8 ms·

I think Zuck is too full of himself. People often get confused that their success means that they are wise, and that we should listen to them. Should we as well

I think Zuck is too full of himself. People often get confused that their success means that they are wise, and that we should listen to them. Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs?

bitexploder 7y ago
I did have a hard time taking any of what he wrote seriously. It was not thought provoking for me and I felt it wasn’t deep or interesting. It’s interesting in the sense that it is useful to know where FB may be headed, but when I think of Facebook all I see is another advertising company looking for more ways to put ads in front of captive eyeballs.
- nikolay 7y ago
  One thing I can't understand is why Facebook is still around. But, at the same time, Twitter is still around, too. I guess people got tired switching platforms.
  - atdt 7y ago
    The vast majority of users have never known other platforms.
  - paganel 7y ago
    Because they also purchased IG and WhatsApp and because their messaging app is reasonably successful (in parts because they didn’t add groups to IG messaging, otherwise younger folks would have been even more eager to leave FB). As far as I can tell the main FB app/website has been pretty much deserted by younger people.
  - AndrewDucker 7y ago
    If I want to communicate with a bunch of my friends, going back 30 years, it's where I have to go. I could, I guess, go back to running mailing lists or manual methods of keeping track of contact details and sending things directly to people. But short of that there's no easier way for me to keep up with friends who are distributed around the planet.
    - pferde 7y ago
      What's wrong with keeping contact details and sending things directly to people?
      - balladeer 7y ago
        Nothing. People just find other means more convenient and for some reason are willing to sacrifice their privacy in return. Also, by names and college and work you can find people on these social platforms even if you lost their contact long back.
      - darkwater 7y ago
        Basically, it's more difficult/tedious to do. Facebook lowered the cost opportunity of this for the vast majority of people (you and others excluded, obviously).
      - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
        The UX of that process you describe (without something like facebook) sucks. It's surprising you haven't realized this once you've tried to do that for more than say ~10 people in the list. If the UX sucks, it means it takes more time and energy to do the same thing, it means that I will not be doing the same thing, I will end up sending to less people or less information. Which means that facebook effectively allows new types of communication which would otherwise not even exist.
        yawboakye 7y ago
        It is the low cost of Facebook (and social media) messaging that makes me not use it to send messages to people I love and care about. I still call them on the phone. When it comes to relationships, my communication theory is simple: the cost of the medium is the information. Goes without saying in this setting, there's only few people I call "friends."
        Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
        If you have more than a handful of people that you wish to meaningfully connect with - facebook is a great tool. I know personally many people including myself that both use calls, emails, chat messages - and yes, facebook - all with the same people. They are just geared towards different kinds and modes of communication. The notion that I have to use phone exclusively to communicate with someone to call them "friends" seems very dated to me personally. It probably works for someone else. (But I mean the numbers show that a lot of people do indeed find facebook useful, it is not that popular for no reason.) It's about the connection itself, it's about the energy and attention one puts into the relationship, not whether one allows oneself to use facebook for it or not.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Because they actually solve a real problem for a majority of their users? I mean I get it, I'm on the hate train too but their actual product (the Facebook web site) provides a useful service. It allows me to share a bunch of stuff with a bunch of groups of people who I want to stay in touch with, in a low friction manner. Pretending Facebook is useless is like pretending GM doesn't make cars. Sure, maybe you don't like GM cars but they fill a genuine need for a lot of people.
    - Integrape 7y ago
      But, GM doesn't make cars. https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/business/gm-cars-dropping-production/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/business/gm-cars-dropping-pro...
  - artificialidiot 7y ago
    low effort intelligence collection. I wouldn't mind "investing" into those companies if I were an agency employing who are basically incompetent crooks.
