have engineers/scientists in residence. A certain kind of person just love the technical issues at hand during the inception of a project.
I'm starting a greentech incubator and intend to have engineers/scientists in residence. A certain kind of person just love the technical issues at hand during the inception of a project.
i can see how a designer might be impactful at an incubator but i can't see how a designer can be impactful at a VC firm. you really need to have great design on your team not at your investor
Does this mean posterous isn't doing well?
No, actually. Nothing has changed at Posterous. Garry was just feeling burned out.
While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr?
Anecdote: for our Quantter blog, we chose Posterous first. But then Marco Arment (busy) advisor of us, just told us: sthg like "Posterous?? those guys keep on trashing us (ie Tumblr)". While 1st impression preferring Posterous product, the switch to Tumblr was easy because of Posterous aggressive attempt to "poach" another startup users. That was not good karma.
Anecdote: for our Quantter blog, we chose Posterous first. But then Marco Arment (busy) advisor of us, just told us: sthg like "Posterous?? those guys keep on trashing us (ie Tumblr)". While 1st impression preferring Posterous product, the switch to Tumblr was easy because of Posterous aggressive attempt to "poach" another startup users. That was not good karma.
While I think he is a great add to YC, maybe also Gary acknowledged Posterous lost the battle vs Tumblr?
Huh, what? What evidence is there that Posterous has lost any battle against Tumblr? Just because you chose Tumblr after being advised by one of the founders of Tumblr doesn't mean Posterous has "lost a battle"...
Huh, what? What evidence is there that Posterous has lost any battle against Tumblr? Just because you chose Tumblr after being advised by one of the founders of Tumblr doesn't mean Posterous has "lost a battle"...
Traffic, users, unique visitors?
Evidence? And alexa data is pretty useless, since a large amount of traffic to both tumblr and posterous is not on their home domain.
if for both Posterous & Tumblr a large portion of the traffic is hidden, all conditions being equal, on Quantcast & Compete Tumblr is way above Posterous.
They also have almost a year and a half of headstart...
Tumblr's become a youth phenomenon. In high schools and colleges it's everywhere.
Posterous is prolific, but it's not omnipresent. And I doubt it will ever become omnipresent, because it doesn't offer enough to differentiate itself from Tumblr and because it's nowhere near sexy enough to capture the vast audience that only cares about things being sexy.
Posterous is prolific, but it's not omnipresent. And I doubt it will ever become omnipresent, because it doesn't offer enough to differentiate itself from Tumblr and because it's nowhere near sexy enough to capture the vast audience that only cares about things being sexy.
I'm not arguing that Tumblr isn't successful or that Tumblr doesn't have more traffic (that would be a stupid argument!). What I am arguing against is this suggestion that somehow Posterous has "lost" and it's time for them to throw in the towel or something. Posterous is a fairly young service that's seen great growth and is, as far as I can tell, going places, and fast.
The suggestion that Garry Tan is leaving because Posterous isn't working out is unsubstantiated, and that's what I'm arguing about. This is like pointing at Facebook when they were much smaller than MySpace, showing that such-and-such person just left, and saying it's because Facebook has lost the battle. It hasn't. The battle is still raging, and who will win is definitely up for grabs.
The suggestion that Garry Tan is leaving because Posterous isn't working out is unsubstantiated, and that's what I'm arguing about. This is like pointing at Facebook when they were much smaller than MySpace, showing that such-and-such person just left, and saying it's because Facebook has lost the battle. It hasn't. The battle is still raging, and who will win is definitely up for grabs.
That makes sense. Cheers!
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They are kicking on all cylinders. User adoption is really nice. I guess it could be more of a personal satisfaction and eventual goal.
Wow, congrats Garry and have fun!
I'm a Posterous user - I personally enjoy the features and layout. I don't necessarily use it for the community aspect, so I can't really compare it to Tumblr in that respect. I have no use for the email function, so I'm glad they incorporated many other aspects that would appeal to me personally.
I was also surprised at how quickly I got a response via a customer service request. Nice.
Congrats to Garry Tan - I always equated him to Posterous since I saw him on This Week in Startups. Hope to hear more about his newest endeavors.
I was also surprised at how quickly I got a response via a customer service request. Nice.
Congrats to Garry Tan - I always equated him to Posterous since I saw him on This Week in Startups. Hope to hear more about his newest endeavors.
Congrats Garry! Looking forward to more awesomeness.
Garry reached out to me for an interview with Posterous. Although, I didn't get the position in the end I was stoked about the fact he even contacted me in the first place. Thanks Gary! And good luck on your future endeavors with YC!
Congrats Gary! Woo!
Good move, I think!
I'm glad you'll be able to provide high impact work to many startups.
I'm glad you'll be able to provide high impact work to many startups.
I remember Garry, like me, arrived early at the Y Combinator pre-party. He had long hair, kind of like every other Asian friend I had so I figured he must be really smart. Stanford smart.
I shook his hand and he introduced himself as getting an interview slot too. Naturally we conferred and compared notes. Mine was something weird, a scheduling software--we haven't decided yet. His was a photo blog. Well like a photo blog, but easier, the kicker is you only manage it through email.
Oh, I said. That sounds... interesting. Since I was young that was go-to answer for any pitch. The less he explained the more compelling it was. Blogging for your grandma, blogging that anyone can do, blogging that's accessible. I remember asking how long he's been working on it, he said for a few months. I smiled and said he's probably going to get funded.
I didn't, it was my fifth try and became my last.
Throughout the years Posterous' engineering skills, design skills, and marketing skills have made the platform really awesome. Reading his blog, learning his thought process, and seeing the passion he puts into his work, it's inspiring. Very inspiring.
Blogging for grandmas is such a good idea, it's carved a great niche amongst giants WordPress, Blogger, and Tubmlr, and it's growing as a company.
Our career paths took really drastic divergence but seeing what you've done in the past three years is one of the examples of the immense potential working in our little crazy world.
Congrats and good luck.
I shook his hand and he introduced himself as getting an interview slot too. Naturally we conferred and compared notes. Mine was something weird, a scheduling software--we haven't decided yet. His was a photo blog. Well like a photo blog, but easier, the kicker is you only manage it through email.
Oh, I said. That sounds... interesting. Since I was young that was go-to answer for any pitch. The less he explained the more compelling it was. Blogging for your grandma, blogging that anyone can do, blogging that's accessible. I remember asking how long he's been working on it, he said for a few months. I smiled and said he's probably going to get funded.
I didn't, it was my fifth try and became my last.
Throughout the years Posterous' engineering skills, design skills, and marketing skills have made the platform really awesome. Reading his blog, learning his thought process, and seeing the passion he puts into his work, it's inspiring. Very inspiring.
Blogging for grandmas is such a good idea, it's carved a great niche amongst giants WordPress, Blogger, and Tubmlr, and it's growing as a company.
Our career paths took really drastic divergence but seeing what you've done in the past three years is one of the examples of the immense potential working in our little crazy world.
Congrats and good luck.
This is a good move. I think Posterous has plateau