I don’t know if Quora is in trouble or not, but my instincts tell me something is wrong. I’ve been fixing companies for so long that you develop a nose for trouble. I believe I know the root cause already and I’d bet good money on it too. I can smell it!

It was Hemingway who wrote in a conversation between two characters, “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

I’m relatively new to Quora, at just three years and five months, but I’ve been a part of it long enough to feel like I’m witnessing the “gradually” part. The “suddenly” part may or may not happen, but it’s feeling like its out there lurking like a coyote watching an injured mouse.

I love Quora and want it to survive, but sometimes, you have to let a culture crash before it can survive. I think we’re watching that right now.

In my opinion, Quora has a monetization dilemma because the advertisement value of the Quora audience is so low. The site is mostly made up of foreign eyeballs, usually from very poor countries who are looking for real answers. They can’t afford to buy what Quora’s ads sell. Even when we offer events for free, the participation from several other strong contributors is reported to be very low. I can’t imagine advertising on Quora with much effectiveness.

We’ve tested some concepts to get a reaction from “followers” and the numbers are so low, it tells us that followers, once followers, don’t come back to Quora all that often. They had their question answered, so why come back? Quora is best for those who are perpetually inquisitive. Yet, Quora doesn’t appear to respect writers and steady contributors.

Signs of an immature management team; shoving change at your most loyal customers without asking their opinion first.

Quora appears to be packed with sock puppets who spam Spaces at an ever-increasing rate while it seems like Quora is doing very little to fight them off. As a user, I get the strong impression the sock puppets are winning, and Quora needs the numbers, even if they are harmful to us users.

Most of the great writers I was following on Quora stopped contributing. Quora in my opinion is very disloyal to its core authors who spend a minimum of an hour a day on the platform.

One prolific Quora author in the entrepreneurial space posts dozens of answers a day, a volume no single human could achieve, and I doubt Quora ever suspects he’s using a low-cost content farm to write and post his trite, thin-on-substance answers. Yet, he’s grown a large following. All on air. That doesn’t help the brand. Of course Quora allows it, on the surface, the numbers look good!

I suspect Quora is managed by a very immature senior team that’s thin on both life and management experience, and because so, they lack the awareness to know the difference between their changes and meaningful solutions. It’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect on full display, unskilled and unaware of it.

I say “immature” because, when I was invited to participate in a Quora event, it came with a threat of banning people who behaved badly on the call. I couldn’t imagine a business meeting where as a part of the invitation I had to make a point that someone would be banned if they didn’t behave on the call. It’s screamed of kids managing kids. In all my years hosting meetings of all sizes, I’ve never had to make threats.

I have a workable solution for Quora’s leadership, but the problem remains, there is no avenue for communication. It’s not like you can write a solution that gets to management without navigating their significant political layers. How do I know that? It’s obvious by how they write. It’s just another clue.