Here are some updates coming to me about Quora’s management situation in the wake of #QuoraGate.
Quora seems to believe that it has the employee attrition problem under control. They’re planning to offset the morale problems with a substantially more generous pool of raises and promotions over the next 12 to 24 months. This means two things. First, every Quora employee ought to be expressing their indignation at the decision to ban me, not so aggressively that Quora suspects that employee may leave, but with enough force and determination as to get one’s piece of this new raise, bonus, and promotion pool, one that almost certainly dwarfs the pool that will be allocated for more traditional reasons. People who don’t speak up in their opposition to this decision will probably not get anything, because when something like this happens, all the good stuff is given to the people who seem upset enough that they might leave (but, obviously, not so determined that they will leave). If you work at Quora, now is the time to ask for that raise or title bump! Second, it means that I managed to get generous raises for a bunch of people I’ve never met, and without any intention to do anything of the sort. W00t! If you work at Quora and get a raise or bonus in the next two years, the statistical likelihood is that you owe it to me, at least indirectly. (No, you obviously shouldn’t send me a check. Keep it all.)
Quora is more concerned, at this point, about user attrition right now than its employees, believing (by my sources) that it has that problem handled. To its credit, Quora has been swift at censoring any content that is sympathetic to me, so I’d guess that less than 0.1 percent of its users are even aware of the ban. I do have 8,600 followers, but I’d guess that Quora’s user base is in the millions. The problem is that most of Quora’s top contributors have heard of me, and are incensed.
Most of the time spent, in the strategy meeting that was held recently, was discussing how to manage the user-level fallout from my ban– or, more to the point, whether to implicate Y Combinator. Top Writer attrition is what they’re concerned about, because if the small percentage of high-volume, quality contributors leave, their site falls to pieces. There’s obviously a Pareto (“80/20”, but often even more lopsided) distribution to involvement in any online community, and the 0.1 percent that is actually aware of, and incensed about, my being banned… they produce at least 25 percent of the quality content. As information about this situation becomes more available, it becomes only more favorable to me, and I only become better known within Quora as a person unjustly (and stupidly, given the following that I had) banned.
The other thing worth noting is that, while I don’t know Adam D’Angelo personally, he made a show in front of his employees of being pissed about the ban. He made it clear that “someone” deserved to be fired over the decision. Whether that “someone” was a Quora Admin (whom he can fire, and presumably will before Friday) or an investor (whom he can’t fire) was not clear to any observers of the interaction (at least, not to any who are talking to me). We’ll know by Friday, at the latest. If Quora doesn’t reverse the ban and fire the person responsible, that will certainly not prove any investor-level responsibility (much less implicating Y Combinator or Paul Buchheit) but it will prove that Quora intends for its investors (and, in particular, Y Combinator) to take the blame.
That’s all I have for now. Thank you all for your support and, to the people inside Quora, please keep the information coming.
