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Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook
- rock_hard 8y agoIs there a official confirmation that he really mentored him? All I saw once is a statement that he knows him
- CydeWeys 8y agoThat'd be a hell of a thing to lie about, and he'd easily be called out and discredited over it. Also, not sure what kind of official confirmation you'd expect in this situation. Facebook isn't going to come out in the wake of this and confirm it, as it'd give it more creedence. You should be watching to see if they deny it.
- tlb 8y agoMcNamee was an early investor in Facebook. I don't doubt the relationship. He's an interesting guy. http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT.asp?id=102 http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT.asp?id=102
- orgop 8y agoRoger's a nice guy and a cool Deadhead, however it's hard to get the guy to stop talking at times. He was interested in a company I created at one point and in the few times we chatted (2-3) he dropped Zuck's name a few too many times in normal conversation. I don't know if it's true or not, but I frequently wondered to what extent he mentored him, like they chatted frequently for a few months? It seemed to me at the time that he was trying to position it as, "would you like to be the next person I mentor post-Zuck?" Lots of weird red flags all-around in those talks, which later fizzled out.
- rock_hard 8y agoyeah, thats exactly what I imagined
- crsmithdev 8y agoA heavily-recycled story that's been making the rounds since at least 2017. No matter, have to keep the outrage machine going to drive traffic!
- jbarciauskas 8y agoHere's the same story from 2017: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/08/my-google-and-facebook-investments-made-fortune-but-now-they-menace/543755001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/08/my-google-... I don't think that makes it less relevant in general, but there's nothing "new" here. There doesn't need to be anything new for the point to still be interesting, but it does reveal something about our bias towards the "new" in our political conversation and analysis.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simmanian 8y agoI'm personally glad the story made to the front page again as I find it very relevant today and I've never read it before.
- txru 8y agoIs it more reasonable to think that this is the beat of a baseless drumhead conspiracy, or that influential people are genuinely changing their minds about very large issues, despite the profitability of keeping silent?
- tripnine 8y agoIf you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to explain to a relative or acquaintance why FB is bad and they just don't get it, point to this article, it'll save a bunch of time. Great articulation that sums up their issues and potential solutions. Sometimes things bear repeating they are so important.
- draw_down 8y agoDisingenuous to claim the problems started in "the past few months", IMO.
- ihateyoutime 8y agoThe piece of sh#t bloatware that is time.com just crashed my phone while loading all the resources to read a text-based article. Go figure.
- smt88 8y agoTry installing Brave on your phone
- michaelmrose 8y agoLooking at it via ublock origin the number of things blocked just keeps on ticking up. At aprox the 1 minute mark its at 108.
- hvs 8y agoI got involved with the company more than a decade ago and have taken great pride and joy in the company’s success … until the past few months. few months? Then you haven't been paying attention or are just as bad as them.
- imjk 8y agoHe says in the next paragraph that that was from an email he sent to Marc and Sheryl before the 2016 election.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tivert 8y agoThe post title was changed from the article title, it should be: "I Mentored Mark Zuckerberg. I Loved Facebook. But I Can't Stay Silent About What's Happening."
- renholder 8y agoAnyone have a GDPR-friendly link? Wayback[0] won't save the site[1], for some reason. =[ [0] - https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://time.com/5505441/mark-zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall//* https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://time.com/5505441/mark-z... [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20190117191830/http://time.com/5505441/mark-zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190117191830/http://time.com/5...
- thg 8y agohttps://outline.com/v8mnmn https://outline.com/v8mnmn
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simmanian 8y agoIs it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.
- CydeWeys 8y agoA benefit corporation perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
- simmanian 8y agoDo you know of any successful and "big" companies that follow the structure?
- smacktoward 8y agoKickstarter does. https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-now-a-benefit-corporation https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-now-a-benefi...
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoBig according to who? Purism is a relevant example[1]. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/purism-now-a-social-purpose-corporation/ https://puri.sm/posts/purism-now-a-social-purpose-corporatio...
- simmanian 8y agoI'm wondering if the next Google can be successful under such a structure, or if it would get outcompeted by a company that treats growth and profit as the only virtue. Companies like Purity is awesome, though.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
- smacktoward 8y ago> Zuck has always believed that connecting everyone on earth was a mission so important that it justified any action necessary to accomplish it. Anytime someone starts telling you that their end is so noble it justifies any means, you should run away from them as fast as you possibly can.
- Barrin92 8y agoIt's no wonder that folks in the valley are so fascinated with AIs running amok and turning the world into a paperclip factory, because apparently that has been Facebooks business model from the start. A very relevant article from Ted Chiang: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-dang... "Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus, oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences? Who adopts a scorched-earth approach to increasing market share? This hypothetical strawberry-picking AI does what every tech startup wishes it could do — grows at an exponential rate and destroys its competitors until it’s achieved an absolute monopoly. The idea of superintelligence is such a poorly defined notion that one could envision it taking almost any form with equal justification: a benevolent genie that solves all the world’s problems, or a mathematician that spends all its time proving theorems so abstract that humans can’t even understand them. But when Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no-holds-barred capitalism."
- simmanian 8y agoI guess in a way, these big valley companies are indeed turning themselves into superintelligent entities that do exactly what folks in the valley worry about.
- solveit 8y agoThis is not new. First it was the militaries and governments, then it was the financial institutions, now it's big tech companies, and eventually it will actually be AI (because firms will use AI to guide their actions). Aligning anything with its stated goals has always been a hard problem, the superintelligent paperclip factory just happens to be sensational enough to grab attention.
- ilovecaching 8y agoI think the right steps are already being taken. Breaking up Facebook would just decentralize the problem up and make it impossible to solve. At least with Facebook everything is in one place, and they have the money and resources to fix things.
- simmanian 8y agoHonestly curious: what steps do you see that are being taken?
- ilovecaching 8y agoThe company is slowing down revenue growth to ramp up more security measures. Zuck seems committed to fixing Facebook even if it hurts near term investments.
- acct1771 8y agoThe data security, while deeply troubling, is not the most troubling thing about FB.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- smsm42 8y agoI'm reading all the time about how fake news on Facebook supposedly influenced the elections, but I haven't heard of any factual confirmation of that. Did it really happen? Did somebody research that? How much influence did they find? I have seen research that says convincing people campaigning is pretty much hopeless - they'd nod to ads they agree with and ignore ones they disagree with, but won't change their minds : https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 Maybe this research is wrong - but I'd like to see any research if Facebook fake news did really have any influence at all.
- avn2109 8y agoThe waters are further muddied by the fact that nobody can agree on a definition of "fake news." It's meaningless, sensational claims all the way down.
- smsm42 8y agoI suspect if we had a workable definition finding any evidence it has had any influence would become even harder.
- kelnos 8y agoSure we do: fake news is the dissemination of incorrect information purporting to be the truth (and not someone's opinion).
- smsm42 8y agoThat's "lying" (if intentional) or "being mistaken" (if sincere). People do it all the time since speech was invented (and probably before that too - I've read about some animals being capable of lying).
- nrb 8y agoIt’s not about changing minds, it’s about making sure people get out the vote by appealing to people’s emotions through misleading statements or outright lies (they are taking away your guns, they are prdophiles!)
- swamy_g 8y agoI first thought it was because FB thought his last name was made up.
- BillSaysThis 8y agoCry me a river. He still owns FB stock and AFAIK has not donated prior profits to charity.