Revenue Success Confusion

Siqi Chen shares his experience with a bizarre acquisition meeting at Slide, where executives displayed dismissive attitudes toward his profitable app and made unprofessional comments, highlighting a fundamental disagreement about how to measure success in Silicon Valley.

The Slide Acquisition Meeting

• Meeting started poorly with executives arriving late after forgetting about the meeting

• When Siqi asked for $2 million for his profitable Facebook app:

  • They dismissed his valuation request
  • Compared him unfavorably to another acquisition: "he's easily the eighteenth or nineteenth most important person in the company now"
  • Made the statement: "you shouldn't confuse revenue for success"

• Siqi's memorable response: "you guys shouldn't confuse a lack of revenue for success either"

  • This retort upset the executives

• Other unprofessional behavior during the meeting:

  • Executives discussed "a recession coming up" and said "I can't wait to buy all these shitty companies for cheap" in front of Siqi
  • Sam Parr described the meeting as belonging in "the silicon valley autistic hall of fame"

Siqi's Career Path

• Sold his company to Zynga and joined as director of product
• Later became head of product for the company after a co-founder unexpectedly left
• The co-founder stopped showing up to work because "he decided to become a ninja" and "wanted to start a ninja dojo"

Data-Driven Culture at Zynga

• Implemented "PM on call" system where product managers would:

  • Send daily analysis of metrics changes
  • Investigate anomalous drops (e.g., "50% drop in Mexico for Farmville")
  • Segment data to understand user behavior

• Balanced data with creativity:

  • "If it's a data friendly environment like Facebook... then data is all that matters"
  • But in mobile, "creativity matters a lot more" because distribution is more difficult