7 ms·

2005 Zuckerberg Didn't Want To Take On The World

140 points by JJMalina 15y ago

Swizec 15y ago
Just goes to show, you don't need a grand vision, all you need is a vision you believe is achievable. Once you've reached it, there's always enough juice to re-asses and readjust. With enough luck you will take over the world. This probably also helps in getting the people around you to take you seriously.
- mikeleeorg 15y ago
  David Kirkpatrick's book, "The Facebook Effect"[1] seems to gel with Mark's vision and attitude about Facebook in this video - that he's an ambitious & smart guy who started with a relatively small idea, and kind of stumbled upon its evolution into a much grander vision. According to the book and Wikipedia[2], there was even a time when Mark was even more focused on another idea of his, Wirehog. It's possible he may have even had some doubts about Facebook, or lost interest in it for a little while. And hey, what startup founder hasn't had those thoughts? They're totally natural. I'm sure some have a razor-sharp focus & vision from Day One, but I would never fault a founder for having a few shaky moments of doubt here & there. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connecting/dp/1439102120/ http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connect... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehog
seagaia 15y ago
1:00-1:15 or so. "Find information about you." Heh heh, well that part certainly works now. I think it's perfectly fine his view changed from '05 to now about the use of Facebook.
thinkcomp 15y ago
2005 Zuckerberg also lied point-blank when he claimed that nothing like The Facebook existed at Harvard (1:32 in the video). He knew about it, was a member and heavy user during the period in which he coded his version (http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/timeline.pdf http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/timeline.pdf). He repeated this false claim in his talk at Stanford's ETL lecture series and I find it absolutely infuriating. It's also relevant that Mark appears so non-chalant about the whole endeavor in the video. That's more or less how he came off when I spoke to him a month before the site launched, except he was more coy, refusing to divulge what he was actually working on. It didn't sound like a business seeking venture capital financing whatever it was, and so I had no reason to think I should get involved. Nor did I suspect that he was actually willing to torpedo our relationship by copying my work feature for feature, seeking funding without mentioning it, and simultaneously asking for advice. Nor did I suspect anything about the fact that he was searching my Facebook for "winklevoss." And yes, I've moved on, but each time these lies are uncovered fresh, no one else takes him to task for them.
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  Why did you not keep going with your project?
  - thinkcomp 15y ago
    No one at The Crimson would write about my work except to accuse me of stealing passwords, which in fact was what Mark ended up doing. In contrast, Chris Hughes's French A conversation partner was on the editorial board of The Crimson, and they lived across the sidewalk from The Crimson's then-president. Sites like these need press to grow. Without press, there's no point.
    - exitloop 15y ago
      I've followed a lot of your posts on HN and Quora and created an account just to ask this question: Why do you think you deserve any credit whatsoever for Facebook's success? Social networking isn't a unique idea. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg and you both created social networks. Yes, he may have borrowed some ideas from your creation. But the most significant innovations which have driven Facebook's success - newsfeed, platform, open graph, likes - came well afterwards. By your own words though you were ready to sell HouseSYSTEM to Harvard. It's unlikely you would have had the vision to make Facebook what it is today. I know the movie is dramatized but this quote resonated with me: "Look, a guy who builds a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who ever has built a chair, okay? They came to me with an idea, I had a better one."
      - thinkcomp 15y ago
        Hi. Unless you think I'm going to hunt you down in the middle of the night, you know me in person but secretly hate me, or you work for Mark, I can't think of any reason why asking me a question would require a new throwaway account. Your question is leading and based on numerous false assumptions. I offered to sell Harvard a license. From the beginning I wanted to expand the site to other schools. That's why I spent a ton of time making the photo module on the home page (http://housesystem.thinkcomputer.com http://housesystem.thinkcomputer.com) modular: so that users could eventually upload their own photos to the photo album of whatever place they were at. I was inspired by the model of the Daily Jolt, which my cousin at Brown showed me during my sophomore year (2002-2003), but I thought it lacked important features. Your assertion about my lacking vision is therefore incorrect, not to mention a little insulting. I decided not to keep going with houseSYSTEM because I thought I could come up with a better idea than an integrated network for students. And I did. It's an integrated network for businesses, and as beneficial as houseSYSTEM was to the student population, what I'm working on has far more potential when you think about things on a large scale. That requires a bit of vision, don't you think? I deserve credit because I worked day and night for months to write code for a product called The Facebook that was part of an integrated environment for students, and every feature I created is available in some form on http://www.facebook.com http://www.facebook.com now, which started as an integrated environment for students with similar or identical integration. It's not about inventing social networking at all, and I've never once claimed that. But as you argue, maybe that's all just as common as building a chair. Even if Mark had never met me, he was influenced by houseSYSTEM. As Harvard tries to teach you from the minute you get there (because it's common sense), it's proper to acknowledge work that has influenced you (as I have in this post, for example). It's improper to plagiarize or make false claims. It's true, I never had the vision to make Facebook what it is today because I wholeheartedly disagree that what Facebook is today is a good thing. My Facebook would have been far smaller with fewer users, but far better. That's the vision I still have, but I'll have to call it something else when I get around to it.
