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Mark Zuckerberg: I Donated to Diaspora project
- xexers 16y agoIt's not that crazy. Some companies thrive with competition. Microsoft enjoys having apple as competition and vice-versa. Microsoft bailed apple out a little over a decade ago for that exact reason. Zuckerberg is very competitive. I'm sure he wants the competition to step up and give him a run for his money.
- Anechoic 16y agoMicrosoft enjoys having apple as competition and vice-versa. Microsoft bailed apple out a little over a decade ago for that exact reason. No, Microsoft "invested" in Apple to settle the potential multi-billion dollar lawsuit Apple was threatening to file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
- greyman 16y agoOr if they come up with something innovative, he can quickly copy it into FB.
- brown9-2 16y agoEven if it's true, stating it in an interview like this just comes off as trying to sound cool.
- tedunangst 16y agoYeah, a better answer to the asked question would have been "Sorry, I'd really like to comment, but I can't without sounding cool."
- scott_s 16y agoNot to me. He was explicitly asked what he thought about it. It's natural to say "I donated" if indeed he did.
- griftah 16y agohttp://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1787331560 http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1787331560
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jwegan 16y agoHow is that quote unfortunate?
- klochner 16y agoAfter making a gesture to prove that he's a nice charitable guy who's interested in seeing Diaspora succeed, he likens it to a project deemed illegal by the CEO of his company.
- coderdude 16y agoI'd hate to be him right now. No matter what he does, people are going to find a way to make it negative.
- omd 16y agoYeah, well deceiving 400 million people will do that to a guy.
- jwegan 16y agoHe likened it to WireHog since both use peer to peer technology with some social networking aspects. WireHog was deemed illegal because it was designed specifically for file sharing. Diaspora is not designed specifically for file sharing and more for information sharing.
- teaspoon 16y agoWhat's the difference between file sharing and information sharing?
- CoryMathews 16y agoJust because its illegal does not mean he did not think it was a cool project.
- oldgregg 16y agoDiaspora needs to be the Dropbox for Facebook (plus any other social network). They need to launch as the diaspora facebook app. P2P with just your friends. The abundance of legitimate uses provides a legal shield that will allow all kinds of files to be traded freely and you're carving out a niche that facebook can't compete with.
- Jun8 16y agoReading his responses, he doesn't come off as the money-hungry psychopath that he was claimed to be. Either he knows how to hide his agenda very well, or, well, he's just your usual young founder.
- qq66 16y agoNo majorly successful founder-CEO is "in it for the money." If he wanted to just buy Lamborghinis and penthouses, he would have sold the company for $1 billion several years ago. Anyone like Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Ellison, etc. are in it for the power, megalomania, and manifest destiny -- not for the money.
- silkodyssey 16y agoThe 11 Companies That Tried To Buy Facebook http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-tried-to-buy-facebook-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t...
- nellboy 16y agoWhat annoys me about it is that this meglomaniac is actually defining how we communicate with eachother online. What effect does this have on people's mentality? .. my guess is at least some!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- orblivion 16y ago
- charlesju 16y agoJust like how Apple's iAd initiative allowed Google to close the AdMob acquisition, Diaspora will inadvertently give an outlet for pundits looking for a privacy/open alternative to Facebook, giving them more flexibility to be aggressive in their growth strategy. Not to mention it makes him look generous. It's a brilliant move.
- orblivion 16y agoSo I don’t know, one thing that is personally a bit disheartening…. It bums me out that people immediately go to “You must be doing this to make money.” Because that’s just so different from the ethos of the company. It is so different from how we actually think about stuff that you feel so misunderstood. It's pretty sad that people think that someone should or ever would run a huge operation without money being a major factor, and it's even more sad and also insidious that Mark is playing along with this fallacy himself.
- tedunangst 16y agoMoney can be a major concern to a huge operation without being its primary focus. Money is a big deal for the Red Cross, but the Red Cross doesn't exist to make money.
- klochner 16y agoThe Red Cross is a non-profit. facebook has a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value: Whereas for-profit organizations exist to earn and re-distribute taxable wealth to employees and shareholders, the nonprofit corporation exists solely to provide programs and services that are of self-benefit.
- celoyd 16y agoNo, it has a legal obligation to do what (the majority of) its shareholders say. If they tell it to dance a jig and give all its assets to the Flat Earth Society, it’s obliged. Maximizing shareholder value in the way that’s usually meant is a business school doctrine, not a legal doctrine. (Edit: on second thought, it is a legal doctrine, just not the legal doctrine.) See, for example, http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf : “Dodge v. Ford is a mistake, a judicial “sport,” a doctrinal oddity largely irrelevant to corporate law and corporate practice. What is more, courts and legislatures alike treat it as irrelevant. […] Only laypersons and (more disturbingly) many law professors continue to rely on Dodge v. Ford.”
- faramarz 16y agoHe's probably one of the people who donated 2k for a box, pre-installed, just to study it. I like this move regardless. it's showing his personality, great PR story too.
- asmosoinio 16y agoOne page view of the whole article: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-interview/all/1 http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-interview/...
- pjscott 16y agoThat's great to hear, but I would be happier if he had said that he wants Facebook to be able to interoperate smoothly with Diaspora (assuming Diaspora goes well), and that he's willing to make that happen.
- zach 16y agoI saw this and wondered if my nutty conspiracy theory might be true. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1345430 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1345430 But reading the interview I don't get that kind of vibe. Which is really too bad because I thought he had real super-villain potential.
- robryan 16y agoI guess it would be a public outcry if they came out and said it is in their interest to have lower privacy to compete in Twitter like real time search and with Google.
- shikind 16y agoIt all just sounds like: "I'm not the bad guy; see? See? This donation proves it." "I'm just like the Diaspora devs. I'm a hip young hacker too! I'm just like them! I'm a good guy too." "Daww, aren't they the cutest things? Making either what I already found wouldn't work, or what did work but what I've already done better." It is cool that he's donated to the project. That said, his responses in the interview just come across as posturing, self-promoting, and some light FUD apropos Diaspora. Not terribly convinced here.