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Provocative ideas are critical to discovering truths that consensus won't find. The reason Facebook (and many successful tech companies) is successful is becau

Provocative ideas are critical to discovering truths that consensus won't find. The reason Facebook (and many successful tech companies) is successful is because they relentlessly experiment and iterate, killing off ideas that don't gain traction while embracing those that do. Often times the ideas that do get traction are unexpected, but revealed because of a culture that allows any idea to be thrown into the dialogue. If you can't say something provocative without fear of it later coming back to haunt you, folks will be less likely to raise uncomfortable, or non-consensus, ideas. This will lead to less innovation. It's also okay if it's wrong. And if it is wrong, folks should be willing to push back. That's how a high-functioning, ideas driven organizations thrives.

heavenlyblue 9y ago
Theranos have innovated themselves to oblivion. We must learn that there's a definite line between innovating and blatantly generating noise for the sake of new noise (also supported by inverstors).
- bkohlmann 9y ago
  Societal utility is a weighted average. Any worthwhile process will have positive and negative outcomes. Those that endure will provide greater upside than downside. I believe that a process where any idea is given consideration is preferable to one in which ideas are suppressed. We need all the "bad" ideas to discover the "good" ones.
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    A process where any idea is always given consideration is naturally highly vulnerable to sybil attacks. For example, there's a reason why once upon a time we had agreed (as a society) to never accept any new potents for perpetual motion machines - because the only ideas that were left are the bad ones, and we can prove it. Now if there comes a time in history when the laws of physics suddenly discover something new - we may re-approach our decision. But I don't think many educated people believe it's going to happen anytime soon.
    - bkohlmann 9y ago
      That's the point though - we only know that perpetual motion machines are not yet possible because nearly every testable idea we've come up yields nothing. Our system is better for allowing, and dismissing, bad ideas than never allowing them at all.
      - mrgordon 9y ago
        I'm not sure where you're going with this. Facebook allowed these terrible ideas to proliferate which is why we have lost our privacy and rights to "subtle language" and "questionable policies." Now people are acting like the choice is between allowing these ideas or not allowing them. In reality, its much more nuanced. It turns out a lot of people think the ideas are horrible, offensive, and immoral. Thus Facebook can continue to embrace these ideas and lose employees and public respect, or they can not embrace these ideas and hopefully recover some reputation. It isn't about "disallowing" these ideas. Its about not building a business around screwing people over if you don't want to be known for screwing people over. Something can be allowed without memos from top ranking managers dictating that this is the way the business runs (and will run in the future in China)
  - bkohlmann 9y ago
    I'm perplexed by the downvotes. So I can refine my understanding, I'd love to know where I'm thinking incorrectly. Here is what I think are the possible counters to what I proposed: 1) Societal utility is NOT a weighted average - namely, an acceptable outcome will only have positive externalities. 2) Processes in which ideas are suppressed are in general preferable to those in which ideas can be unconstrained 3) We can discover the full set of "good" ideas without being exposed to "bad" ideas Where else is the disagreement coming from? What are your insights that lead you to reject what I've proposed?
- epmaybe 9y ago
  This seems incorrect because as far as I know Theranos didn't innovate. Their machines didn't work, did they?
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    How do you tell Theranos from not-Theranos before you'd invested a bunch of money in them? As far as we know there were quite a few large players in the industry who were uninterested in Theranos - which means they have rejected their ideas before the ideas came into living.
- BlackFingolfin 9y ago
  Innovated? More like blatantly lied and committed fraud, I'd say
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    So you'd agree with the fact that sometimes calling someone on their bullshit before giving them money is a viable strategy? I had to put "innovated" in quotation marks - I meant it in a symbolic way: "innovation is what Theranos were selling to their investors and then they either realised they could not deliver or they have blatantly lied from the beginning".
cryptoz 9y ago
> The reason Facebook ... is successful I think it's much too early (and much too close-minded) to call Facebook successful. Yes they have made a lot of money already, but their story is just beginning and it's a big eager to call Facebook a success. Facebook is Public Enemy #1 right now, and for good reason. Success is defined by more than Money - and even at that, Facebook's not shown success in its stock price recently anyhow. Facebook is not a success. Facebook has been used to systematically dismantle democracy and to fuel fear and hatred and lies into the American population at large scale. Facebook does emotional experiments on you without your direct knowledge or any outside influence. Facebook has been hell-bent on testing to see if it can make hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously depressed. They can do that and they are proud of it. All the money in the world doesn't turn Facebook into a success. It is a moral pit of hell and will never been seen as "successful" by most people or hopefully anyone.
- bkohlmann 9y ago
  My definition of success in this context is attracting around 25% of the entire human population to it's platform.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    Your definition of success in this context is purely about the number of people involved? That doesn't make sense and is extremely scary. Is Donald Trump also a success, since he got nearly 100% of the world talking about him and paying attention to him? There is a lot more to success than attention and time and adoring fans spending their life using your services and talking about you. If that is your definition of success, then humanity will "success" its way to death faster than ever with such successful people like Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump uniting us all. These are not successful people. They are plagues on society and the attention they get from billions of people is harmful, not an indicator or even the defining metric of success. Edit: In response to the comment below (since I am no longer allowed to post on HN, maybe too many downvotes?) > Donald Trump, Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg are highly successful. Really? It doesn't seem to me like any of them have met their goals yet or are even remotely close. Maybe we should ask them what their goals are? Donald sounds 100% miserable every day. Was it his goal to be so upset and miserable all the time? Facebook and Mark sound equally sad and messed up and dealing with major major issues that would make any person feel like they're doing really hard things and are nowhere near success.
marricks 9y ago
Is this "don't worry we're mature enough to police ourselves"? This is of public importance when Facebook decided to have such lax privacy policies as to allow the CA leak to occur. I think what's good for the public is important to consider, hopefully more than what's just good for Facebook and their shareholders.
jonbarker 9y ago
Agreed. In addition, tech companies are successful because they enter into mostly unregulated markets (this is a truism of new markets in general, govts can't predict where new markets will pop up so they aren't regulated when they do). Regulation and experimentation are kind of inherently at odds. Unfortunately what we are learning about FB is that regulation probably should have happened when the CEO started referring to his company as a utility.
fongelias 9y ago
It seems like a poor lie in this case though, doesn't it? His statement doesn't say "let's talk about this", but he is specifically saying that the ends justify the means. And provocative is important, but I would be surprised if employees didn't agree that "Facebook causing bullying or terrorism" is a bad thing.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

