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I think that's just how business works. The technical impressiveness of his "PHP website" is irrelevant—he was in the right place, at the right time, with a str

by snazz 6y ago

I think that's just how business works. The technical impressiveness of his "PHP website" is irrelevant—he was in the right place, at the right time, with a strong initial user base. Edit: I'm not trying to downplay his business acumen, either. Facebook clearly made lots of good decisions down the line that helped them reach the scale they reached. But the reason that the product took off at first had a lot more to do with how it got in front of users in the early days than its technological superiority.

systemvoltage 6y ago
I’m amazed at statements like this on HN. Just because you have some traction and user base doesn’t automatically lend itself to building a multi billion dollar business. You’re going from 10,000 users, completely unmonetized to billions of users while acquiring many other companies and integrating them. That’s not a minor detail to gloss over. Whether you’re morally aligned or not with Facebook, I think you’d agree.
beagle3 6y ago
It's a lot more than right place, right time, strong initial user base - myspace had these as well. It was the understanding and (ab)use of that position to increase the user base, and to make it into a marketing machine like no other. Purchase of Onavo, that let him spy on users better and realize he needs to buy Instagram and Whatsapp, but not Skype, to maintain monopoly. Quite a few of other data deals, most considered shady by anyone aware of them (though afaik all legal). Mark Zuckerberg was in the right place, at the right time, and extremely astute and intelligent (if ethically challenged, IMO) -- much like Bill Gates 40 years ago. There were possibly thousands of people in the right place and the right time in the 1980s, but only one Bill Gates and only one Steve Jobs. Similarly, there were thousands of people in the right place and the right time in 2004, but only one Mark Zuckerberg. Also, I suspect in 50-100 years when things are declassified, we'll find that he also had help from 3 letter agencies in exchange for the data trove he was able to collect.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Yeah he's clearly not stupid. He's at least normally smart, and has a very ambitious/conniving personality. Probably sociopathic also.
cutler 6y ago
Exactly. Facebook's founding philosophy "Move Fast And Break Things" was crucial to it's success. I say give Zuck credit where credit's due even if his attitude to user privacy stinks. One thing still puzzles me about Zuckerberg, though. He says in the emails with Greenspan that he has a limited attention span for coding, hence his preference for web technology, yet he also created Synapse in C++ to a standard acceptable enough for Microsoft to offer him serious money. Doesn't add up.

by snazz 6y ago

systemvoltage 6y ago

I’m amazed at statements like this on HN. Just because you have some traction and user base doesn’t automatically lend itself to building a multi billion dollar business. You’re going from 10,000 users, completely unmonetized to billions of users while acquiring many other companies and integrating them. That’s not a minor detail to gloss over. Whether you’re morally aligned or not with Facebook, I think you’d agree.

beagle3 6y ago

It's a lot more than right place, right time, strong initial user base - myspace had these as well. It was the understanding and (ab)use of that position to increase the user base, and to make it into a marketing machine like no other. Purchase of Onavo, that let him spy on users better and realize he needs to buy Instagram and Whatsapp, but not Skype, to maintain monopoly. Quite a few of other data deals, most considered shady by anyone aware of them (though afaik all legal). Mark Zuckerberg was in the right place, at the right time, and extremely astute and intelligent (if ethically challenged, IMO) -- much like Bill Gates 40 years ago. There were possibly thousands of people in the right place and the right time in the 1980s, but only one Bill Gates and only one Steve Jobs. Similarly, there were thousands of people in the right place and the right time in 2004, but only one Mark Zuckerberg. Also, I suspect in 50-100 years when things are declassified, we'll find that he also had help from 3 letter agencies in exchange for the data trove he was able to collect.

throwaway201103 6y ago
Yeah he's clearly not stupid. He's at least normally smart, and has a very ambitious/conniving personality. Probably sociopathic also.

cutler 6y ago

Exactly. Facebook's founding philosophy "Move Fast And Break Things" was crucial to it's success. I say give Zuck credit where credit's due even if his attitude to user privacy stinks. One thing still puzzles me about Zuckerberg, though. He says in the emails with Greenspan that he has a limited attention span for coding, hence his preference for web technology, yet he also created Synapse in C++ to a standard acceptable enough for Microsoft to offer him serious money. Doesn't add up.