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> Thee very first email has been lost to time. As he said in an NPR interview from 2009, they were just random strings of text. As usual, technical people easi
by cantrevealname 11y ago
> Thee very first email has been lost to time. As he said in an NPR interview from 2009, they were just random strings of text.
As usual, technical people easily miss the marketing value of sound bites. He should have invented a clever and catchy story about the first email.
Technical people will immediately say that you can't do that because that would a lie, forgetting the thousand "lies" that we are all complicit in (Santa Claus, tooth fairy, "your tie/haircut looks nice", "sorry, I don't have any change to give you").
EBay founder Omidyar said that eBay was invented to trade Pez dispensers, a story he's now admitted is completely false, but no one seems to be too worked up over that. Apparently Omidyar understands the difference between a lie (has an actual negative effect on someone) and marketing fluff (makes for an interesting story but is just trivia).
For such an influential person--in the sense that he had a huge impact on the world--Tomlinson is completely unknown. I'm guessing that his financial reward for inventing email was essentially nothing as well.
- timthorn 11y ago> Technical people will immediately say that you can't do that because that would a lie. Technical people, and people with integrity.
- cantrevealname 11y agoSo you're calling Pierre Omidyar a _______? Did you tell your kids about Santa Claus? Did your parents tell you about Santa Claus? Does it follow that you or your parents lack integrity? The world is not truth vs lies. There's more nuance. This illustrates why many brilliant technical people lacking marketing sense are relegated to obscurity.
- setpatchaddress 11y agofluffer
- umanwizard 11y ago> Did you tell your kids about Santa Claus? I don't have kids, and if I ever do, I'll tell them Santa is a fun legend people like to play along with, but that it isn't real. > Did your parents tell you about Santa Claus? Yes, but by the time my sister was born, they had changed their tune to what I describe above, and she didn't seem to suffer any development ill effects, still enjoyed Christmas, etc.
- poweribo 11y agowait till you have kids then. tell them the whole world is made of lies. start em young.
- biftek 11y agoSome people also just do things because they love doing them. Not everything needs to be monetized and optimized for ROI.
- umanwizard 11y agoI'd hate to live in a world where people only work on cool projects to get rich. Sometimes comments on HN make me worried that we're heading that direction.