PG about to speak at Facebook, partnership announcement to follow

http://twitter.com/Harjeet/status/22222030645

by mrduncan • 16 years ago

82 64 16 years ago

dman2• 16 years ago

Is HN soon going to act as the product development group of the big guns like google, facebook? Or maybe pg has convinced facebook to port over to arc ?

mahmud2• 16 years ago

In what universe does this drivel merit a single upvote, much less 9?

1) HN is not a product development group, it's a message-board. In the same way that the community bulletin-board at the grocery store is not a think-tank for the "Big Agro", "Mainstream Media", or the "Military Industrial Complex".

2) Port everything to Arc? Riiiight, because the raison d'être of YCombinator is to further PG's closet lambda cause and preach the merits of his pet Lisp dialect.

mgummelt3• 16 years ago

1) I think he meant YC, in which case this new deal makes the metaphor exaggerated, but fairly appropriate.

2) That was a joke. Though I definitely would have rather coded in Arc than PHP when I was at Facebook.

dman2• 16 years ago

1) I did mean YC. Sorry about the initial mistake. YC companies seem to do a great job of turning ideas into products. I guess it happens because there is no corporate redtape, infinite market sizing, or corporate apathy in a YC startup that exists in larger companies. I believe YC is much more efficient at turning ideas into products than large companies. Which is why I feel that YC can act as the fast throughway where the best and the brightest from google/ facebook etc depart temporarily for a year or two and return to the fold with a successful product. Large companies have a lot of policies meant to push the average employee up which end up holding their best employees back. Working in an autonomous setting within YC or another group would allow the best and the brightest from the larger companies to create products quickly. All this being said - my comment was definitely armchair analysis - I am not related to either the large companies or to YC. 2) Porting to Arc was meant to be a joke.

PS: You need to chill out.

Mystalic• 16 years ago

Announced: http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/405

DanielRibeiro3• 16 years ago

Some investitors complained at Angelconf 2010, or maybe on a press coverage of it (don't really remember), about angels financing Facebook's expensive "selection program" (buying startups as a means of hiring people). Wonder how this will be seen those who made such claims...

amirmc• 16 years ago

I'm curious. Does that mean that the angels don't expect to get a decent return if FB buys their investment?

DanielRibeiro3• 16 years ago

If I recall correctly, they feel like startups sell too early to Facebook, foregoing the oportunity to get bigger. Pg said this is good, because the founders are instantly removing all risk for what is alredy a lot of money. Investitors are not so thrilled, because they are not getting that much money, and would be willing to take the risk.

However, founders don't have 100 companies they are investing, so the risks are not felt the same by founders and angels.

Angel conf presentations say a lot more: http://justin.tv/ycombinator

pg4• 16 years ago

Actually twas Arrington himself, and he wasn't entirely serious.

myprasanna• 16 years ago

A quick question: Is instant personalization just removing a click that is otherwise required by an application to access all this data? Is there any new data that I can't access via the api, that is coming here.

Maybe devs who work with FB connect more often can clarify.. Thanks in advance.

rwhitman• 16 years ago

I hope this means more improvements to the FB platform. Has anyone else tried to build a product exclusively on top of the new Graph API yet?

Curious if anyone else has the same opinions that I do - not mature enough to trust just yet...

rokhayakebe• 16 years ago

Some year PG will be "This year's most influential person in tech"

sliverstorm2• 16 years ago

This is highly ironic, IMHO, given the anti-FB attitude that's been flagrantly displayed on HN for the past several months.

pchristensen• 16 years ago

There's a big difference between HN and YC. HN is people who like startups, YC is a mentor/investor. The HN community might not like what Facebook has been up to, but YC knows that being friends with FB is good business.

sliverstorm2• 16 years ago

This is true. I feel it's still ironic though, as people on HN I feel typically look up to YC and pg, and many would like to fly under YC's wing.

spolsky• 16 years ago

I know! I know!

Step 1. They'll announce that Facebook is going to invest in any Y Combinator companies that want to make their products work well with Facebook.

Step 2. They'll announce that Facebook will pre-acquire any Y Combinator companies without going through the trouble of demo day, angel investment, etc.

