This is an insightful article about Friendster, the hottest internet startup since the dot com bubble, and how it did not make it.

They did everything according to the plan — they hired the best and the brightest, and sometimes that may be wrong, not when they cannot work together, or they come with different agendas.

They got the best VCs involved - maybe that was wrong too.  The lesson is that for you as an entrepreneur, you have to understand that your interest may not jived with the VC.  For a present $5 million business, you would rather go for the 80% chance of it being a $20 million business 5 years from now, while a VC may want to accelerate it, and would be happy to throw the dice for a 20% chance of it being a $200 million business.  And that may insure you will get burned, and flamed out.

How to Kill a Great Idea - Jonathan Abrams - Friendster - Socializr

Jonathan Abrams created the first online social network and enlisted Silicon Valleys best and brightest to run it. Yet Friendster flamed out spectacularly. What went wrong?