Josh Silverman

Pressure gives perspective. Once you get used to the idea that new competitors regularly launch, you can take comfort in another fact: Rivals come and go. Tuesday's weight-of-the-world decision will be dwarfed by the heft of Thursday's decision, so just wait!

Why does your work matter given the pace of life today?

I feel good about our mission because we're trying to get people to spend more time together -- not online, but offline. Email and chat-room discussions pull people further apart. We want to give people the tools to manage face-to-face communication. Consider this: The reason I don't see my friends on Friday night isn't because I can't possibly break away from work at 9 p.m. God knows I can. What I can't do is spend time on Tuesday and Wednesday calling around to coordinate plans for Friday night.

From your perspective, are companies in Silicon Valley built to flip or built to last?

This town used to be about building lasting companies to conceive great technology to market. It used to be about real zealots who had a meaningful product. It used to be about sustainability. Some argue that now it's about making a quick buck. To some extent that's true, but there's still plenty of religion here. Case in point: my company. People are here because they love what we're building, and because they stand behind our mission. And Evite is here for the long run.

Sure there are companies built to flip, but I don't know if you ever build a great company that way -- one that really inspires people. You can't get great people on your team unless you inspire them. It's got to be more than just the money.

What's one big lesson you've learned as a CEO of a Valley startup?

Stay focused. It's so easy to lose clarity in today's environment, and to get swayed by the industry's flavor of the week. A quote over my desk reads, "If you make a decision, the whole world conspires to make it true." We decided early on that Evite represents a whole new market. That resolute decision was the first step in taking real action on a single vision -- something larger than any one of us.

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