7 ms·

"that fool" created a $1.8 trillion company.

by pbreit 1y ago

kulahan 1y ago
$1.8 trillion in investor hopes and dreams, but of course they make zero dollars in profit, don’t know how to turn a profit, don’t have a product anyone would pay a profitable amount for, and have yet to show any real-world use that isn’t kinda dumb because you can’t trust anything it says anyways.
- daniel_iversen 1y ago
  Meta makes > $160 billion in revenue and is profitable itself, of course they’re going to invest in future longer term revenue streams! Apple is the counter example in a way who have maintained a lot of cash reserves (which seems to by the way have dwindled a LOT as I just checked..?)
  - kulahan 1y ago
    I’m talking about OpenAI, not companies subsidizing their value-losing LLMs with value-generating branches of the company.
  - ArnoVW 1y ago
    All that money was outside the US. The theory was for some time that they were waiting for the right moment (change of administration/legislation) so that they could officially recognize the profit in the US cheaply
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
the_gastropod 1y ago
Aren't there enough examples of successful people who are complete buffoons to nuke this silly trope from orbit? Success is no proof of wisdom or intelligence or whatever.
- umbra07 1y ago
  can you point to someone as successful as zuckerberg, who was later conclusively shown to be a fraud or a total moron?
  - Avshalom 1y ago
    What does the name of his company Meta refer to?
  - chemeril 1y ago
    SBF comes to mind.
    - umbra07 1y ago
      SBF wasn't as successful though. His success wasn't even in the same stratosphere as Zuckerberg. His company was around for 3 years. Facebook has been around for over two decades. In terms of net worth, SBF was somewhere around 60th, I think? Zuckerberg was no. 2. Same thing with their respective companies.
  - fcarraldo 1y ago
    Elon Musk.
  - wetpaws 1y ago
    [dead]
  - twelve40 1y ago
    > a special order, 350 gallons, and had it shipped from Los Angeles. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of banana nut and wanted only French vanilla ice cream yes, there are plenty more recent example, every single person who touched epstein
    - umbra07 1y ago
      Nobody involved with Epstein was as successful as Zuckerberg. Howard Hughes's net worth is 55B adjusted for inflation. And I don't think, "he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness." fits my "total moron" criteria.
twelve40 1y ago
past performance does not guarantee future results also, great for the Wall Street, mixed bag for us the people
AaronAPU 1y ago
I’m always fascinated when someone equates profit with intelligence. There are many very wealthy fools and there always have been. Plenty of ingredients to substitute for intelligence. Neither necessary nor sufficient.
- falcor84 1y ago
  I really don't see how a person can build one of the most successful companies in history from scratch without exhibiting intelligence. There are many things we can and should say about Zuckerberg, but I don't think that unintelligent is one them.
  - DanHulton 1y ago
    You can be terribly intelligent and be an incredible fool at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
    - muzani 1y ago
      Intelligence is the ability to creatively solve problems. Wisdom is picking the right problems to solve.
  - skeeter2020 1y ago
    Intelligence probably IS positively correlated with success, but the formula is complex and involves many other factors, so I have to believe it's relatively weak correlation. Anecdotally I know about as many smart failures as smart successes.
  - Bender 1y ago
    It certainly doesn't hurt when the government profiles and grooms intelligent people out of Stanford SRI the dark side, Harvard, hands them an unlimited credit card and says, "Make this thing that can do x,y,z." and then helps them network with like-minded creators and removes any obstacles in their path. One has to at least admit that was a contributing factor to their success as the vast majority of people do not get these perks. Partially related documentary [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY [video][44 mins]
lowsong 1y ago
No the thousands of people working at Facebook did, he just got rich from it.
- apsurd 1y ago
  I'm no zuck fanboy, but i'm compelled to ask what purpose rejecting the role of a leader serves? HN is "the smart reddit" as my brother coined, and i'm very aware of how much nonsense is on here, but it is in a relative sense true. All to say, blindly bashing the role of a leader seems faulty and dismissive.
  - emseetech 1y ago
    There's a big discussion in there about the inherent requirement of labor, the definition of leadership, collective vs hierarchical decision-making, hegemonic inertia and market capture and more. This is probably not the best place to have it. Not to say that Zuckerberg is dumb but there's plenty of ways he could have managed to get where he is now without having the acumen to get to other places he wants to be.
  - dandanua 1y ago
    No one is rejecting the role of leader, it's just extremely exaggerated nowadays, like everyone thinks Facebook==Zuckerberg. And the leaders don't worth x1000 (or even x1000000 for some) unless they are doing a job of 1000 people. In most cases they are not even capable of doing 99% of the work people in their companies can do. Egomaniac Musk has already published his thoughts on programming problems, only confirming how dumb he is in this field.
- cschep 1y ago
  Which they absolutely would not have done if Zuck didn't start it, get funding, pay them handsomely, and tell them exactly what to do. I'm sure that Zuck is worthy of huge amounts of criticism but this is a really silly response.
  - guelo 1y ago
SoftTalker 1y ago
He created a company that tracks and profiles people, psychologically manipulates them, and sells ads. And has zero ethical qualms about the massive social harm they have left in their wake. That doesn't tell me anything about his ability to build "augmented reality" or otherwise use artificial intelligence in any way that people will want to pay for. We'll see. Ford and GM have a century of experience building cars but they can't seem to figure out EVs despite trying for nearly two decades now. Tesla hit the ball out of the park with EVs but can't figure out self-driving. Being good at one thing does not mean you will be good at everything you try.
- packetlost 1y ago
  > Ford and GM have a century of experience building cars but they can't seem to figure out EVs despite trying for nearly two decades now. Your EV knowledge is 3 years out of date. Both Ford and GM have well liked and selling EVs. Meanwhile Tesla's sales are cratering.
  - buzzerbetrayed 1y ago
    [flagged]
- masfoobar 1y ago
  I was rather sad when everyone moved away from MySpace to Facebook. While the interface today would likely be poor, I felt it was much better than what Facebook was offering. Still its hard to believe it was around 19 years ago many started to move over. While I cannot remember the names of these sites, there were various attempts to create a shared platform website where you could create a profile and communicate with others. I remember joining a few at least back in 2002 before MySpace, Yahoo360. There was also Bebo which, I think, was for the younger kids of the day. Lets not forget about friendsreunited. Many Companies become successful being at the right place at the right time. Facebook is one of those companies. Had facebook been created a year or so beforehand (or a year or two after) we would likely be using some other "social media" today. Be interesting how that would have compared to facebook. Would it be "more evil" ??? Regardless, whether its Facebook/MarkZuckerberg or [insert_social_media]/[owner]... we would still end up with a new celebrity millionnaire/billionnaire.. and would still be considered "a fool" one way or another.
notTooFarGone 1y ago
If you would let a billion monkeys invest there also would be a monkey billionaire by chance.