heavenlyblue 9y ago

Theranos have innovated themselves to oblivion. We must learn that there's a definite line between innovating and blatantly generating noise for the sake of new noise (also supported by inverstors).

bkohlmann 9y ago
Societal utility is a weighted average. Any worthwhile process will have positive and negative outcomes. Those that endure will provide greater upside than downside. I believe that a process where any idea is given consideration is preferable to one in which ideas are suppressed. We need all the "bad" ideas to discover the "good" ones.
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  A process where any idea is always given consideration is naturally highly vulnerable to sybil attacks. For example, there's a reason why once upon a time we had agreed (as a society) to never accept any new potents for perpetual motion machines - because the only ideas that were left are the bad ones, and we can prove it. Now if there comes a time in history when the laws of physics suddenly discover something new - we may re-approach our decision. But I don't think many educated people believe it's going to happen anytime soon.
  - bkohlmann 9y ago
    That's the point though - we only know that perpetual motion machines are not yet possible because nearly every testable idea we've come up yields nothing. Our system is better for allowing, and dismissing, bad ideas than never allowing them at all.
    - mrgordon 9y ago
      I'm not sure where you're going with this. Facebook allowed these terrible ideas to proliferate which is why we have lost our privacy and rights to "subtle language" and "questionable policies." Now people are acting like the choice is between allowing these ideas or not allowing them. In reality, its much more nuanced. It turns out a lot of people think the ideas are horrible, offensive, and immoral. Thus Facebook can continue to embrace these ideas and lose employees and public respect, or they can not embrace these ideas and hopefully recover some reputation. It isn't about "disallowing" these ideas. Its about not building a business around screwing people over if you don't want to be known for screwing people over. Something can be allowed without memos from top ranking managers dictating that this is the way the business runs (and will run in the future in China)
- bkohlmann 9y ago
  I'm perplexed by the downvotes. So I can refine my understanding, I'd love to know where I'm thinking incorrectly. Here is what I think are the possible counters to what I proposed: 1) Societal utility is NOT a weighted average - namely, an acceptable outcome will only have positive externalities. 2) Processes in which ideas are suppressed are in general preferable to those in which ideas can be unconstrained 3) We can discover the full set of "good" ideas without being exposed to "bad" ideas Where else is the disagreement coming from? What are your insights that lead you to reject what I've proposed?
epmaybe 9y ago
This seems incorrect because as far as I know Theranos didn't innovate. Their machines didn't work, did they?
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  How do you tell Theranos from not-Theranos before you'd invested a bunch of money in them? As far as we know there were quite a few large players in the industry who were uninterested in Theranos - which means they have rejected their ideas before the ideas came into living.
BlackFingolfin 9y ago
Innovated? More like blatantly lied and committed fraud, I'd say
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  So you'd agree with the fact that sometimes calling someone on their bullshit before giving them money is a viable strategy? I had to put "innovated" in quotation marks - I meant it in a symbolic way: "innovation is what Theranos were selling to their investors and then they either realised they could not deliver or they have blatantly lied from the beginning".

