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> Based on the last 1-2 years of companies, the success rate of YC companies is the highest it's ever been. But what constitutes a “successful” outcome? I assu

> Based on the last 1-2 years of companies, the success rate of YC companies is the highest it's ever been. But what constitutes a “successful” outcome? I assume it is not merely a monetary measure, because as we know, just because something is financially successful doesn’t mean it’s good for us or for the planet. These days it’s even debatable if Facebook should be considered a success (for anyone except Mark Zuckerberg). So what is the measure of success? And can you really make an estimation of that 1-2 years after founding, as you have done?

xiphias2 8y ago
Facebook is one of the most successful companies in the last 10 years by any possible metric. The fact that you like it or not doesn't change whether it's successful or not.
- deleted 8y ago
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- ferrelty 8y ago
  I know several very early employees (first 20) who, other than the financial windfall they received, regret that the company became what it is now.
  - badcede 8y ago
    Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln?
- egypturnash 8y ago
  It's pretty successful at decreasing the happiness of people who use it. And pretty successful as a targeted propaganda delivery network. Also pretty successful at pushing people towards briefer, shittier, and less-nuanced discussions of things that matter, though not as successful at that as Twitter. And pretty successful at wedging ads into every possible corner of the portion of the public discussion commons that it has taken over. All of these things have made Facebook a lot of money but there is definitely an argument to be made that Facebook has decreased the Gross National Happiness[1] of both the US and the world in general. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness
  - solveit 8y ago
    I agree with everything else, but have people shown causation for >It's pretty successful at decreasing the happiness of people who use it. this? Because unhappiness and facebook use is obviously going to correlate for reasons that have nothing to do with facebook being bad, and I think Facebook is a valuable enough tool for maintaining relationships that I'm skeptical it would outright decrease happiness (on the individual level. Society as a whole I find much more plausible).
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    I'm sure the happiness of people decreased over the last 10 years, but I believe that it's because of the bigger division between rich and poor people. Personally I'm not a fan of Facebook, as I saw my home city (Budapest) becoming from a nice livable city to a tourist destination / loud party / get drunk fast city between 2008 and 2010 (and it hasn't gone back), and I believe Facebook took part in that (of course later AirBnB helped, but AirBnB was much smaller in that point). As for other effects, like making people less connected in real life, and more through computers, it has good and bad side effects, I'm torn whether things got better or worse. (Also I don't post too often to Facebook, so I'm not a good person to judge it).
    - orbifold 8y ago
      For what it’s worth I visited Budapest after your indicated timeframe and we still thought that it would be a very nice place to live.
- yesenadam 8y ago
  >by any possible metric So..you imagined a few metrics and wrote "any possible metric"? Ok, so you were exaggerating.. I will try to imagine some metrics FB may not be the most successful in: companies that did the least evil, percentage of users that unreservedly loved the product, percentage of users that felt exploited, percentage of users that felt the product was better than 10 years previously, percentage of users that trusted the product, etc.
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xiphias2 8y ago

Facebook is one of the most successful companies in the last 10 years by any possible metric. The fact that you like it or not doesn't change whether it's successful or not.

deleted 8y ago
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ferrelty 8y ago
I know several very early employees (first 20) who, other than the financial windfall they received, regret that the company became what it is now.
- badcede 8y ago
  Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln?
egypturnash 8y ago
It's pretty successful at decreasing the happiness of people who use it. And pretty successful as a targeted propaganda delivery network. Also pretty successful at pushing people towards briefer, shittier, and less-nuanced discussions of things that matter, though not as successful at that as Twitter. And pretty successful at wedging ads into every possible corner of the portion of the public discussion commons that it has taken over. All of these things have made Facebook a lot of money but there is definitely an argument to be made that Facebook has decreased the Gross National Happiness[1] of both the US and the world in general. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness
- solveit 8y ago
  I agree with everything else, but have people shown causation for >It's pretty successful at decreasing the happiness of people who use it. this? Because unhappiness and facebook use is obviously going to correlate for reasons that have nothing to do with facebook being bad, and I think Facebook is a valuable enough tool for maintaining relationships that I'm skeptical it would outright decrease happiness (on the individual level. Society as a whole I find much more plausible).
- xiphias2 8y ago
  I'm sure the happiness of people decreased over the last 10 years, but I believe that it's because of the bigger division between rich and poor people. Personally I'm not a fan of Facebook, as I saw my home city (Budapest) becoming from a nice livable city to a tourist destination / loud party / get drunk fast city between 2008 and 2010 (and it hasn't gone back), and I believe Facebook took part in that (of course later AirBnB helped, but AirBnB was much smaller in that point). As for other effects, like making people less connected in real life, and more through computers, it has good and bad side effects, I'm torn whether things got better or worse. (Also I don't post too often to Facebook, so I'm not a good person to judge it).
  - orbifold 8y ago
    For what it’s worth I visited Budapest after your indicated timeframe and we still thought that it would be a very nice place to live.
yesenadam 8y ago
>by any possible metric So..you imagined a few metrics and wrote "any possible metric"? Ok, so you were exaggerating.. I will try to imagine some metrics FB may not be the most successful in: companies that did the least evil, percentage of users that unreservedly loved the product, percentage of users that felt exploited, percentage of users that felt the product was better than 10 years previously, percentage of users that trusted the product, etc.
- deleted 8y ago
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