"that fool" created a $1.8 trillion company.

by pbreit 1y ago

"that fool" created a $1.8 trillion company.

$1.8 trillion in investor hopes and dreams, but of course they make zero dollars in profit, don’t know how to turn a profit, don’t have a product anyone would pay a profitable amount for, and have yet to show any real-world use that isn’t kinda dumb because you can’t trust anything it says anyways.

daniel_iversen 1y ago
Meta makes > $160 billion in revenue and is profitable itself, of course they’re going to invest in future longer term revenue streams! Apple is the counter example in a way who have maintained a lot of cash reserves (which seems to by the way have dwindled a LOT as I just checked..?)
- kulahan 1y ago
  I’m talking about OpenAI, not companies subsidizing their value-losing LLMs with value-generating branches of the company.
- ArnoVW 1y ago
  All that money was outside the US. The theory was for some time that they were waiting for the right moment (change of administration/legislation) so that they could officially recognize the profit in the US cheaply
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

the_gastropod 1y ago

Aren't there enough examples of successful people who are complete buffoons to nuke this silly trope from orbit? Success is no proof of wisdom or intelligence or whatever.

umbra07 1y ago
can you point to someone as successful as zuckerberg, who was later conclusively shown to be a fraud or a total moron?
- Avshalom 1y ago
  What does the name of his company Meta refer to?
- chemeril 1y ago
  SBF comes to mind.
  - umbra07 1y ago
    SBF wasn't as successful though. His success wasn't even in the same stratosphere as Zuckerberg. His company was around for 3 years. Facebook has been around for over two decades. In terms of net worth, SBF was somewhere around 60th, I think? Zuckerberg was no. 2. Same thing with their respective companies.
- fcarraldo 1y ago
  Elon Musk.
- wetpaws 1y ago
  [dead]
- twelve40 1y ago
  > a special order, 350 gallons, and had it shipped from Los Angeles. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of banana nut and wanted only French vanilla ice cream yes, there are plenty more recent example, every single person who touched epstein
  - umbra07 1y ago
    Nobody involved with Epstein was as successful as Zuckerberg. Howard Hughes's net worth is 55B adjusted for inflation. And I don't think, "he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness." fits my "total moron" criteria.

