My favorite interview question is, 'If you could have a superpower, what would it be?' Alan Schaaf More Quotes by Alan Schaaf More Quotes From Alan Schaaf People come home from work, and they just want to unwind. Alan Schaaf want work home people The successful entrepreneurs that I see have two characteristics: self-awareness and persistence. They're able to see problems in their companies through their self-awareness and be persistent enough to solve them. Alan Schaaf problems see persistence enough The reason I want to be able to teleport is that I don't like waiting around. It's one of my pet peeves. I also don't like traveling, because I don't like sitting on a plane for six hours, doing nothing, essentially wasting time. You know what would be awesome? Bam, I'm in New York. Alan Schaaf you pet waiting time We're not going the photography route. I think there is a real distinction between photos and images, and Flickr is for photos, and Instagram is for photos. You wouldn't put a filter on a meme; you'd put a filter on top of a photo that came from your camera. Alan Schaaf camera your think you If SOPA were to pass, Imgur would not be able to exist. We survive on user-generated content. It would be impossible for us to police the amount of traffic we get for what is or isn't copyrighted material. It's just not possible. Alan Schaaf survive traffic police impossible For millennials, being a geek is a positive thing, and we see people proudly self-identifying themselves as geeks. Alan Schaaf being see positive people GIFs work because the punch line is instantaneous. It's entirely different from almost any other form of content on the Internet, which takes time to consume. Alan Schaaf internet different work time Imgur is a data-driven company, and our community is our most important signal. But you can't perfectly plot humans neatly into a chart. It takes someone with instincts and empathy to truly understand the community and represent them in all of the company decisions. Alan Schaaf understand you empathy community In the early days, it was enough for Imgur to have a team that was focused on building product and engineering. But I realized early on if we were going to be successful, we needed someone who would be a bridge between the company and community. Alan Schaaf bridge building community team Being bootstrapped is great. You own 100 percent of it. But the downside is that you aren't able to move as fast as you want. Alan Schaaf own great you want We've talked with over a dozen VCs and angel investors over the years. But we've never clicked with any of them until Andreessen. During our initial meeting, we were bouncing ideas around about where Imgur could go. Alan Schaaf meeting never angel ideas I'm probably most proud of the fact that we are bootstrapped and that we are able to do not just the typical Silicon Valley startup thing. We are basically throwing away all the typical conventions of other startups. Alan Schaaf valley away just proud When I was a student, I was working at the technology call center, where students call in if they can't get their email to work or something. A minimum-wage kind of job. Alan Schaaf student job technology work When I was in high school and college, I'd always been into websites, and when you'd read about sites and the companies and people behind them, they were always in Silicon Valley. This one's in Mountain View, this one's in Palo Alto. They're all right here. I knew I wanted to move out here, whether it was to work at Google or some other company. Alan Schaaf you work people school I'm the type of manager who doesn't really like the word 'manage.' Nor do I really like the word 'boss.' I like to look at myself as more as a leader. Alan Schaaf myself look boss leader Imgur is all about images, some of which may be photos but don't have to be. Alan Schaaf images about some may Honestly, I could care less about business development. Alan Schaaf about care development business As long as we continue to bring in more traffic, I'm much more concerned with building a good user experience and developing tools that will help grow the Imgur community of users. Alan Schaaf good experience community long We want people on the Internet to go to Imgur for their viral image fix. And what's so awesome about images vs. videos is that instant gratification. Alan Schaaf image internet want people If a whole bunch of users want a specific feature, and we think that feature is pretty cool, too, that that's just what we'll do. Alan Schaaf pretty cool think want
