He constructs a very small ladder...

I started programming when I was 11 so by the time I got to
college, I thought that engineering would be more fun. I've always
enjoyed building things and figuring out how things work.

Ofcourse you should change to door 3.

i love it already :)
awesome interview

Haha, hey B!

In 1996, did you see the potential of the internet already, or are you pretty surprised at how things turned out (from a business perspective)?

Who would you say is instrumental or highly influential in launching your online endeavors?

Did it require much investment to get started?

Who do you consider to be your peers, adult or mainstream? Seeing that your one if not the most successful in the business, who do you look up to?

Q: Do you own offline businesses?

A: Not yet - want to start one?

Q: What's it like to know that you can buy most things and they won't make a dent in your bank account? Is it fun, or anti-climactic, or something else? Is the "mo money, mo problems" adage true or false?

A: It might be a bit of a cliché so say that I haven't changed much. I've
always been motivated by doing the best that I can. Growing up, "doing
your best" wasn't measured in dollars so fortunately, my working hard at
Friend Finder is not entirely motivated by money - revenue growth is just
another measure of if we're doing a good job. I'd probably agree more with
"mo money, mo responsibility".

Q: How did you grow your business initially. Did you "hire" friends or family to help you operate it. In other words are some of your closest friends also in the top chain of command at FriendFinder Inc? Or did you go straight to finding people outside of your circle of friends to delegate jobs to.

A: I started the first web personals site in 1994 while doing my Phd at
Stanford. In '94, people were not nearly as demanding as they are now
so was able to have a very simple site. A few years later, I started
Friend Finder on the computer on my desktop. In a few months, hired
a customer service person and started growing organically. Most people
were hired off the street or from dormrooms - was much more of a startup feel.

Q: How old were you when you launched AFF?

A: Started Adult Friend Finder in late 1996 when I was uh... 28.

Q: Did you run any sites prior? Why personals? Why not porn?

A: Yah - in 93, started a web development company out of my kitchen
and built sites for HP, Cisco, and a bunch of little sites. Started a little
restaurant review site at http://dine.com. Many people would call
up and ask if we were the "Internet". I thought it was so cool that
when you put up a webpage, anyone in the world could see
it - so it'd be natural to let people post personal ads. As we were
showing off the personals site to potential clients, we had to keep
it mainstream.

Q: Do you think you could start off in the online world and repeat your current success or have similar success?

A: I know that I have been fortunate to have started early and have
had a number of breaks along the way. I think the numbers of new
successful internet companies remain the same each year... but that
there are just more people trying to create one. Growing a company
like ours has taken years and years of crazy hours - it would be harder
to do that again.

Q: What are the most important lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

A: Listen to people, have integrity, juggle enough projects so that you
are less concerned about a single failure, be humble, ...

Q: Did your sites ever use 3rd party billing or always merchant? Why or why not? I've read that in the early days some sites started out by taking mail orders because the internet hadn't yet created ways for billing users.

A: I don't remember any 3rd party billing systems back in 1996 - we
just got a merchant bank and grew the relationship over time.

Q: If you had to choose between money, power, or women, which would you choose?

A: I'd choose the lesser of three evils.

Good questions, good answers. This interview is a pleasure to read.

very good interview

i guess you didn't like my questions.... :disgust

that's definetly not women right? right?! ;)

What Lars said.................


good one!:thumbsup

This thread should be Pinned!!

nicely done :thumbsup

I had a feeling this wasgoign to be the ambush!! can't wait to read it all the way through!

im looking forward to this interview!

Jim

What Lars and Mike say. Very Good One :)

Wow great person to interview, I met Andrew in LA at the Webmaster Access show and was absolutely stunned how humble and quiet he was.

A real pleasure to meet someone so successful that has kept a good head on his shoulders and doesn't get caught up in all the bullshit.

DH

Did you actually went searching for that "é"? lol

100..............Ambush Interviews:thumbsup
http://www.fubarwebmasters.com/curre...pbp/z02717.jpg

Q: If you had to choose between money, power, or women, which would you choose?

A: I'd choose the lesser of three evils.


ahahahahahah man your good .. from now on you get to be the GFY poster My marketing days are numberd LOL

Wow, this is an excellent interview ... I'm amazed at what I am reading.

Thanks for the checks :)

Q: In 1996, did you see the potential of the internet already, or are you pretty surprised at how things turned out (from a business perspective)?

A: By 1996, I had been building websites and selling commercial
web software for a few years so I knew that this was going to
change how many things were done. Unfortunately, I was still
working full time on my PhD while working full time on building
sites so had little time to capitalize on it.

Q: Who would you say is instrumental or highly influential in launching your online endeavors?

A: I was lucky to be in a department at Stanford that was one of the
first to put up a webpage in late 1992. A few people showed me how
to setup a webserver and get a T1 to host some pages.

Q: Did it require much investment to get started?

A: I didn't have much cash but was able to get a couple Sun servers
for about $10K. Funded the rest by getting lots of little devel gigs.
The market was so weak for web developers that I was making about
$5/hr after paying out staff. By the time started Friend Finder, I had
about 15 developers who worked on writing banner ad servers and visitor tracking software. Now we have almost 300 people.

Q: Who do you consider to be your peers, adult or mainstream? Seeing that your one if not the most successful in the business, who do you look up to?

A: I don't look around much - mostly towards mainstream sites.

Question:

What are all of your degrees in?

and ... still paying those student loans?!? ; )

Holy shit, 300 staff? Damnnnnnnnnnnnnn. :bowdown

I have never met this person! :( Lars, Sean and Sagi - you've been hiding someone with cute dimples from me??!!

Very interesting interview - I always wondered about who started AFF :)

I'm all eyes on this one.

No way. Multiple choice you should always go with your first inclination. :2 cents:

Wrong, statistically you have a better chance if you choose another door.

Edit: to be more precise, the actual probability of winning: if you stay: 33%, if you switch: 67%

Why is that? and where did you come up with that stat?

Well I see his logic I'm just not smart enough to know whether its actually true or not. I usually stick with my first instinct because when I've changed from it in the past its been a mistake.

If you stay or switch your probability of winning is exactly 50%. There are two possible choices and only one of them is right, whether you switch or stay your odds remain the same.

Exactly. You went from a 33 1/3% chance of being right, and now that it is 50-50 your odds have decreased? I would sure like to see that explained.

wtf?

did you pay attention in math class?

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Yes this is correct. I'm glad that Linquist's name isnt Mathematician :1orglaugh

And for the record, if I first picked door #2, and door #1 was eliminated, I would stay with door #2. I never second guess myself.