If not wrong, it's really simplistic (probably for the sake of this news piece). I just finished listening to the Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. It is a

If not wrong, it's really simplistic (probably for the sake of this news piece). I just finished listening to the Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. It is a really good account of Facebook's history. It shows just how uncertain things were in the beginning. There were loads of little decisions along the way which made Facebook what it is. Zuckerberg, no doubt, turned out to be a visionary. But even he wasn't sure Facebook would last long, so he was hedging his bets with Wirehog. Before Facebook, he was already experimenting with random hacks. When he saw Facebook absolutely exploded as soon as he put it out, he doubled down on it. Wouldn't any hacker do that? I think Facebook's success lies in Zuck's ability to rally top people around him and to keep them focused on one vision, even when he's not clear what that vision is. Just "something big" seems to work until you figure out what it is. This news story probably doesn't do justice to Ting's story, but did he really give up without even a hard fight? Who said becoming a billionaire was easy? Edit: The coolest thing about listening to the book for me was that I found an old school friend of mine was a key early hire at Facebook. I hadn't spoken to her in years, but it was so cool to connect with her again. Of course, via Facebook.