    - mr__y 7y ago
      if you manage to convince almost entire population to use an app that you can easily tap to I wouldn't call that "incompetent"
  - DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
    Twitter is heavily used in biotech for news and discussions, surprisingly. It's where nearly all of it breaks.
  - steve76 7y ago
    Replaces the phone book? If I knew that, I really wish I didn't do stuff to get banned! Nothing really bad. More clownish than anything.
  - toper-centage 7y ago
    While I don't actively use Facebook the way I use twitter, I've kept my account for messenging because its the only way to keep in touch with old friends and family. People change numbers, names, locations. Facebook is my Phonebook, in a way.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  To be honest, I’m always a little bit happy to see him writing something and have it come off as a bit awkward. I don’t feel so bad about my own writing style when I think that the CEO of a multibillion dollar company is the same :)
nickbauman 7y ago
"Full of himself"? Way too mild an indictment. In the last 24 hours Facebook bought a story in a publication, pretended it wasn’t sponsored, their COO posted it, then when they got caught, they denied knowing anything about it. And what was that ad/story about? Their commitment to stopping disinformation. All the while we've learned that they have utterly sold the company to international electioneers.
- cheschire 7y ago
  Citations to your references would be appreciated. It's the first step to overcoming the state of internet disinformation, as well as helping society overcome the fear of missing out just because someone doesn't already know your references.
  - vijaybritto 7y ago
    He's talking about the facebook-teenvogue story
    - stingraycharles 7y ago
      NYT article about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/business/media/teen-vogue-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/business/media/teen-vogue...
  - wtmt 7y ago
    Upvoted because even though I knew the context of that comment, I consider it poor form to expect everyone else on a public forum to keep up with every bit of daily news.
    - Ensorceled 7y ago
      I don't think a current news event with lots of coverage, directly related to the topic at hand, requires research paper level footnotes.
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
gexla 7y ago
> I think Zuck is too full of himself. People often get confused that their success means that they are wise, and that we should listen to them. Wow, you just described like greater than 99% of the internet. Search engine results these days is like taking a metal detector to the city dump. We might as well use Taleb's idea of Lindy to find good information. Unfortunately, the internet hasn't been around long enough for anything published direct to web to qualify.
- fsloth 7y ago
  "the internet hasn't been around long enough for anything published direct to web to qualify" Luckily internet gives us easy access to books that are a bit older :) I don't read blogs. But I love the internet for being one heck of a library.
alkibiades 7y ago
no, those people aren't self made. zuck is. it gives a a lot more credibility than some random internet commenter
onion2k 7y ago
In the case of Zuckerberg specifically he's actually more likely to be right on this by virtue of being in a position to influence it. If Zuck persuades the board of Facebook that AR is the future then thousands of FB engineers could be tasked with building AR apps and libraries, and Facebook could invest billions in AR acquisitions. Those sorts of actions steer the future. When a billionaire claims to predict the future they're not just making a prediction, they're really telling you what they plan to invest in.
- borispavlovic 7y ago
  Google+ comes to mind and the time when thousands of engineers couldn't stir the interest of public to turn to the service
  - onion2k 7y ago
    Google+ failed because Google didn't know what they wanted it to be. I don't think that's down to engineering. That's a product and marketing problem. AR is a little different because it's not a product; Facebook's AR apps might fail, but Zuck's vision could still succeed if Facebook create (or acquire) tools for creating an AR ecosystem.
    - mr__y 7y ago
      >tools for creating an AR ecosystem all they really need is a collection of millions of AR-related patents allowing to sue any entity doing anything AR-related
    - ethbro 7y ago
      Google doesn't actually have many customer-facing product wins on the strength of their GUIs / UX to its credit, period. Google search was minimalist. Android followed everyone else in the market, and hasn't iterated core UX much since. G Suite office apps were acquired, and mostly cloned Office online. Same with Gmail. Maps is about the only heavily-used app, and I wouldn't call its design revolutionary (or even good). Chrome is about the best example I can come up with, and it's mostly iterated and improved on the back end. Maybe I'm missing something major? But it's not a market they compete in or are particularly good at. (This isn't to say that the initial lift of desktop apps to the web wasn't a technical tour du force; just that blue sky GUIs have never been something they're known for)
