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I think the examples here are pretty ironic. Facebook hinged on the technical prowess of Mark Zuckerberg? I'm not sure I agree with that; this is not to take an

I think the examples here are pretty ironic. Facebook hinged on the technical prowess of Mark Zuckerberg? I'm not sure I agree with that; this is not to take anything away of course but I think the ability to build, especially the early version of The Facebook, was fairly minimal and what mattered more was the non-technical side. Why even bother trying to "debunk" a simple piece of folk wisdom? In fact, it's sort of a myopic debunking. No one that accepts the viewpoint expressed by "it's not what you know, it's who you know" seriously thinks knowledge is completely worthless. I just find this hard to take seriously. It seems like a very sophomoric analysis of a folk "truism" that actually does make a lot of sense despite the contradictory refutation here. Now, is it also true that simply building up a lot of connections and not ever doing anything is not going to get you anywhere? Sure, but that is a caricature. Next, we're going to see a big refutation of "Show me who you're friends are and I'll tell you who you are." I'm on pins and needles. :)

nnq 14y ago
Indeed, Facebook is probably the worst example ever for illustrating his point! I'm not denying the technical skills of MZ, but really, it was 99% about the right time, the right place, the need for it being already there, people being already primed and wormed for the whole social networking concept, the US college environment being good enough for spreading the meme... any "a little bit better than myspace" execution would have been enough to attract people, then the large enough user base would have been enough to attract funding. Actually I think Facebook was neither about who knew who (serendipity), nor about the skills of the people involved (preparation) - I consider it like the fuel being already piled up and all that was needed was the right temperature and a spark ...or more like life appearing on a planet with the right chemicals and conditions: it just fucking happens by simple laws of probability governing chemical reactions (to develop this analogy further, giving MZ credit for Facebook is just like inventing the concept of god and giving him credit for life appearing on Earth!)
austenallred 14y ago
Sure, Facebook was technically simple for something that would turn into a Billion dollar business. You can certainly argue that the valuable intellectual property of Facebook wasn't in the actual lines of code. I don't think even the author would try to refute that statement. But what the author is trying to say is that Facebook WAS actually built. It wasn't just something someone would talk or think about, and that's a crucial step. Take it from a business co-founder; that's a step a lot of people who read HackerNews can dismiss as time behind a screen, but if someone doesn't have the ability to build something it could become an insurmountable obstacle. Someone who has all of the skill sets necessary to build a business is very rare, as different personality types and years of experience lend themselves more to certain skills at the expense of others (it's a huge struggle for me to learn to program, although we're getting there). So the point of the author was, "Making connections, selling things, understanding a vision, that's great... but somehow, some way, you still have to build it."

nnq 14y ago

Indeed, Facebook is probably the worst example ever for illustrating his point! I'm not denying the technical skills of MZ, but really, it was 99% about the right time, the right place, the need for it being already there, people being already primed and wormed for the whole social networking concept, the US college environment being good enough for spreading the meme... any "a little bit better than myspace" execution would have been enough to attract people, then the large enough user base would have been enough to attract funding. Actually I think Facebook was neither about who knew who (serendipity), nor about the skills of the people involved (preparation) - I consider it like the fuel being already piled up and all that was needed was the right temperature and a spark ...or more like life appearing on a planet with the right chemicals and conditions: it just fucking happens by simple laws of probability governing chemical reactions (to develop this analogy further, giving MZ credit for Facebook is just like inventing the concept of god and giving him credit for life appearing on Earth!)

austenallred 14y ago

Sure, Facebook was technically simple for something that would turn into a Billion dollar business. You can certainly argue that the valuable intellectual property of Facebook wasn't in the actual lines of code. I don't think even the author would try to refute that statement. But what the author is trying to say is that Facebook WAS actually built. It wasn't just something someone would talk or think about, and that's a crucial step. Take it from a business co-founder; that's a step a lot of people who read HackerNews can dismiss as time behind a screen, but if someone doesn't have the ability to build something it could become an insurmountable obstacle. Someone who has all of the skill sets necessary to build a business is very rare, as different personality types and years of experience lend themselves more to certain skills at the expense of others (it's a huge struggle for me to learn to program, although we're getting there). So the point of the author was, "Making connections, selling things, understanding a vision, that's great... but somehow, some way, you still have to build it."