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Yikes, where to begin... Quoting Chamath on the rationale for the Facebook Platform is like quoting the current management of Boeing on how to build a plane. I

by numair 6y ago

Yikes, where to begin... Quoting Chamath on the rationale for the Facebook Platform is like quoting the current management of Boeing on how to build a plane. If you want the real story on the dynamics behind the Platform, and why it worked so incredibly well when it did, you’d have to talk to Dave Morin, but I’m not sure he’d like to revisit that period in his life. Dave’s open, humble approach (something I think he’d picked up at Apple) attracted the best and brightest companies and programmers to the platform, and gave them the confidence needed to invest in building a presence there. Eventually a bunch of people inside of Facebook got jealous of the attention he was getting and had him demoted. Chamath takeover and his self-dealing (investing in platform companies while overseeing it? really?) was a large part of the Platform’s failure, not its success. People lost confidence, and confidence is the one thing that every platform — whether it’s a piece of software, or a country’s economy — really runs on. If you want to talk about platforms, and what they are, and what they aren’t, that’s really all it is. People who bring up a million other things and a random Bill Gates quote don’t know what they’re talking about. Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment. Facebook is pretty much the exact opposite of this, in every aspect of their business. Whether you’re a newspaper or an Instagram model or a developer, you’re never quite sure where you stand. While things built on top of Facebook might have large-scale near-term value, nobody’s planning their next decade on there (even if suspicious can’t-let-China-win government meddling and the Silicon Valley oligarchy keep them on top for that long).

roosterdawn 6y ago
Wow, thanks for the scoop! Is there anywhere interested readers can read more about Dave and Chamath's tenure at FB, particularly the latter and the issues you pointed out?
- blairbeckwith 6y ago
  I’m only partway through the audiobook and haven’t fact-checked it, both both are covered fairly extensively in [1]. Jump straight to chapter 10 (Growth!) for the start of Chamath. I’m really enjoying the book so far, and it seems to present a pretty unbiased view considering it was made with access to (and, by extension, some amount of blessing by) Facebook. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52032133-facebook https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52032133-facebook
boldslogan 6y ago
some questions I want to try and look up but it would be cool if you could expand on some of your points. Did you work there? From Chamath's wiki he invested in things like Palantir, some storage company, and Playdom which seems like the only company that he could have self dealing over...? Do you have other company examples? I am imagining being in charge of the social graph on fb platform could seem to be very tempting to then purchase/ invest in companies. Do you know what Dave is doing currently? Slow capital doesn't seem to be a frequent updater on twitter. Before their most recent post, it was like a year ago they posted. And it looks like company related updates not Dave related.
- swyx 6y ago
  his wife is the Modern Martha Stewart, maybe he is spending more time supporting her than working on his own thing
tossmeout 6y ago
This is one of those comments that seems interesting and believable because it's so confidently stated. But is any of this speculation actually accurate? I agree with the second half of the comment. Facebook has been capricious, and thus it's hard to trust building on top of them for the long term. But the first few paragraphs just seem like unsubstantiated gossip.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  TBH that's true for the original article too. I feel that most of these opinion pieces are 'just so' post-facto explanations. I'd rather have a prediction market where people put predictions and confidence values along with detailed explanations, and then we can see in a few years how things play along. It's very easy to make confident pronouncements when they are basically unfalsifiable.
- ovx99 6y ago
  You read "confidently-stated," I immediately read "has a personal vendetta."
femiagbabiaka 6y ago
no idea of the history, but it sounds like you're agreeing with chamath's take, despite whatever opinion you may have of him. just seems like he is guilty of the same behavior he's associating to facebook. one quip: > Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment. As someone who has dabbled in app store development from time to time, none of this seems to be true. Apple is inconsistent with application of their rules and their rules are also internally inconsistent from case to case, especially with regards to what apps are allowed on the platform. But there is something interesting in there -- was it the developer experience that drew developers to their platform originally or something else? Not sure offhand.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  I was going to say, depending on the size of the developer for their application, they are horribly inconsistent with policy and feedback regarding review. I work at a mid level development game house, and compared to what the AAA game houses can get away with is night and day (maybe not quite as drastic as that, but the standards are definitely different).
  - dannyw 6y ago
    There are times where our app got rejected for a valid reason, we talked to our Apple contact, and it was approved. I think we got rejected again a few updates later for the same reason, we talked to our Apple contact again, it was approved again.
    - oblio 6y ago
      Does everyone have an Apple contact or just big/medium companies?
buboard 6y ago
i dont know any of the people involved, but the time when Dave Morin was in the platform was the best for 3rd party developers. it was a really neat, very open platform well ahead of its time, it was reliable and really made developers feel included. FB shut the door for us abruptly in later years because they liked fake news better than virtual sheep. Facebook had a developer forum in the early days which basically chronicled what was happening on their platform. pity they took it down...

