Damn, I thought this site was Facebook.
I’ve been on since beta testing , but only check in every year or so. Why such an early adopter? Because my kid was one of those five college kids that built the site (and still a friend of Zuck’s—both literally and digitally). Most of them dropped out of school to write code. Not exactly exciting drama for a movie. My kid liked the film described in the article although it’s highly fictionalized. I haven’t read all of the New Yorker piece yet. The parts I skimmed seem pretty balanced. For those of you that read the New Yorker piece about Zuckerberg, I think it is important to remember that these were just 18 and 19 year old kids that happened to get very lucky at the right time and place. Yeah, very bright, hard working kids, but still just kids. Think about it, how many dumb, stupid things did you say and do when you were that age?
I don’t mean to be defending Facebook or objecting to anyone’s opinions about it here. I have nothing to do with it and don’t have much use for it myself. It’s just that things get really distorted when a kid like Zuckerberg is suddenly the world’s youngest potential billionaire. Another thing to consider: Zuck has had many opportunities to cash in on his success, has turned down billions, and has yet to take the company public. He not only really believes in what he is doing, he’s had the vision about what Facebook could become from the very beginning. Of course you don’t get that big that fast without making some mistakes. Also, you don’t become that successful without some people resenting it or feeling like they deserve a piece of the action. Yet, knowing a little bit about things from the start, I personally believe a big part of why fb became so popular so quickly was because they weren’t focused on making money. They were focused on doing something that they thought was cool.
BTW, my kid left Facebook after a year to go back to school (with a few stock options in his backpack). He was a lucky kid, for sure, but he is largely unchanged by the cash he has (and will eventually have) and is an even better young man now. He even likes golf, even though he’s never really had the time to learn the game.