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Comment by applecore | Hacker News Reader

Not to be harsh, but this isn't a lifestyle business. It sounds like this guy just wasn't the best choice to run the company.

Too much was spent on salaries and benefits. Only a month or two worth of cash was kept in the company to handle expenses. Free cash flow was pulled out of the company while it was still a viable growth opportunity. All the warning signs were ignored despite a vast majority of their revenue coming from a single source. Most egregiously, even though their traffic cratered after Google's Panda update in November 2012, they didn't reach out to the head of the web spam team at Google because... they didn't want to bother him.

Still, it's hard to admit mistakes. I have enormous respect for anyone willing to share their experience like this.

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Matt admits that himself:

> I don’t mean to sound like a goofy politician but I came from meager means. My parents always had shitty small businesses that never made much money. I didn’t have any adults, like country club adults, around me to to tell me, “Oh, you should have a lawyer for that, you should incorporate as this in this state and you could avoid this tax.” I didn’t know anybody like that. I was financially illiterate until my early 20's.

> If you have no idea what an S Corp is, there’s not a lot of hand-holding help for you out there. I was a stupid, bumbling idiot combined with money. My spirit animal was Kenny Powers instead of Warren Buffett.

As et-al says he admits this himself.

But well, MeFi is more of a community than a company and as far as being a community goes it's done about as well as anything on the web.

Matt has been great at keeping a community going.

Kuro5hin, Slashdot and many others have come and gone but MeFi keeps on going.

"Kuro5hin, Slashdot and many others have come and gone but MeFi keeps on going."

Although I no longer use it, it does appear that slashdot is alive and well ...

Alive, anyway.

It seems that some sites disappear into a black hole (such as Kuro5hin) and some become dwarf stars (like Slashdot) - they're still burning, just not giving off much heat or light.

I just went to the page and as an advertiser I'm very confused. Who reads it?

As a long-time member, I'll answer your question directly and honestly: people looking for a well-moderated discussion community that don't tolerate right-wing attitudes very well. Metafilter is, in a very real way, one of the last bastions of the old web.

Thank you.

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