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I agree. We're not in a "bubble". We're in a half-decent spell after a lost decade. 1998: The internet is going to generate a lot of value. Everyone sees this,

I agree. We're not in a "bubble". We're in a half-decent spell after a lost decade. 1998: The internet is going to generate a lot of value. Everyone sees this, but no one knows which ventures will succeed and which will fail. People who really don't know what they're doing get involved and it gets frothy. The '90s had people who didn't understand business trying to start and run them, and people who didn't know a thing about technology trying to get in the game. 2011: Recovery, making up for lost time. There's a decent amount of enthusiasm, but it's only "hot" in the same way that a 70-degree day in March is "hot" compared to what came before it. When intellectual lightweights who only know how to draw 2-by-2 matrices start getting into technology, then run-- and by "run" I mean pull out your money, but stay in tech if you're smart, because even in the doldrums when no one is getting rich this is still the best industry to work in. We're not seeing any of that yet, though. Mark Zuckerberg may be a mediocre coder by HN standards, but he's not an intellectual lightweight at all. No bubble yet.

temphn 16y ago
> Mark Zuckerberg may be a mediocre coder by HN standards, Don't mean to pick on this one comment, but he is certainly not a "mediocre coder by HN standards". There may be a few people at Facebook who are better at raw engineering, but in terms of the full stack (energy, focus, originality, ability) Zuckerberg is one of the best. Reading about Haskell != building Facebook.
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  This is a good point, and being a great businessman is different from being a great engineer, and Zuckerberg is clearly the former (at least, and with the talent to be the latter). If you're a great businessman, you'll hire people who are, technically speaking, better than you are. If you're the best person at your company, that's a sign that you're doing something wrong. Zuckerberg also never had time to become a great programmer, since Facebook took off when he was 21-22. So he may have been, at that point, a "mediocre" coder by 35-year-old standards, but he was excellent compared to his age. If his coding skills haven't improved, that's because he was doing something else. He also seems to be improving himself, which is rare for business executives. Often when people have that kind of success at a young age, they remain young and arrogant forever. He doesn't seem to have done that, and my opinion of him has definitely improved in recent years.

temphn 16y ago

> Mark Zuckerberg may be a mediocre coder by HN standards, Don't mean to pick on this one comment, but he is certainly not a "mediocre coder by HN standards". There may be a few people at Facebook who are better at raw engineering, but in terms of the full stack (energy, focus, originality, ability) Zuckerberg is one of the best. Reading about Haskell != building Facebook.

michaelochurch 16y ago
This is a good point, and being a great businessman is different from being a great engineer, and Zuckerberg is clearly the former (at least, and with the talent to be the latter). If you're a great businessman, you'll hire people who are, technically speaking, better than you are. If you're the best person at your company, that's a sign that you're doing something wrong. Zuckerberg also never had time to become a great programmer, since Facebook took off when he was 21-22. So he may have been, at that point, a "mediocre" coder by 35-year-old standards, but he was excellent compared to his age. If his coding skills haven't improved, that's because he was doing something else. He also seems to be improving himself, which is rare for business executives. Often when people have that kind of success at a young age, they remain young and arrogant forever. He doesn't seem to have done that, and my opinion of him has definitely improved in recent years.