35 year old Adam D’Angelo was the chief technology officer at Facebook until his departure in 2008, when he decided to leave and start his own website, Quora. Quora is a question-and-answer website where anyone can ask any question and receive an answer from another user.

Something I find exemplary about Adam D’Angelo is that he was willing to take that (entrepreneurial) risk to leave a large, rapidly emerging company to try something new of his own. This is a very risky move because he held quite a high position in the company and left it all to start something new and unknown.

I think Adam D’Angelo is driven by the excitement and innovation of creating something new and also providing something new to people that solves a problem for them. His idea for Quora was innovative and solved the problem or not having answers to questions on the internet. Sure, you can search your question on the internet but you might not be able to find the exact answer you need, just a general answer. Quora allows everyone’s questions to be in one place with many specific answers to your question.

Adam D’Angelo exhibits many entrepreneurial traits. He shows risk, passion, innovation, excitement, determination, and many other traits of an entrepreneur. The risk to leave his good position to pursue a new goal, the passion to create something never done before, the innovation to think and push towards something new and creative, the determination to find the success he wanted to achieve.

Adam D’Angelo inspire me because he shows that sometimes to you have to remove yourself from your comfort zone to reach out and expand on horizons that haven’t been touched yet. Although a question-and-answer website may seem like it would fade away, D’Angelo has kept it lively and it continues to expand and grow. I’ve learned quite a bit from this entrepreneur and that’s why I think he is an important figure and someone we could all learn something from.