cryptoz 9y ago

> The reason Facebook ... is successful I think it's much too early (and much too close-minded) to call Facebook successful. Yes they have made a lot of money already, but their story is just beginning and it's a big eager to call Facebook a success. Facebook is Public Enemy #1 right now, and for good reason. Success is defined by more than Money - and even at that, Facebook's not shown success in its stock price recently anyhow. Facebook is not a success. Facebook has been used to systematically dismantle democracy and to fuel fear and hatred and lies into the American population at large scale. Facebook does emotional experiments on you without your direct knowledge or any outside influence. Facebook has been hell-bent on testing to see if it can make hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously depressed. They can do that and they are proud of it. All the money in the world doesn't turn Facebook into a success. It is a moral pit of hell and will never been seen as "successful" by most people or hopefully anyone.

bkohlmann 9y ago
My definition of success in this context is attracting around 25% of the entire human population to it's platform.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  Your definition of success in this context is purely about the number of people involved? That doesn't make sense and is extremely scary. Is Donald Trump also a success, since he got nearly 100% of the world talking about him and paying attention to him? There is a lot more to success than attention and time and adoring fans spending their life using your services and talking about you. If that is your definition of success, then humanity will "success" its way to death faster than ever with such successful people like Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump uniting us all. These are not successful people. They are plagues on society and the attention they get from billions of people is harmful, not an indicator or even the defining metric of success. Edit: In response to the comment below (since I am no longer allowed to post on HN, maybe too many downvotes?) > Donald Trump, Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg are highly successful. Really? It doesn't seem to me like any of them have met their goals yet or are even remotely close. Maybe we should ask them what their goals are? Donald sounds 100% miserable every day. Was it his goal to be so upset and miserable all the time? Facebook and Mark sound equally sad and messed up and dealing with major major issues that would make any person feel like they're doing really hard things and are nowhere near success.

marricks 9y ago

Is this "don't worry we're mature enough to police ourselves"? This is of public importance when Facebook decided to have such lax privacy policies as to allow the CA leak to occur. I think what's good for the public is important to consider, hopefully more than what's just good for Facebook and their shareholders.

jonbarker 9y ago

Agreed. In addition, tech companies are successful because they enter into mostly unregulated markets (this is a truism of new markets in general, govts can't predict where new markets will pop up so they aren't regulated when they do). Regulation and experimentation are kind of inherently at odds. Unfortunately what we are learning about FB is that regulation probably should have happened when the CEO started referring to his company as a utility.

fongelias 9y ago

It seems like a poor lie in this case though, doesn't it? His statement doesn't say "let's talk about this", but he is specifically saying that the ends justify the means. And provocative is important, but I would be surprised if employees didn't agree that "Facebook causing bullying or terrorism" is a bad thing.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]