Today at the Startup 2009 conference in New York City, Business Insider’s Henry Blodget interviewed Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes on stage. Hughes recently moved to the city and has been going around to various colleges on the east coast talking to students who have good ideas, but don’t necessarily know how to start companies, as he put it. On the topics of Facebook, the Obama campaign (he was a major player in the online side of it) and even Twitter, he had some interesting things to say.
On Facebook, Blodget of course had to bring up the allegations that the idea was stolen when Hughes was still in college with co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. “Not true,” says Hughes. While both Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to move west to focus on Facebook full-time, Hughes stayed in school. But it’s a decision that Hughes admits he kind of regrets. He wishes that he could have been working on it full-time from the beginning.
The back story has been told many times before, but from Hughes perspective, Facebook was started as a way for friends to share what they thought was cool on the web in a trusted environment. And to get updates on what other people were doing. It’s hard to know if that’s a bit of revisionist history (at least the way he’s phrasing it), as those two things happen to be exactly what Facebook is so focused on right now. Sharing things from around the web is finally starting to come into focus with Facebook Connect taking off. And getting updates on what others are up to is the major part of the redesigned homepage which, yes, looks a lot like Twitter — that other service dedicated to status updates.
Speaking of Twitter, during the Q&A portion, someone asked for Hughes’ thoughts on the service. Hughes had apparently only just started using it when he was being interviewed for his Fast Company cover story a couple months ago, and the magazine noted that he had done so, “albeit reluctantly.” But now, Hughes seems quite sold on the service. “I think Twitter is great,” he said before going on about how he doesn’t believe that there can only be one service that everyone uses to share things — something which I absolutely agree with. Instead, he sees Twitter as just one of many new ways to communicate on the web, and believes there will be room for “dozens of applications like this.”
Blodget then got Hughes to talk a bit about his experience with the Obama campaign. Hughes broke it down into simple terms, noting that all the campaign really did was use existing technology to make campaigns more efficient. The key parts of that were ways to help the campaign raise money easier, and also to connect with voters to form an emotional relationship.
He talked about how right after one of former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speeches in which she belittled what the Obama campaign was doing with its online efforts, the entire team got fired up and starting sending out a mass of emails to supporters. Hughes and the team realized that Palin was an extremely divisive person, and used people’s dislike of her as a way to raise money instantly online. Obviously, it worked to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars.
Blodget wondered if that type of campaign victory was a one-time thing, asking if the Republicans had found their “Chris Hughes.” Hughes wasn’t sure if they had, but guessed that in the next round of major elections, the Republicans will probably have a similar game plan. “We weren’t doing brilliant new things,” Hughes said continuing on that they just knew what would work online.
The talk then turned back to Facebook, where Blodget wondered if Hughes felt the company was doing the right things in order to become a profitable company. Not surprisingly, Hughes is very optimistic about Facebook’s business potential, noting that the company is just in the process of trying a bunch of interesting ideas and seeing what works. He reiterated Zuckerberg’s claims that by the end of the year, Facebook plans to be cash-flow positive.
One audience member asked why Facebook wasn’t doing the type of big advertising site branding that its rival MySpace was doing. “There’s a reason we don’t do that. Ads shouldn’t be in people’s way,” Hughes noted before saying that the best type of advertising is non-intrusive and interesting. Clearly, he doesn’t think too highly of MySpace’s Fanta ads.
Hughes is positive that bigger and better online advertising possibilities will exist over the course of the next few years. And he obviously thinks Facebook will be able to take advantage of that in a very meaningful way, given that it has over 200 million users — and is still growing at a nice rate.
Hughes became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at General Catalyst Partners back in March.
Zuckerberg usually gets all the credit for Facebook. It’s nice to see someone else in the spot light.
Facebook is just another social network. The thing that separates it from all the others is their commitment to innovate and implement new functions/features in a timely manner.
Friendster wasn’t quick enough to fix it’s slow loading problem and when MySpace came along it was a good excuse to leave. An ugly design filled with glitter and spam ruined MySpace while the executives did nothing to stop it. Facebook found a niche in academia, began innovating and offered people a reason to leave MySpace. As long as Facebook continues to offer new features and services it will maintain its dominance.
I completely agree with all those points.
Do you think Facebook would be as innovative if they had to sold to Yahoo!, Google or News Corp.?
I’m bewildered that facebook has so few ads. I guess “advertising” isn’t one of their revenue streams.
coattails.
Facebook is just something for unproductive people to waste time doing. It is funny how these no tallent bums with no experience are touted as visionaries, it is a huge con job.
I think it’s funny that he has this hotshot position with some venture capital firm.
It would be nice if Hughes shared the credit with the volunteers who actually built the networks that fed mybarackobama.com
We were around long before he was. It’s no surprise that he knew what would work online.
-Joe Anthony
Chris did forget to shout out an appreciation for the users, but I think you can’t reprobate the guy for taking all the credit when he repeatedly dismisses any notion that what he did with the Obama campaign was spectacular.
Besides, with this logic, Larry Page and Sergey Brin ought to turn all the profits over to the users of Google.
I was referring specifically to the networks on Facebook (One Million Strong for Obama), and the Obama unofficial Myspace profile (which I built and managed) that date back to 2004.
I can’t speak for Farouk Olu Aregbe, but having worked with Hughes personally on the Obama Myspace community, I can assure you that my experience was not a positive one.
Techpresident.com and Eric Boehlert’s new book Bloggers on the Bus both covered the matter thoroughly.
not sure why anyone cares about this person. what has he accomplished besides being somewhere a LONG time ago
of course you don’t know why, you don’t know who you’re talking about. Research next time before you post.
At least he is more important than you will ever be.
we’ll see what he comes up with as “entrepreneur in residence” that will be his true test
From what I’ve noticed with Facebook, the ads are so “non-intrusive” that you normally have a hard time seeing where the Facebook UI ends and an ad begins. Oh, and at least Myspace is making money…what is it exactly that Facebook does? Get inflated valuations?
Can’t you read Scott? Facebook is doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and hopes to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year. That’s not to defend their valuation, but you can’t claim they’re not making money.
No one knows how much Facebook is making in revenue, and every for-profit company that has existed, or ever will exist, will say that they, “Hope to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year.”
Bingo – finally someone that gets it.
The Russian firm who just invested 200m knows. Heard of due diligence?
“…wishes he would have…”
Dear God.
“Speaking of Twitter,”
Thank god! I was starting to think you were slipping in your insert-twitter-here mission.
i don’t know how to put this, but…twitter’s kind of a big deal.
no, it’s really not.
Could you, or anyone, please expand upon what makes twitter a big deal besides everyone calling it a big deal.
I truly want to know how people are using twitter and how it is a game changer. I want to learn what it is I’m missing.
Other than keeping up with what people are doing at any given moment, which one can do on facebook, how do you, and others, utilize twitter.
I’ve read that twitter has about a 30% retention. Meaning only 30% of the people who try it come back after 30 days. So far, I’m one of those.
More time on Twitter = Less time on FB;
Interesting to see other side of things besides zuckerberg
Facebook will be a major place on the web no matter what people is thinking about its business model.You can’t imagine how facebook grows fast outside US.
I don’t know about you guys, but I find Hughes much more inspiring, believable, and likable than Zuckerberg.
…and I don’t think that’s just because I went to Hughes’ Phillips Andover Academy while Zuckerberg went to wretched Exeter
It’s Phillips Academy Andover…did you actually go? I did.