How Companies Get Started

In Silicon Valley, you shouldn't take anyone lightly because anyone can create the next big thing (or a very good candidate to become one). 

I first got introduced to Quora back in early 2009 over email through a VC I knew. Maybe he introduced me to Quora because I was visiting from Korea -- in Korea, even back then, Q&A service was already exceedingly popular. I exchanged a few emails with Quora's CEO (Adam D'Angelo) about his "new stealth project." Who would have thought the small project would later turn out to be Quora. 

One of the tech leads that I had closely worked with at Blogger moved out of Google and joined a startup as a co-founder last fall. Whenever I asked him what his startup was up to, he would just say the company's in stealth mode. But somehow funding seemed to be going pretty well. It was only a few months ago when I learned that the stealth startup was Color.com. Well, obviously, funding was going pretty well for them, now we all know. 

We don't yet know if Color or Quora will stand the test of time and come out as true winners -- the true Next Big Things, or the next Facebook or Twitter if you will. But they are indeed very interesting companies that attract huge amount of interest from the tech community right now. It's always interesting to see how these interesting companies begin in their early years: often it feels so quiet, where the founders say they're just doing a small stealth project. This is why in Silicon Valley, you shouldn't take anyone for granted.