thrwaway69 7y ago
Reminds me of - VR talk with Mark Zuckerberg (bit nsfw): https://youtu.be/q2LIXcbDiZA https://youtu.be/q2LIXcbDiZA It will be a difficult battle for privacy when AR becomes mainstream. They will have reasons to track your surroundings and every body movement. :(
- anon012012 7y ago
  This is unpopular to say, but when we're heading for a mass extinction event, maybe we should be sacrificing freedom for the sake of social cohesion. There should be facial recognition, social score and such things, to preserve humanity from chaos. I think there's a decent case to be made, and that's why I generally appreciate what China is doing. They are the best prepared for what might come.
  - lexapro 7y ago
    What is this "mass extinction event"? You don't get to advocate for giving up freedom for the sake of security if you're not even saying what we should be so afraid of.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      I suppose the mass extinction event is climate change - but if so the idea that having face recognition and social score will help humanity combat that problem is ludicrous.
  - wycy 7y ago
    A valiant effort could be made to make the argument for a social score to achieve a "greater good," but ending the statement by saying you appreciate China's implementation of it kind of ruins the argument. They're not exactly making use of it for "good".
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > They're not exactly making use of it for "good". Depending on your definitions of "exactly" and "good". I think a better question is something like: might it plausibly result in a net better outcome than some/all alternative approaches? I would say the answer to that question is definitely yes.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
FreedomToCreate 7y ago
Well he has the financial power to influence change in the world, so even if he may be someone whose insight you don't find useful, he is someone you should hear out. At least by listening you will have some idea of what he intends to do with his power, and from there you can decide if your actions will aid or not in whatever change Zuck decides to act on. For example, from this post it is clear the VR will be a big component of FBs future. From this you can do what you believe is a better path for VR and use your bit of influence by not providing money to FBs VR efforts (remove all FB VR apps(including Beat Saber), buy from Oculus competitors, etc...)
ralfd 7y ago
> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? Yes? Maybe not follow them morally, but a drug cartel lord will have more insight in leading a multi-national organization than me.
jamesfisher 7y ago
If this post had been written by an anonymous dev, it would not be read as "full of himself". I think the "full of himself" subtext comes from the readers, not the writer. This doesn't stop the possibility that Zuck actually is full of himself.
- Psyladine 7y ago
  It's as much how it is written as it is what is written. No-one who isn't a captain of industry could write a blog post like that, because they wouldn't be writing a puff-piece and write in the guarded lofty tones of political speak.
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  You can give an anonymous dev the benefit of the doubt that they are probably not expecting millions of people to be influenced by the bullshit they are saying.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? To be fair, the Saudi monarchs are in the thought leadership business. Their influence over Islam is important to them and a lot of effort goes into it. Drug cartels, as far as I'm aware, don't really care what you think.
isthisathing 7y ago
Agreed, A lot of his success was based on sheer luck - being at the right place at the right time, rather than extraordinary skill.
malandrew 7y ago
> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? Please stay on topic and refrain from ad hominems that add nothing to the discussion. If you have disagreement with his predictions, focus on that in your reply. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion and just lowers the quality of discourse. It's a shame it is the most highly voted comment.
shrimpx 7y ago
A legitimate reason for being interested in his post is to comb through it for ill conceived ideas that may further damage privacy and spread hate and misinformation, in order to sound alarm bells. Because Zuckerberg has massive power and can implement whatever naive and gullible ideas he comes up with.
wolf550e 7y ago
https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/

