The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table Before Facebook Existed: The TRUE Story of the First Social Network (10M Users in 1997!)
Mar 19, 2026
Andrew Weinreich, serial entrepreneur who founded SixDegrees.com and holds foundational social networking patents. He recounts creating the first large social network, patenting the social graph, and scaling to millions in the dial-up era. Conversations dive into why photos and tech limits mattered, fundraising struggles, how platforms defend themselves, messaging evolution, and which tech frontiers are ripe for reinvention.
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Founding SixDegrees And The First Social Network
- Andrew Weinreich founded SixDegrees by quitting his job, maxing out credit cards, and building a contacts database to show first and second-degree connections.
- He wrote the original patent defining a social network and claims SixDegrees reached ~10 million users before being sold in 1999.
Why Tech Trends Make Or Break Social Features
- Major social platforms depend on larger tech trends like phone cameras and high-speed connectivity to unlock key features such as profile photos.
- Weinreich explains photo adoption stalled until digital cameras on phones and broadband made uploading ubiquitous.
Users Mailed Photos Before Phones Made Them Digital
- Early SixDegrees users mailed physical photos to be digitized because most people lacked digital cameras and high-speed upload paths.
- Weinreich considered a manual assembly line to scan mailed photos before phones with cameras and broadband emerged.