twelve40 1y ago

past performance does not guarantee future results also, great for the Wall Street, mixed bag for us the people

AaronAPU 1y ago

I’m always fascinated when someone equates profit with intelligence. There are many very wealthy fools and there always have been. Plenty of ingredients to substitute for intelligence. Neither necessary nor sufficient.

falcor84 1y ago
I really don't see how a person can build one of the most successful companies in history from scratch without exhibiting intelligence. There are many things we can and should say about Zuckerberg, but I don't think that unintelligent is one them.
- DanHulton 1y ago
  You can be terribly intelligent and be an incredible fool at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
  - muzani 1y ago
    Intelligence is the ability to creatively solve problems. Wisdom is picking the right problems to solve.
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  Intelligence probably IS positively correlated with success, but the formula is complex and involves many other factors, so I have to believe it's relatively weak correlation. Anecdotally I know about as many smart failures as smart successes.
- Bender 1y ago
  It certainly doesn't hurt when the government profiles and grooms intelligent people out of Stanford SRI the dark side, Harvard, hands them an unlimited credit card and says, "Make this thing that can do x,y,z." and then helps them network with like-minded creators and removes any obstacles in their path. One has to at least admit that was a contributing factor to their success as the vast majority of people do not get these perks. Partially related documentary [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY [video][44 mins]

lowsong 1y ago

No the thousands of people working at Facebook did, he just got rich from it.

apsurd 1y ago
I'm no zuck fanboy, but i'm compelled to ask what purpose rejecting the role of a leader serves? HN is "the smart reddit" as my brother coined, and i'm very aware of how much nonsense is on here, but it is in a relative sense true. All to say, blindly bashing the role of a leader seems faulty and dismissive.
- emseetech 1y ago
  There's a big discussion in there about the inherent requirement of labor, the definition of leadership, collective vs hierarchical decision-making, hegemonic inertia and market capture and more. This is probably not the best place to have it. Not to say that Zuckerberg is dumb but there's plenty of ways he could have managed to get where he is now without having the acumen to get to other places he wants to be.
- dandanua 1y ago
  No one is rejecting the role of leader, it's just extremely exaggerated nowadays, like everyone thinks Facebook==Zuckerberg. And the leaders don't worth x1000 (or even x1000000 for some) unless they are doing a job of 1000 people. In most cases they are not even capable of doing 99% of the work people in their companies can do. Egomaniac Musk has already published his thoughts on programming problems, only confirming how dumb he is in this field.
cschep 1y ago
Which they absolutely would not have done if Zuck didn't start it, get funding, pay them handsomely, and tell them exactly what to do. I'm sure that Zuck is worthy of huge amounts of criticism but this is a really silly response.
- guelo 1y ago

SoftTalker 1y ago

He created a company that tracks and profiles people, psychologically manipulates them, and sells ads. And has zero ethical qualms about the massive social harm they have left in their wake. That doesn't tell me anything about his ability to build "augmented reality" or otherwise use artificial intelligence in any way that people will want to pay for. We'll see. Ford and GM have a century of experience building cars but they can't seem to figure out EVs despite trying for nearly two decades now. Tesla hit the ball out of the park with EVs but can't figure out self-driving. Being good at one thing does not mean you will be good at everything you try.

packetlost 1y ago
> Ford and GM have a century of experience building cars but they can't seem to figure out EVs despite trying for nearly two decades now. Your EV knowledge is 3 years out of date. Both Ford and GM have well liked and selling EVs. Meanwhile Tesla's sales are cratering.
- buzzerbetrayed 1y ago
  [flagged]
masfoobar 1y ago
I was rather sad when everyone moved away from MySpace to Facebook. While the interface today would likely be poor, I felt it was much better than what Facebook was offering. Still its hard to believe it was around 19 years ago many started to move over. While I cannot remember the names of these sites, there were various attempts to create a shared platform website where you could create a profile and communicate with others. I remember joining a few at least back in 2002 before MySpace, Yahoo360. There was also Bebo which, I think, was for the younger kids of the day. Lets not forget about friendsreunited. Many Companies become successful being at the right place at the right time. Facebook is one of those companies. Had facebook been created a year or so beforehand (or a year or two after) we would likely be using some other "social media" today. Be interesting how that would have compared to facebook. Would it be "more evil" ??? Regardless, whether its Facebook/MarkZuckerberg or [insert_social_media]/[owner]... we would still end up with a new celebrity millionnaire/billionnaire.. and would still be considered "a fool" one way or another.

notTooFarGone 1y ago

If you would let a billion monkeys invest there also would be a monkey billionaire by chance.