lol.... that honestly made me laugh. I never read the interview before but will make use of that line sometime. Regarding path, they need to boost numbers, so started exploiting peoples address books, when this worked they raised more money but those users where spammed and probably just deleted the app. The only thing i hear about path is the design, if you did a frequency distribution of word usage in path articles, it's about design. The funny thing is, i downloaded the app last year, then invited my wife to use it, she text me saying she didn't know how to use it and never did so i deleted it as well. Therefore the great design appealed to the tech inclined but to cross the chasm they needed familiar design like instagram & twitter.
Not necessarily. But Silicon Valley engineers with startup experience who just lost their job and are likely to accept lowball offers so they can continue to pay their hyper-inflated apartment leases, those people are highly sought after.
I very much doubt engineers laid off from a well-regarded startup like Path would take low-ball offers. I've seen similar situations firsthand many times now, and I'm almost certain they will get multiple competitive offers.
Ha. Actually engineers in general are sought after out here simply because there's a shortage; which is likely due to the fact that outsiders hold your viewpoint.
NOT EVERYONE WHO MOVES TO THE BAY AREA LIVES OR NEEDS TO LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO. THERE ARE A PLETHORA OF OPTIONS.
Path itself is likely not regarded poorly, but with a shortage of good devs in the valley, I suspect the data people they've (possibly) let go would have had offers. Not so sure about marketing.
Overlooking their privacy issues, the app was well done. The experience felt fresh when the app first came out. A few things I thought were particularly neat: the circular menu for posting statuses, the polished timeline, and the drawer (which to my knowledge they were the first to do).
- silently stole your contacts, a move so shady it prompted Apple to quickly push an OS update allowing a per-app contacts access permission, then
- used the phone numbers of your contacts to send them completely false text messages saying you'd shared (unspecified) things with them on Path in an effort to get them to sign up (even when you had done no such thing), then
- leaked your location even when you had location services disabled for Path, then
- started effectively begging for change (subscriptions) every third screen.
To be fair, every app at the time was silently stealing your contacts. Path was just the one that was singled out because they were high profile at the time.
I think this is interesting because this may represent a pullback in the social/mobile consumer space from an investment standpoint. Path is a VC darling given that it raised over $40 million from the likes of KPCB (a firm that also mentioned a direction change[0]). Anyone talking about a SV bubble should consider that some companies with tremendous momentum are scaling back a little bit. It could be a healthy pull back.
Consider that the people who made the biggest, shittiest decisions here made way more money while doing so than you did during the same period, most likely.
What do you mean by them having made more money than me?
As far as I can see, they have to sell Path for more than $41.2M before they make more money than $0 and that´s gonna be a tough one. I'm currently a bit above that number. ;)
They likely paid themselves executive level salaries out of that 41.2M all the while. If you're doing much better than a high-end developer salary, congrats, but if you're not, they prob paid themselves more than you.
Path originally touted the idea of having a limited friends group - only your closest. I thought that actually made sense.
Then they started spamming people in your phone book, completely ruining the entire point of their original pitch. Now they seem to make money selling stickers? I'm not sure why any self-respective developer would still be working there.
Neither? The address book debacle was a big deal for a little while, but the bad press faded quickly.
I also don't think Facebook's position is unchallengeable. After all, Facebook wasn't the first social network, and it looks like the youth today aren't using Facebook nearly as much as older generations, preferring newer apps like Snapchat.
In all likelihood Path destroyed itself by being a not-very-good Facebook competitor. This says little about the feasibility of toppling Facebook.
That's what happens when you realise that it costs more to acquire a user than you can make money off him/her. There'll probably another layoff in 4 months and another one and then we have an acquihire, yeah!
Ugh, I tried to like it, but I just dont like Path. If I can think of a vanity startup with vanity PR, vanity founder, vanity metrics, it's Path. Ugh.
I'm the same. Really tried using and liking path for 6-8 months but I just couldn't find a use-case outside of using it like Instagram without having to admit I used Instagram. It's derivative and deliberately-limited for no perceivable benefit. And since everyone (even Trello!) is adding "stickers" Path had to hop on the bandwagon too.
Facebook for me is just an address book of all my contacts. I never share anything personal there due to the number of privacy settings I need to hop through to make sure I shared with the right people.
Path is just a curated set of close friends with whom I feel free to share anything. Also when it came out Path mobile app is far better than Facebook.
That's basically what is. A Facebook clone focusing on mobile. They limit your number of friends and have a better mobile experience by doing things like putting things accessible from fewer screens, because mobile users hate multi-screen flows, etc..
Path founder and CEO Dave Morin, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday, has not responded to requests for comment.
Cmon Techcrunch, you should know that Path dude never answers his phone, it puts him on defense.