from Hacker News

Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble

by d_r on 11/12/11, 11:50 PM with 91 comments

  • by roythunder on 11/13/11, 3:03 AM

    I used to work with Bill at Seven, and this article captures his personality pretty well.

    His biggest strength is he's an unbelievable salesman. He can talk pixie dust and make you want to sign on to his vision.

    I believe the ability to sell your vision is the most important skill for an entrepreneur (which is too bad for me, cause I'm a coder and I suck at this skill).

  • by MJR on 11/13/11, 3:17 AM

    First his product was the Facebook killer then he decides that he doesn't want to kill it, he wants to build on top of it. "It's the everything." ... "So we're about to make it more functional, more valuable for people than ever."

    You can't flip-flop more than that. I can't wait until Facebook incorporates their new ideas into the product and puts them out of business - assuming that this new business actually exists in the first place.

  • by aristidb on 11/13/11, 1:30 AM

    Is it just the way I read it, or does Bill Nguyen come across really badly, there? Wow.

  • by alexwolfe on 11/13/11, 6:22 AM

    Facebook started with $17,000 investment from a friend and was a dorm room project, not a company. When trying to beat someone it is probably a good idea to see how they got to where they are at. Steady growth over time works. Dumping a shit ton of money into something and saying its going to the the "X" killer doesn't.

    The laughing stock is not Bill Nguyen, its the VC's that gave him the money. If you walk in a room and say Color and they laugh, they should really be embarrassed. How many of these same people wanted to get in on this deal before it launched? The really funny thing is that there will be someone else that comes in with a great deck and grand illusions of how they will be the next Facebook, the VC's will pump this person with money too.

  • by skrebbel on 11/13/11, 8:23 AM

    Why is it that political journalists are critical, trying to turn every stone, and business/financial journalists treat their subjects with softer gloves than a teen mag does Rihanna?

    If there's one person in the Valley who you can ask difficult questions, it's Bill Nguyen. Instead, the author asks him about whether his wife likes the house on Maui.

  • by protomyth on 11/13/11, 2:19 AM

    "The premise was to create a mobile social network of people you didn't know, rather than ones you already did. Nguyen believed Color would be the Facebook killer."

    I have a theory that conflicts with his thinking. If an app connects people it will trump an app that requires people to physically connect themselves. My test for this is "does this app work for users coming from a rural setting?". Facebook works amazingly well because it connects people. Color works horribly. Your app can be profitable and cool not working in a rural area, but it won't be a Facebook.

  • by jphackworth on 11/13/11, 1:01 AM

    There's no big secret why Bill Nguyen can raise money. Once you have sold one company for $850 mil, you aren't going to have trouble raising money in the future.

  • by ambertch on 11/13/11, 1:46 PM

    You know something interesting? I went around linking friends to this article due to Bill possessing a lot of the traits typically lionized in entrepreneurs.

    My psych major friend reads it and goes "yup that's a checklist for psychopathic behavior. Don't believe me?" then he links me the wiki:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

    VERY interesting if you read the wiki on psychopathy and re-read the Bill Nguyen article.

    I'll also be careful to state I'm not trying to say anything here - behavior is highly contextual after all. Take for example a professional fighter who can be a really nice guy, loving family man and friend yet flip a switch when the bell rings. You just can't say whether this man is violent or not - his behavior is contextual.

  • by arihant on 11/13/11, 6:05 AM

    There's a lot of criticism about raising money, having a high profile team and starting a company without actually having a product. This may turn out to be short sighted. I think Cisco started the same way.

    For all his negative qualities pointed out, at least this man is thinking something freaking different than a freaking share button with a varied alias. Color didn't go hit, but its far better than 90% of photo sharing apps out there. It at least does something different.

    What these guys are selling is a photo app, what these guys are doing is that they are toying around with possibilities in sensing, VR and localization on mobile. Could very well be huge.

  • by rms on 11/13/11, 2:42 AM

    One of the great secrets of the Valley is that investors love hypomanic CEOs.

  • by vimalg2 on 11/13/11, 6:02 AM

    After reading, I feel motivated to re-read my copy of 'Influence' by Robert Cialdini. Bill Nguyen was really really good at one thing.

    Here is a guy who thrives on persuading people. I think the average founder could always use a little more of the same skillset.

  • by antimora on 11/13/11, 2:55 AM

    After so many times encountering Color, I still don't understand what this is.

  • by arram on 11/13/11, 1:56 AM

    >' "When you're binary, you just pick a side; whether it's right or wrong doesn't really matter. You're all in. So you find out all the good and bad things about it instantly. When you find that it's not right, you just move on," he says.'

    I'm reading the Isaacson book, and he reminds me of Steve Jobs. Everything is black and white, everyone is either a genius or a shithead.

  • by dgurney on 11/13/11, 3:32 AM

    The new Color app, judging by its website, actually looks really cool. Nguyen has taken something that already exists -- social broadcasting from your phone's video camera -- and made it seem space-age (turn a photo into real life.. the "transporter" comparison). Same technology, but now I can see why he's a master salesman.

  • by scottallison on 11/14/11, 3:12 AM

    This article summarises what makes the valley both awesome and absurd. I got mixed emotions reading it. It manages to be both appalling and inspirational.

    And Bill Nguyen makes the manic Zuck portrayal in The Social Network appear shy and retiring by comparison. I'd love to meet him.

  • by DilipJ on 11/13/11, 1:52 AM

    fascinating article. It looks like Color raised a lot of money, then launched and found out why customers didn't want it, and now they are trying to pivot. Basically the opposite of what YC and 37signals recommends.

  • by statictype on 11/13/11, 1:49 AM

    It's been two years since we entered the 'post-PC' world. If you had to choose which one to give up - your ipad apps or the web, which would you choose?

    That's what I thought.

  • by wavephorm on 11/13/11, 3:17 AM

    It was an interesting read. But by the end I have no idea what Nguyen is really good at other than selling a startup. He's a wheeler and a dealer, but I sure don't have the impression that he knows how to build something as truly disruptive as he says he can.