Step 3. Getting accepted to Y Combinator will mean automatically being acquired by Facebook. All Y Combinator founders will have guaranteed jobs at Facebook with 4 year vesting lockup.

Step 4. Paul and Jessica realize that there's no glory in being Facebook's unpaid campus recruiters, but unfortunately, their own vesting deal will require them to hang around pretending to be friends with Mark Zuckerberg for another 13 months.

blantonl• 16 years ago

Congrats Paul and Jessica on your efforts!

SandB0x• 16 years ago

I was going to vote you up, but under the circumstances the only thing to say is: http://i.imgur.com/NoDzP.png

novum• 16 years ago

Zucker News? Facecombinator? HN Connect?

(Disclaimer: I loathe facebook)

nopassrecover3• 16 years ago

Doesn't this fly in the face of "don't deal with jerks"? (I'm not being deliberately inflammatory, this is a genuine query)

noahth• 16 years ago

so there's this thing called money...

pg4• 16 years ago

If you mean Mark, I don't think he is.

david927• 16 years ago

What remains to be seen is how many who would otherwise apply feel the same way. The sense I get in the community is that a lot of people think he is, and this may adversely affect the quality of applicants.

nopassrecover3• 16 years ago

That's actually good to hear and I meant Mark although obviously Mark != Facebook.

When I say "not a jerk" I'm thinking a strong respect for liberty (individual rights / respect for the rights of others). However, and a lot of this is influenced by allegations, Mark has done the following wrong by my reckoning, enough to question whether he is safely "not a jerk":

1. Been trusted with source code and market insight from a group he worked with, told them it was useless and then used it to develop his own site.

2. Shown little respect for privacy or IP concerns of users until market pressure forced him.

3. Been dishonest with users by changing terms and using the data of users for Facebook business purposes without explicit permission (now largely rectified).

4. Copied the look, feel and features of early competitors while litigating those who attempt the same with Facebook.

5. Allegedly (unlikely perhaps) given away a share of the company as part of overdue project complications and not advised future investors.

While a lot of this is probably untrue, it's enough for me to question the man's integrity, honesty and ability to be trusted.

rpledge• 16 years ago

Meh, personally I dislike the idea of building a business on top of someone else's platform. Facebook/Twitter/etc are good ways to reach out to people and spread your message, but it's too easy for them to block you or reimplement your idea.

thisorthat2• 16 years ago

Agreed 100% and came here to say just this. Perfect recent example would be Tweetmeme. Plus you do not know how long these platforms are going to last there just here until someone comes up with something better. When they fold you fold unless you can adapt like those companies that made applications for Myspace and then moved on to Facebook.

_ouxp2• 16 years ago

Tweetmeme isn't a great example. They didn't get steamrolled—they now power the official Tweet Button, and they'll power (they are?) DataSift, which is going to give people crazy querying capability against real-time twitter data.

colonelxc• 16 years ago

I generally agree, but this arrangement makes it a little different. Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside. They're not going to block someone they are partnering with, and with an advanced look at the beta features, you're not going to be hit with broken apps with the api changes.

As far as reimplementing goes, I think they'd just buy you first. They've already invested time and resources to help you develop your app/site, so it will be natural for them just to aquire you.

It's perfect for YC (extra high chance for the startups to be bought by FB) and good for FB (people doing cool, interesting social things they can incorporate). I am still not a fan, but I guess I'm not a huge fan of Facebook anyways.

Silhouette• 16 years ago

> Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside.

Sure, but there is a risk/benefit analysis to be done here. If you bet your business on one big company like that, you not only are you betting that the company won't choose to squish you, you are also betting that the company will remain strong enough to support you for as long as it matters.

If you are aiming to build a modest company whose service is fundamentally tied into a currently dominant big player and probably looking for an early exit, that might not matter all that much. On the other hand, if you have a neat general idea and the big company just happens to be the dominant platform in a relevant field today, that doesn't mean they will still be so tomorrow, and your idea might fit with competitor platforms just as neatly.