bitexploder 7y ago

I did have a hard time taking any of what he wrote seriously. It was not thought provoking for me and I felt it wasn’t deep or interesting. It’s interesting in the sense that it is useful to know where FB may be headed, but when I think of Facebook all I see is another advertising company looking for more ways to put ads in front of captive eyeballs.

nikolay 7y ago
One thing I can't understand is why Facebook is still around. But, at the same time, Twitter is still around, too. I guess people got tired switching platforms.
- atdt 7y ago
  The vast majority of users have never known other platforms.
- paganel 7y ago
  Because they also purchased IG and WhatsApp and because their messaging app is reasonably successful (in parts because they didn’t add groups to IG messaging, otherwise younger folks would have been even more eager to leave FB). As far as I can tell the main FB app/website has been pretty much deserted by younger people.
- AndrewDucker 7y ago
  If I want to communicate with a bunch of my friends, going back 30 years, it's where I have to go. I could, I guess, go back to running mailing lists or manual methods of keeping track of contact details and sending things directly to people. But short of that there's no easier way for me to keep up with friends who are distributed around the planet.
  - pferde 7y ago
    What's wrong with keeping contact details and sending things directly to people?
    - balladeer 7y ago
      Nothing. People just find other means more convenient and for some reason are willing to sacrifice their privacy in return. Also, by names and college and work you can find people on these social platforms even if you lost their contact long back.
    - darkwater 7y ago
      Basically, it's more difficult/tedious to do. Facebook lowered the cost opportunity of this for the vast majority of people (you and others excluded, obviously).
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      The UX of that process you describe (without something like facebook) sucks. It's surprising you haven't realized this once you've tried to do that for more than say ~10 people in the list. If the UX sucks, it means it takes more time and energy to do the same thing, it means that I will not be doing the same thing, I will end up sending to less people or less information. Which means that facebook effectively allows new types of communication which would otherwise not even exist.
      - yawboakye 7y ago
        It is the low cost of Facebook (and social media) messaging that makes me not use it to send messages to people I love and care about. I still call them on the phone. When it comes to relationships, my communication theory is simple: the cost of the medium is the information. Goes without saying in this setting, there's only few people I call "friends."
        Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
        If you have more than a handful of people that you wish to meaningfully connect with - facebook is a great tool. I know personally many people including myself that both use calls, emails, chat messages - and yes, facebook - all with the same people. They are just geared towards different kinds and modes of communication. The notion that I have to use phone exclusively to communicate with someone to call them "friends" seems very dated to me personally. It probably works for someone else. (But I mean the numbers show that a lot of people do indeed find facebook useful, it is not that popular for no reason.) It's about the connection itself, it's about the energy and attention one puts into the relationship, not whether one allows oneself to use facebook for it or not.
- taneq 7y ago
  Because they actually solve a real problem for a majority of their users? I mean I get it, I'm on the hate train too but their actual product (the Facebook web site) provides a useful service. It allows me to share a bunch of stuff with a bunch of groups of people who I want to stay in touch with, in a low friction manner. Pretending Facebook is useless is like pretending GM doesn't make cars. Sure, maybe you don't like GM cars but they fill a genuine need for a lot of people.
  - Integrape 7y ago
    But, GM doesn't make cars. https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/business/gm-cars-dropping-production/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/business/gm-cars-dropping-pro...
- artificialidiot 7y ago
  low effort intelligence collection. I wouldn't mind "investing" into those companies if I were an agency employing who are basically incompetent crooks.
  - mr__y 7y ago
    if you manage to convince almost entire population to use an app that you can easily tap to I wouldn't call that "incompetent"
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
  Twitter is heavily used in biotech for news and discussions, surprisingly. It's where nearly all of it breaks.
- steve76 7y ago
  Replaces the phone book? If I knew that, I really wish I didn't do stuff to get banned! Nothing really bad. More clownish than anything.
- toper-centage 7y ago
  While I don't actively use Facebook the way I use twitter, I've kept my account for messenging because its the only way to keep in touch with old friends and family. People change numbers, names, locations. Facebook is my Phonebook, in a way.
Aeolun 7y ago
To be honest, I’m always a little bit happy to see him writing something and have it come off as a bit awkward. I don’t feel so bad about my own writing style when I think that the CEO of a multibillion dollar company is the same :)

nickbauman 7y ago

"Full of himself"? Way too mild an indictment. In the last 24 hours Facebook bought a story in a publication, pretended it wasn’t sponsored, their COO posted it, then when they got caught, they denied knowing anything about it. And what was that ad/story about? Their commitment to stopping disinformation. All the while we've learned that they have utterly sold the company to international electioneers.

cheschire 7y ago
Citations to your references would be appreciated. It's the first step to overcoming the state of internet disinformation, as well as helping society overcome the fear of missing out just because someone doesn't already know your references.
- vijaybritto 7y ago
  He's talking about the facebook-teenvogue story
  - stingraycharles 7y ago
    NYT article about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/business/media/teen-vogue-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/business/media/teen-vogue...
- wtmt 7y ago
  Upvoted because even though I knew the context of that comment, I consider it poor form to expect everyone else on a public forum to keep up with every bit of daily news.
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
    I don't think a current news event with lots of coverage, directly related to the topic at hand, requires research paper level footnotes.
- Ensorceled 7y ago

gexla 7y ago

> I think Zuck is too full of himself. People often get confused that their success means that they are wise, and that we should listen to them. Wow, you just described like greater than 99% of the internet. Search engine results these days is like taking a metal detector to the city dump. We might as well use Taleb's idea of Lindy to find good information. Unfortunately, the internet hasn't been around long enough for anything published direct to web to qualify.

fsloth 7y ago
"the internet hasn't been around long enough for anything published direct to web to qualify" Luckily internet gives us easy access to books that are a bit older :) I don't read blogs. But I love the internet for being one heck of a library.

alkibiades 7y ago

no, those people aren't self made. zuck is. it gives a a lot more credibility than some random internet commenter

onion2k 7y ago

In the case of Zuckerberg specifically he's actually more likely to be right on this by virtue of being in a position to influence it. If Zuck persuades the board of Facebook that AR is the future then thousands of FB engineers could be tasked with building AR apps and libraries, and Facebook could invest billions in AR acquisitions. Those sorts of actions steer the future. When a billionaire claims to predict the future they're not just making a prediction, they're really telling you what they plan to invest in.

