Jeremy Stoppelman (2013)

There has never been any amount of money you could pay us to manipulate reviews. We do have an algorithm that highlights the most useful and reliable reviews on our site which is about 75% of contributed content. I started Yelp to solve my own need of finding a great doctor, obviously we needed to protect consumer against fake reviews and spam to make sure the site is actually helpful (anyone remember CitySearch?). That's why we pioneered the development of a review filter, a technology that other competitors like Google have since tried to mimic.

Absolutely not. I should have done it years ago, keep the questions coming!

Yes. This was recently examined in an HBS study. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2293164 (See section 3.4) ... You can also run a test yourself on Google to see if advertisers are given preferential treatment. For example: https://www.google.com/#q=site%3Ayelp.com%2Fbiz+%22yelp+sponsor%22+AND+%22this+place+sucks%22 (Why are these advertisers not "deleting" the negative reviews if this is a feature they've supposedly paid for?)

I assume you're talking about the compensation for a local sales rep? There is commission on top of that, 30k is just the base.

Certainly shady businesses or "reputation management" firms do sometimes try to buy reviews. However we are constantly pursuing them with our own undercover sting operations. When we find businesses guilty of trying to purchase reviews we warn consumers by posting a consumer alert on their page and revealing the evidence http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/technology/yelp-tries-to-halt-deceptive-reviews.html

You're welcome. What'd you have for breakfast???

Coffee, 2 eggs, and half a cantaloupe.

1. Not true. In fact, millions of businesses don't us pay a dime and have fantastic reviews (only ~57,000 of the ~20 Million listed on Yelp pay us) as you browse around the site you'll see reviews on any popular place. Word-of-mouth amplified at no charge.
2. We have a review algorithm that filters approximately 25% of contributed content automatically. We started our work on this in 2005 as soon as the site took off to ensure that the reviews consumers were reading were as reliable as possible. This idea and technology is something our competitors are now mimicking (hi Googlers!)
3. We use techniques similar to the way PayPal detects fraudulent payments or Palantir may have found Osama Bin Laden (hint mining big data).

It used to be Burma Superstar until they had a bit of an "E. Coli problem" :S

Internally we refer to the Yelp community as "the source" (lifted from the newspaper world's - protect your source) which means we must protect and nourish the community lest we lose everything. Without Yelpers there is no company.

For me joining a fast growing startup (X.com which merged with Confinity/PayPal) gave me invaluable experience both in coding and later engineering management. I also built an incredible network of colleagues and saw the entire company lifecycle from young promising startup to public co. I think if you can spend a few years at a fast grower with a great "promote from within" culture that's a good risk-reward balance. The Zuck and Gates undergrad dropout approach is certainly a risky one. I dropped out of business school, don't think that really counts ;)

There is the story of a business owner who decided to swing by a reviewer's home to "discuss" a review, but ended up leaving with the police instead. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100201/youve-been-yelped.html Another very public example of the wrong approach to candid feedback would be Amy's Baking Company in Phoenix, a recent star of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares and the first business Gordon has ever quit on http://www.businessinsider.com/kitchen-nightmares-amys-baking-company-2013-5. As for Pop Tarts, I already mentioned I was anti-sugar so I guess it'd have to be kale and whole wheat... do they make those?

My best guess as to why so many folks from the early days of PayPal (the so called "PayPal Mafia") went on to great success was because while most Internet companies tanked in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble, PayPal succeeded alongside eBay. So a number of talented people learned how to build and grow websites, got capital, and were ready to do it again from around 2002-2005 a time when few others were working on entrepreneurial endeavors. Max Levchin gave Yelp it's first million dollars, so yeah the Mafia ended up being critical to Yelp's creation. Also a number of our first hires were Paypal people too.

This one I got from PayPal, but I'm a strong believer in doing 1 on 1 meetings with each of my reports every week. Sometimes I feel like the company's psychiatrist, but I do feel like listening to people and hearing about their problems (personal and professional) cleans out the cobwebs and keeps the organization humming.

Short, memorable, and rhymes with help. http://www.quora.com/Yelp/How-did-Yelp-get-its-name

Have to say this particular listing sticks out in my mind. Here's a particularly noteworthy review about Bicycle Shorts Man: http://www.yelp.com/biz/bicycle-shorts-man-atlanta#hrid:_N_QKPOcF5o3CNLg5HJvKA

I guess the biggest surprise is how little has changed. I still spend a ton of time with product and engineering, we do seem to get a lot more press attention these days, but perhaps most fortunately I haven't had to invest a lot of time with Wall Street (if you pardon the pun)... our CFO Rob Krolik handles most of that.