biot 15y ago
Similar to how Larry & Sergey were shopping their search engine around for $1 million [0]. They certainly weren't looking to organize the world's information at that time. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Financing_and_initial_public_offering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Financing_and_initial_pu...
bmac27 15y ago
The irony of "changing the world" is that the ones who've pretentiously bastardized the phrase as a way of hobnobbing with the Web 2.0 elite never do. The few that actually do change the world don't usually set out with that goal in mind. Either that or they don't go out proclaiming they'll do it. They just do it.
- ecuzzillo 15y ago
  Do you have an anecdote on this topic?
  - bmac27 15y ago
    I think Dorsey & Twitter is a good example. He had the underlying concepts in his head from the time he was 12 years old and long before Web 2.0. When he was brought onto Odeo, the idea was to be manifested in the form of SMS alerts. I find it hard to believe that he had what we know today as Twitter in his mind at the outset. Nor do I think his intention was for the service to be used by citizens in a fight against oppressive democracies or in other scenarios which one could reasonably assume had a truly global impact. Contrast that with the startups coming out of incubators boasting about how they're going to change the world with their.....t-shirt recommendation engine app. Or something of the sort. And who knows? It might actually be a kick-ass product, have phenomenal revenues & truly help people. But it's not going to change the world. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I think "changing the world" has become one of those trite, overused Web 2.0 expressions that have become as hollow as a dead tree trunk to early adopters & end users. They've simply heard it too many times before and they know not every company is going to change the world. The other thing that's troublesome is that it's discouraging people from building cool stuff because they think it's not "changing the world." I've already seen questions on Quora from folks who think their ideas (or even existing businesses) are invalid because they don't feel the company's going to become the next Google or Apple; even though, as someone already mentioned, Larry & Sergey were ready to sell at $1 million for the technology. That doesn't sound to me like someone who wanted to change the world from the very outset. I don't know. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I imagine there are at least a few folks that feel the same way. Apologies for the tangent.
desushil 15y ago
Of course he didn't want to take over the world. No wonders, most of the so called "Next Big Thing" goes this way...
jhdavids8 15y ago
"So, um, like", "So, um, like"...videos like this of Zuckerberg really irritate me. Of course he didn't want to take over the world, he simply saw a profitable idea (after it was given to him by someone else) and took advantage of that. The main reason someone takes an idea that isn't theirs is for their personal gain, not because they truly want to do something substantial. Only someone who has the initial idea, someone who sees the problem area and can see a way to fix it, those are the ones capable of changing the world for the better (ok, ok, the Winklevoss twins probably didn't want to change the world for the better, but at least they had that initial thought). Otherwise, you're left with some d-bag taking advantage of something someone else saw simply for personal, profitable reasons. This video is proof the guy is no 'trendsetter' in technology. Hell, he sounds like a dude who was briefed on what exactly Facebook is 10 minutes before the interview.
- philwelch 15y ago
  How many startups have a long term plan to take over the world from the very beginning? If you interviewed Bill Gates back when Micro-Soft was making BASIC interpreters, would you get the slightest sense of what Microsoft is today? Or Steve Jobs when Apple was selling the Apple II? How about Larry and Sergey when Google was just a search engine? I think they would seem a little more concerned with where their business was at the time and a little oblivious of what it would grow into.
  - jhdavids8 15y ago
    I would be shocked if any of those you mentioned would say "There doesn't necessarily have to be anything more after this" when asked what was next for their company. All mentioned were probably concerned with the current projects at their company during the early times, but all were also probably looking towards expanding their company as well. Oh, and I'd be shocked if any of them would be interviewed with a red 'frat' cup in their hand or with their co-founders doing keg stands as well.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      I'll admit, it's hard to imagine any of those guys drinking beer from a keg, out of a red cup. I'm not sure that Zuckerberg's lack of media training and fondness for cheap beer at the time was a bad thing. In 2005 a fair chunk of Facebook's users were doing keg stands and drinking beer out of red cups. Apple, in its early days, was Woz thinking "hey, I can build a cheap computer" and Jobs thinking "hey, I can sell people Woz's computer". I don't know what he would have said if you asked him what was next. I'm sure the Mac wasn't on his mind, and neither was becoming the most valuable company in the world by selling cell phones.
nxn 15y ago
People really like to try to make him look bad; I mean, is it just me or does this article portray him to be some clueless dimwit that was standing on a goldmine and didn't know it until his face hit the ground so hard that he finally saw the shiny gold stars? The reality is that it's very difficult to know what ground you're standing on until you dig deep enough to just see it with your own eyes. Predicting the future and investing in that wishful vision is a much more risky strategy than just acknowledging the current moment and trying to lead it closer to where you'd like it to go. I do not know whether he looked at the situation in this type of manner or not, but that's how I justify facebook's success. As a side note, I wish people would stop pretending they never drank out of a big red cup before.