borispavlovic 7y ago
Google+ comes to mind and the time when thousands of engineers couldn't stir the interest of public to turn to the service
- onion2k 7y ago
  Google+ failed because Google didn't know what they wanted it to be. I don't think that's down to engineering. That's a product and marketing problem. AR is a little different because it's not a product; Facebook's AR apps might fail, but Zuck's vision could still succeed if Facebook create (or acquire) tools for creating an AR ecosystem.
  - mr__y 7y ago
    >tools for creating an AR ecosystem all they really need is a collection of millions of AR-related patents allowing to sue any entity doing anything AR-related
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Google doesn't actually have many customer-facing product wins on the strength of their GUIs / UX to its credit, period. Google search was minimalist. Android followed everyone else in the market, and hasn't iterated core UX much since. G Suite office apps were acquired, and mostly cloned Office online. Same with Gmail. Maps is about the only heavily-used app, and I wouldn't call its design revolutionary (or even good). Chrome is about the best example I can come up with, and it's mostly iterated and improved on the back end. Maybe I'm missing something major? But it's not a market they compete in or are particularly good at. (This isn't to say that the initial lift of desktop apps to the web wasn't a technical tour du force; just that blue sky GUIs have never been something they're known for)

thrwaway69 7y ago

Reminds me of - VR talk with Mark Zuckerberg (bit nsfw): https://youtu.be/q2LIXcbDiZA https://youtu.be/q2LIXcbDiZA It will be a difficult battle for privacy when AR becomes mainstream. They will have reasons to track your surroundings and every body movement. :(

anon012012 7y ago
This is unpopular to say, but when we're heading for a mass extinction event, maybe we should be sacrificing freedom for the sake of social cohesion. There should be facial recognition, social score and such things, to preserve humanity from chaos. I think there's a decent case to be made, and that's why I generally appreciate what China is doing. They are the best prepared for what might come.
- lexapro 7y ago
  What is this "mass extinction event"? You don't get to advocate for giving up freedom for the sake of security if you're not even saying what we should be so afraid of.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    I suppose the mass extinction event is climate change - but if so the idea that having face recognition and social score will help humanity combat that problem is ludicrous.
- wycy 7y ago
  A valiant effort could be made to make the argument for a social score to achieve a "greater good," but ending the statement by saying you appreciate China's implementation of it kind of ruins the argument. They're not exactly making use of it for "good".
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > They're not exactly making use of it for "good". Depending on your definitions of "exactly" and "good". I think a better question is something like: might it plausibly result in a net better outcome than some/all alternative approaches? I would say the answer to that question is definitely yes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

FreedomToCreate 7y ago

Well he has the financial power to influence change in the world, so even if he may be someone whose insight you don't find useful, he is someone you should hear out. At least by listening you will have some idea of what he intends to do with his power, and from there you can decide if your actions will aid or not in whatever change Zuck decides to act on. For example, from this post it is clear the VR will be a big component of FBs future. From this you can do what you believe is a better path for VR and use your bit of influence by not providing money to FBs VR efforts (remove all FB VR apps(including Beat Saber), buy from Oculus competitors, etc...)

ralfd 7y ago

> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? Yes? Maybe not follow them morally, but a drug cartel lord will have more insight in leading a multi-national organization than me.

jamesfisher 7y ago

If this post had been written by an anonymous dev, it would not be read as "full of himself". I think the "full of himself" subtext comes from the readers, not the writer. This doesn't stop the possibility that Zuck actually is full of himself.

Psyladine 7y ago
It's as much how it is written as it is what is written. No-one who isn't a captain of industry could write a blog post like that, because they wouldn't be writing a puff-piece and write in the guarded lofty tones of political speak.
heavenlyblue 7y ago
You can give an anonymous dev the benefit of the doubt that they are probably not expecting millions of people to be influenced by the bullshit they are saying.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? To be fair, the Saudi monarchs are in the thought leadership business. Their influence over Islam is important to them and a lot of effort goes into it. Drug cartels, as far as I'm aware, don't really care what you think.

isthisathing 7y ago

Agreed, A lot of his success was based on sheer luck - being at the right place at the right time, rather than extraordinary skill.

malandrew 7y ago

> Should we as well follow the thought leadership of drug cartels and the Saudi monarchs? Please stay on topic and refrain from ad hominems that add nothing to the discussion. If you have disagreement with his predictions, focus on that in your reply. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion and just lowers the quality of discourse. It's a shame it is the most highly voted comment.

shrimpx 7y ago

A legitimate reason for being interested in his post is to comb through it for ill conceived ideas that may further damage privacy and spread hate and misinformation, in order to sound alarm bells. Because Zuckerberg has massive power and can implement whatever naive and gullible ideas he comes up with.

wolf550e 7y ago

https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/