(h/t to shakespierce…)

Jonathan Abrams raked down $13million in VC cash for a stake in Friendster (YASN). The safe bet would have been the $30million that Google was offering. This is a story that’s two or three years out of date but it seems to have grown legs because Google bought YouTube. The cultural poverty, the lack of imagination implicit in riding that Silly Valley merry-go-round, stretching out for the brass ring, over and over, trying to get rich from the business side… that’s what the NYT River of Cluelessness story is about today. It’s not about the fun Abrams had genning up a big social network enterprise in the days when YASN was a new acronym. It’s not about the staying power of useful products and services. It’s simply about the brass ring and the lionization of windfall success.

Any analyst worth her salt knew the potential and the limits of Friendster two or three years ago. The story of Abrams $13million payday remains a nice success story. Belittling the accomplishment because Google-power could have left him enormously better off is shoddy story telling.