Under pressure to grow, Quora moves into the publishing blogs

The startup was the darling of Silicon Valley when it was founded by two early Facebook Inc employees, Adam D'Angelo and Charles Cheever, who vowed to revolutionize how human knowledge is shared by tapping the power of the Internet masses.

Despite being a free service, Quora raised $50 million - including $20 million put forward by D'Angelo himself and millions more from former Facebook director Peter Thiel - in the heady months leading up to Facebook's initial public offering in 2012 that reportedly valued the company at a hefty $400 million.

But questions have mounted over when or how Quora will finally begin to make money, whether through selling advertising or subscriptions. In September, rumors about tensions within the company bubbled up when Cheever announced he would step back from day-to-day operations.

Bodnick said the company recognized the need for revenue but dismissed the notion that the 50-person, Mountain View, California-based startup was under any pressure.

"We know we're going to need to make money and we do have some intriguing ideas around that," Bodnick said. He added that the ideas were "advertising-oriented" but did not elaborate.

"We're really just getting bigger right now and not focused on monetizing," he said. "We're fine. Our investors are super supportive of the approach we're taking."

Although it has been widely praised for the quality of its user contributions - former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has volunteered thoughts on the Japanese economic malaise, for instance - there

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