140 points by JJMalina 15y ago

Just goes to show, you don't need a grand vision, all you need is a vision you believe is achievable. Once you've reached it, there's always enough juice to re-asses and readjust. With enough luck you will take over the world. This probably also helps in getting the people around you to take you seriously.

mikeleeorg 15y ago
David Kirkpatrick's book, "The Facebook Effect"[1] seems to gel with Mark's vision and attitude about Facebook in this video - that he's an ambitious & smart guy who started with a relatively small idea, and kind of stumbled upon its evolution into a much grander vision. According to the book and Wikipedia[2], there was even a time when Mark was even more focused on another idea of his, Wirehog. It's possible he may have even had some doubts about Facebook, or lost interest in it for a little while. And hey, what startup founder hasn't had those thoughts? They're totally natural. I'm sure some have a razor-sharp focus & vision from Day One, but I would never fault a founder for having a few shaky moments of doubt here & there. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connecting/dp/1439102120/ http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connect... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehog

seagaia 15y ago

1:00-1:15 or so. "Find information about you." Heh heh, well that part certainly works now. I think it's perfectly fine his view changed from '05 to now about the use of Facebook.

thinkcomp 15y ago

2005 Zuckerberg also lied point-blank when he claimed that nothing like The Facebook existed at Harvard (1:32 in the video). He knew about it, was a member and heavy user during the period in which he coded his version (http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/timeline.pdf http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/timeline.pdf). He repeated this false claim in his talk at Stanford's ETL lecture series and I find it absolutely infuriating. It's also relevant that Mark appears so non-chalant about the whole endeavor in the video. That's more or less how he came off when I spoke to him a month before the site launched, except he was more coy, refusing to divulge what he was actually working on. It didn't sound like a business seeking venture capital financing whatever it was, and so I had no reason to think I should get involved. Nor did I suspect that he was actually willing to torpedo our relationship by copying my work feature for feature, seeking funding without mentioning it, and simultaneously asking for advice. Nor did I suspect anything about the fact that he was searching my Facebook for "winklevoss." And yes, I've moved on, but each time these lies are uncovered fresh, no one else takes him to task for them.