by numair 6y ago

roosterdawn 6y ago

Wow, thanks for the scoop! Is there anywhere interested readers can read more about Dave and Chamath's tenure at FB, particularly the latter and the issues you pointed out?

blairbeckwith 6y ago
I’m only partway through the audiobook and haven’t fact-checked it, both both are covered fairly extensively in [1]. Jump straight to chapter 10 (Growth!) for the start of Chamath. I’m really enjoying the book so far, and it seems to present a pretty unbiased view considering it was made with access to (and, by extension, some amount of blessing by) Facebook. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52032133-facebook https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52032133-facebook

boldslogan 6y ago

some questions I want to try and look up but it would be cool if you could expand on some of your points. Did you work there? From Chamath's wiki he invested in things like Palantir, some storage company, and Playdom which seems like the only company that he could have self dealing over...? Do you have other company examples? I am imagining being in charge of the social graph on fb platform could seem to be very tempting to then purchase/ invest in companies. Do you know what Dave is doing currently? Slow capital doesn't seem to be a frequent updater on twitter. Before their most recent post, it was like a year ago they posted. And it looks like company related updates not Dave related.

swyx 6y ago
his wife is the Modern Martha Stewart, maybe he is spending more time supporting her than working on his own thing

tossmeout 6y ago

This is one of those comments that seems interesting and believable because it's so confidently stated. But is any of this speculation actually accurate? I agree with the second half of the comment. Facebook has been capricious, and thus it's hard to trust building on top of them for the long term. But the first few paragraphs just seem like unsubstantiated gossip.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
TBH that's true for the original article too. I feel that most of these opinion pieces are 'just so' post-facto explanations. I'd rather have a prediction market where people put predictions and confidence values along with detailed explanations, and then we can see in a few years how things play along. It's very easy to make confident pronouncements when they are basically unfalsifiable.
ovx99 6y ago
You read "confidently-stated," I immediately read "has a personal vendetta."

femiagbabiaka 6y ago

no idea of the history, but it sounds like you're agreeing with chamath's take, despite whatever opinion you may have of him. just seems like he is guilty of the same behavior he's associating to facebook. one quip: > Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment. As someone who has dabbled in app store development from time to time, none of this seems to be true. Apple is inconsistent with application of their rules and their rules are also internally inconsistent from case to case, especially with regards to what apps are allowed on the platform. But there is something interesting in there -- was it the developer experience that drew developers to their platform originally or something else? Not sure offhand.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
I was going to say, depending on the size of the developer for their application, they are horribly inconsistent with policy and feedback regarding review. I work at a mid level development game house, and compared to what the AAA game houses can get away with is night and day (maybe not quite as drastic as that, but the standards are definitely different).
- dannyw 6y ago
  There are times where our app got rejected for a valid reason, we talked to our Apple contact, and it was approved. I think we got rejected again a few updates later for the same reason, we talked to our Apple contact again, it was approved again.
  - oblio 6y ago
    Does everyone have an Apple contact or just big/medium companies?

buboard 6y ago

i dont know any of the people involved, but the time when Dave Morin was in the platform was the best for 3rd party developers. it was a really neat, very open platform well ahead of its time, it was reliable and really made developers feel included. FB shut the door for us abruptly in later years because they liked fake news better than virtual sheep. Facebook had a developer forum in the early days which basically chronicled what was happening on their platform. pity they took it down...