> I figured that if Mark Zuckerberg decided it's worth pivoting his entire company towards that goal, he surely must have some data to back that up. You know,

> I figured that if Mark Zuckerberg decided it's worth pivoting his entire company towards that goal, he surely must have some data to back that up. You know, I never really though these founders were visionary geniuses. For the most part they are well connected/already well off, and did the right thing at the right time. I think the last couple of years have made that even more clear. Facebook really started taking off about the time that a second golden age of tech was starting, fueled largely by near-zero interest rates and a focus on massive IPO exits without any proof of profitability. Nobody had to make any money for years, if at all. Uber hasn't made any money and neither has Spotify. Tesla does make cars, but its real product is arguably its absurdly valued stock that has allowed it a large runway fueled for the most part by the delusions of grandeur of its CEO. During this time larger companies simply acquired everything in sight, hoping that it would pay off. I mean, of all these acquisitions by Meta, which have been worth it? They're not all Instagrams. https://www.techwyse.com/blog/general-category/facebook-acquisitions-infographic/# https://www.techwyse.com/blog/general-category/facebook-acqu... Facebook made it, but not because Zuckerberg made the best PHP site ever. Right place, right time, maybe among the first to realize that any engagement is good engagement, and I doubt it was Zuckerberg himself who had that realization. On top of that, Google, Meta, and advertising companies in general have grown mostly on the theory that the mass amounts of data that they collect and use to sell hyper-focused ads is worth something. Recently it's been revealed that this isn't true, and you get just as good or better results by simply advertising the last thing somebody looked at, or whatever they are currently standing next to IRL. Knowing that you looked at hemorrhoid cream 3 years ago doesn't help you sell anything today. So it's arguably based on lies as well. Now with interest rates up, I think we'll see how that plays out as advertisers finally start pulling back due to economic conditions. Uber turned off 2/3 of its ad spend in 2017 after it found that most of "conversions" were in fact fraud. Curious to see what other companies experience on this front. We'll find out how many of these founders are true geniuses or were just burning cash. I mean shit, give me a billion dollars and I'll give you something that looks like the next big thing no matter what...