rokhayakebe 15y ago
Why did you not keep going with your project?
- thinkcomp 15y ago
  No one at The Crimson would write about my work except to accuse me of stealing passwords, which in fact was what Mark ended up doing. In contrast, Chris Hughes's French A conversation partner was on the editorial board of The Crimson, and they lived across the sidewalk from The Crimson's then-president. Sites like these need press to grow. Without press, there's no point.
  - exitloop 15y ago
    I've followed a lot of your posts on HN and Quora and created an account just to ask this question: Why do you think you deserve any credit whatsoever for Facebook's success? Social networking isn't a unique idea. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg and you both created social networks. Yes, he may have borrowed some ideas from your creation. But the most significant innovations which have driven Facebook's success - newsfeed, platform, open graph, likes - came well afterwards. By your own words though you were ready to sell HouseSYSTEM to Harvard. It's unlikely you would have had the vision to make Facebook what it is today. I know the movie is dramatized but this quote resonated with me: "Look, a guy who builds a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who ever has built a chair, okay? They came to me with an idea, I had a better one."
    - thinkcomp 15y ago
      Hi. Unless you think I'm going to hunt you down in the middle of the night, you know me in person but secretly hate me, or you work for Mark, I can't think of any reason why asking me a question would require a new throwaway account. Your question is leading and based on numerous false assumptions. I offered to sell Harvard a license. From the beginning I wanted to expand the site to other schools. That's why I spent a ton of time making the photo module on the home page (http://housesystem.thinkcomputer.com http://housesystem.thinkcomputer.com) modular: so that users could eventually upload their own photos to the photo album of whatever place they were at. I was inspired by the model of the Daily Jolt, which my cousin at Brown showed me during my sophomore year (2002-2003), but I thought it lacked important features. Your assertion about my lacking vision is therefore incorrect, not to mention a little insulting. I decided not to keep going with houseSYSTEM because I thought I could come up with a better idea than an integrated network for students. And I did. It's an integrated network for businesses, and as beneficial as houseSYSTEM was to the student population, what I'm working on has far more potential when you think about things on a large scale. That requires a bit of vision, don't you think? I deserve credit because I worked day and night for months to write code for a product called The Facebook that was part of an integrated environment for students, and every feature I created is available in some form on http://www.facebook.com http://www.facebook.com now, which started as an integrated environment for students with similar or identical integration. It's not about inventing social networking at all, and I've never once claimed that. But as you argue, maybe that's all just as common as building a chair. Even if Mark had never met me, he was influenced by houseSYSTEM. As Harvard tries to teach you from the minute you get there (because it's common sense), it's proper to acknowledge work that has influenced you (as I have in this post, for example). It's improper to plagiarize or make false claims. It's true, I never had the vision to make Facebook what it is today because I wholeheartedly disagree that what Facebook is today is a good thing. My Facebook would have been far smaller with fewer users, but far better. That's the vision I still have, but I'll have to call it something else when I get around to it.

biot 15y ago

Similar to how Larry & Sergey were shopping their search engine around for $1 million [0]. They certainly weren't looking to organize the world's information at that time. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Financing_and_initial_public_offering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Financing_and_initial_pu...

bmac27 15y ago

The irony of "changing the world" is that the ones who've pretentiously bastardized the phrase as a way of hobnobbing with the Web 2.0 elite never do. The few that actually do change the world don't usually set out with that goal in mind. Either that or they don't go out proclaiming they'll do it. They just do it.

