The Friendster Story (2006)

Meh, I left my post running tech there just before this story ran. One day I'll write what really happened. It's a lot more complex than people imagine.

Remember, if you want to create a very explosive social networking, always start with the idea of finding beautiful girls.

Proofs are everywhere.

A shame these stories never gave credit to Ryze. Johnathan was an early member and basically copied Ryze feature for feature.

[Disclaimer: I was asked to be an early investor in Friendster and chose not to]

"He could take the safe bet and accept the $30 million that Google was offering him for Friendster, the social networking Web start-up he began only a year earlier, in 2002. Saying yes to Google would provide a quick and stunning payout for relatively little work and instantly place the Friendster Web site in front of hundreds of millions of users across the globe."

Well, I don't really know.