News Byte

Pinterest Loses Head of Engineering Jon Jenkins

Jon Jenkins, the head of engineering that Pinterest hired from Amazon a little over a year ago, has left the company, as TechCrunch noted based on a Quora explanation he posted. Jenkins said he wanted to do his own startup. Said Pinterest, “We’d like to thank JJ for his contribution to Pinterest and wish him all the best on his next project. We feel fortunate to have leaders within engineering who are ready to step up and run the organization while we recruit for a permanent head of engineering.”

Quora Will Push Its Most Link-Baity Content to BuzzFeed (Though It Would Never Call It That)

Quora shares content for free in order to get BuzzFeed distribution.

News Byte

Quora Gives Its Writers a Stats Dashboard

Much like Evan Williams’ Medium, Quora is trying to convince people who have interesting thoughts and experiences to write them down — and, since Quora doesn’t pay, that means finding them an audience. Some writers on the site now receive 1 million views per month. So it is launching a stats tools to show counts of views, upvotes and shares, much like what’s available on other publishing and blogging platforms. While exposing stats might encourage crappy content that panders for page views, Quora exec Marc Bodnick said the site already includes tools for burying the bad stuff. “We don’t give traffic to garbage,” he said.

News Byte

Former Facebook, Twitter Growth Manager Heads to Wealthfront

Andy Johns, a former product manager on the growth team at Q&A site Quora, announced on Wednesday he has joined Wealthfront, the software-based financial advising startup. Johns’ new title is Director of Growth and Revenue, and will likely draw on the same experience he had on growth teams in the past at companies such as Facebook and Twitter. Most recently, Johns was a growth strategist-in-residence at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners.

News Byte

Quora Hires Erin Teague to Lead Growth

Erin Teague, product manager for growth at Path, will take the same role at Quora. Teague has degrees in both engineering and business, and had also worked in product at Twitter. Growth at Quora had previously been run by Andrew Johns, now an entrepreneur-in-residence at Greylock Partners.

News Byte

Ex-Quora Growth Manager Andrew Johns Heads to Greylock

Andy Johns, former product manager of growth at the Q&A startup Quora, has left the company and will become a new growth strategist in residence at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Johns had previously held positions at both Facebook and Twitter working on growth strategy.

Voices

Why Tumblr Was a Massive Steal for Yahoo

Knowing that someone follows the NBA Twitter feed is nice; knowing that they hearted an animated GIF of Steph Curry hitting a three is specificity gold.

Another VC Is Born: Well-Known Internet Exec Ben Ling Joins Khosla Ventures

The former Google, Facebook and Badoo exec is the second high-profile Silicon Valley operating exec the VC firm has hired of late.

Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo: We’re Playing a Long-Term Game

“I have a view that if you build something that’s good, and you keep making it better, it lasts,” says D’Angelo.

News Byte

Q&A Site Formspring Shuts Down

Formspring, the anonymous question-and-answer site launched close to three-and-a-half years ago, is closing its doors, the company announced in a blog post on Friday. While massively popular in the startup’s early days, Formspring failed to continue growing its user base and engagement, despite hosting more than 30 million people on its platform. “While we’ve had great success in reaching a broad audience, it’s been challenging to sustain the resources needed to keep the lights on,” founder and CEO Ade Olonoh wrote. The news was first reported by TechCrunch.

Facebook’s Uncool (Comic)

Charlie Cheever Is Out at Quora