ecuzzillo 15y ago
Do you have an anecdote on this topic?
- bmac27 15y ago
  I think Dorsey & Twitter is a good example. He had the underlying concepts in his head from the time he was 12 years old and long before Web 2.0. When he was brought onto Odeo, the idea was to be manifested in the form of SMS alerts. I find it hard to believe that he had what we know today as Twitter in his mind at the outset. Nor do I think his intention was for the service to be used by citizens in a fight against oppressive democracies or in other scenarios which one could reasonably assume had a truly global impact. Contrast that with the startups coming out of incubators boasting about how they're going to change the world with their.....t-shirt recommendation engine app. Or something of the sort. And who knows? It might actually be a kick-ass product, have phenomenal revenues & truly help people. But it's not going to change the world. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I think "changing the world" has become one of those trite, overused Web 2.0 expressions that have become as hollow as a dead tree trunk to early adopters & end users. They've simply heard it too many times before and they know not every company is going to change the world. The other thing that's troublesome is that it's discouraging people from building cool stuff because they think it's not "changing the world." I've already seen questions on Quora from folks who think their ideas (or even existing businesses) are invalid because they don't feel the company's going to become the next Google or Apple; even though, as someone already mentioned, Larry & Sergey were ready to sell at $1 million for the technology. That doesn't sound to me like someone who wanted to change the world from the very outset. I don't know. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I imagine there are at least a few folks that feel the same way. Apologies for the tangent.

desushil 15y ago

Of course he didn't want to take over the world. No wonders, most of the so called "Next Big Thing" goes this way...

jhdavids8 15y ago

"So, um, like", "So, um, like"...videos like this of Zuckerberg really irritate me. Of course he didn't want to take over the world, he simply saw a profitable idea (after it was given to him by someone else) and took advantage of that. The main reason someone takes an idea that isn't theirs is for their personal gain, not because they truly want to do something substantial. Only someone who has the initial idea, someone who sees the problem area and can see a way to fix it, those are the ones capable of changing the world for the better (ok, ok, the Winklevoss twins probably didn't want to change the world for the better, but at least they had that initial thought). Otherwise, you're left with some d-bag taking advantage of something someone else saw simply for personal, profitable reasons. This video is proof the guy is no 'trendsetter' in technology. Hell, he sounds like a dude who was briefed on what exactly Facebook is 10 minutes before the interview.

philwelch 15y ago
How many startups have a long term plan to take over the world from the very beginning? If you interviewed Bill Gates back when Micro-Soft was making BASIC interpreters, would you get the slightest sense of what Microsoft is today? Or Steve Jobs when Apple was selling the Apple II? How about Larry and Sergey when Google was just a search engine? I think they would seem a little more concerned with where their business was at the time and a little oblivious of what it would grow into.
- jhdavids8 15y ago
  I would be shocked if any of those you mentioned would say "There doesn't necessarily have to be anything more after this" when asked what was next for their company. All mentioned were probably concerned with the current projects at their company during the early times, but all were also probably looking towards expanding their company as well. Oh, and I'd be shocked if any of them would be interviewed with a red 'frat' cup in their hand or with their co-founders doing keg stands as well.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    I'll admit, it's hard to imagine any of those guys drinking beer from a keg, out of a red cup. I'm not sure that Zuckerberg's lack of media training and fondness for cheap beer at the time was a bad thing. In 2005 a fair chunk of Facebook's users were doing keg stands and drinking beer out of red cups. Apple, in its early days, was Woz thinking "hey, I can build a cheap computer" and Jobs thinking "hey, I can sell people Woz's computer". I don't know what he would have said if you asked him what was next. I'm sure the Mac wasn't on his mind, and neither was becoming the most valuable company in the world by selling cell phones.

nxn 15y ago

People really like to try to make him look bad; I mean, is it just me or does this article portray him to be some clueless dimwit that was standing on a goldmine and didn't know it until his face hit the ground so hard that he finally saw the shiny gold stars? The reality is that it's very difficult to know what ground you're standing on until you dig deep enough to just see it with your own eyes. Predicting the future and investing in that wishful vision is a much more risky strategy than just acknowledging the current moment and trying to lead it closer to where you'd like it to go. I do not know whether he looked at the situation in this type of manner or not, but that's how I justify facebook's success. As a side note, I wish people would stop pretending they never drank out of a big red cup before.