As a kid, I harbored this fantasy of starting a company. I looked at the entrepreneur column in Forbes. I looked at it every month and thought, 'I want to be that guy.'

You want experimentation. Every once in awhile, you stumble upon something that blows your mind.

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.

I've been through a couple of mergers - they're not that fun. And it's easy to lose your focus on this grandiose mission you established for yourself as an independent company.

About every year or two, there is a moment of truth where there's some new development in the marketplace, some new technology, some sort of existential crisis. You just have to be vigilant about looking out for those moments.

When Yelp first took off, our rankings on Google would fluctuate wildly.