“Where folks like Google have fallen down is in just putting a little review box up, then closing their eyes and letting the algorithm take care of itself. Yelp is a technology company, but also a company that understands how people want to connect with one another.”
“Focusing on that one review you feel is unfair misses the value, which is the whole symphony of opinions you get on your page.”
“I think by paying attention to the feedback that you get on Yelp, you can very quickly integrate it into your business... The really savvy folks out there, they don't necessarily take anything negative personally, but use it as constructive feedback and adjust their business.”
“There's simply anger over the accountability that Yelp brings and also this feeling of powerlessness because so much power is now being put in the hands of the consumer. But the important thing that gets lost with some of these business owners who are very upset with us is it's the whole picture that counts.”
“I think my dad did legal work for someone who had a Packard Bell 8088, and they couldn't pay him, so they gave him a computer. I was initially not allowed to touch it, but that didn't last long. I started tinkering with it, and there were many times I screwed up the computer.”
“There's been resistance to every new technology that's ever been introduced. When books came out hundreds of years ago, there were complaints that it would destroy the oral tradition. Some of those fears were justified, but it didn't stop the rise of the written word. And books have proven to be incredibly useful.”
“You want experimentation. Every once in awhile, you stumble upon something that blows your mind.”
“On mobile, what are the core apps? It's basically messaging, mapping and review data.”
“There are so many businesses that are succeeding on Yelp that don't pay us a dollar, and we're really excited about that.”
“When Yelp first took off, our rankings on Google would fluctuate wildly.”