Personally, of all the companies in the world I would not build my business around today, Facebook is one of the top three. The others are Google and Apple. All three have a demonstrable history of trying stuff and then backpeddling, so if you get taken over, you might get a bit from your options but your idea and future development are hardly secure. All three have a track record of screwing the little guy, sometimes without even noticing, so if you're just building on their platform independently, you're highly vulnerable. And worst of all, I expect all three to take a severe legal and/or market-driven beating within the next couple of years.

For Google or Facebook, it will probably be on privacy grounds. You just can't go around making the arrogant statements their execs keep making, and presuming to collect and sell that kind of personally sensitive data, in a world where the public is increasingly concerned about these things and serious crime built around data loss and ID theft is rising fast. Both companies have already been hit hard by privacy watchdogs in several countries.

For Apple, it will probably be because the walls around their garden aren't strong enough but their corporate arrogance makes them think they are. Steve will probably just wake up one morning and suddenly realise that Android phones or a resurgence from a player like Palm or Blackberry has taken most of his market share, without even noticing how it happened.

Plus of course there are always the basic business threats. Facebook only needs enough people to start leaving that it can no longer function as the de facto standard way for friends to share stuff and it's toast, just like other social networks before it. Google only needs someone else to come up with a better way to do search and it's toast, just like other search engines before it. Apple... Well, they have a prestige brand in the middle of the worst financial crisis in two generations, so you do the math.

To avoid going down with the ship, if I were building a new on-line tool today and needed to work with a big player for platform support, I would definitely want to be working on portable, open standards as much as possible. That is exactly what big players like Facebook do not have, and will try to their dying financial statement not to introduce since it would be anathema to their business model.

swombat• 16 years ago

They're not going to block someone they are partnering with

Facebook is a business. They'll do whatever is in their business interests. If it is "block and copy such and such app" and they can do it without significant reputational damage (which is really the only protection YC startups will have), they will do it.

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

I guess an obvious exception is that there is an entire industry (SEO) built on google's platform.

InclinedPlane3• 16 years ago

A lot of practical (i.e. not just gaming the system) SEO tactics are valid for almost any search engine, not just Google's.

staunch3• 16 years ago

Or building your business on your government's "platform".

At some point the stability, openness, and size are enough to reduce the risk to a very low level. I'm sure it's safe to bet on: Windows, OSX, and Google. I really don't think Facebook is there yet. Not given how quickly we went from Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook.

chrischen2• 16 years ago

It's no exception. We're always building on platforms. It just depends on how risky/unstable/new the underlying platforms are. Without platforms, we wouldn't be able to build skyscrapers.

mgummelt3• 16 years ago

That statement is too general. Obviously it's a good idea for desktop software developers to build on the Windows platform. I build websites on the "IE platform" in that I rely on IE for distribution. Does Facebook have a history of cutting off services that use their API's?

Also, Facebook can implement your idea even if you're not on their platform. Look at FB Places. I don't see how using the FB platform makes it any more likely that they will move into your space.

chrischen2• 16 years ago

But if you're dependent on Facebook it can also cut you off, or at least not support you anymore. It's not about preventing competition, it's about your supplier becoming your competitor.

pg4• 16 years ago

They seem sensitive to this concern. One of the points Bret made at the event was that they're changing things to ensure your users really are yours.

9oliYQjP• 16 years ago

FB just bought ChaiLabs who responded by "pausing" their beta API. My first thought (well after thinking "crap, there goes all my work") was that they wanted to absorb the ChaiLabs API into the FB platform. So, while they might seem sensitive to the concern, I'm not quite sure it's mitigating the very real "walled garden"/AOL quagmire.

greenlblue• 16 years ago

Is this real?

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

Well, I guess that answers this question:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1172025

;)

Joking aside, this is an interesting development, it means that anybody looking to disrupt FB or something affiliated with FB is now going to avoid applying to YC unless they intend do be acquired.

msy• 16 years ago

I can't be the only one that finds this makes YC less attractive. I looked at YC as mentoring and a leg up for interesting ideas, not a sausage factory for Facebook Apps.

Keyframe• 16 years ago

This sounds great for YC startups that are building anything married to facebook. Also, really great move by facebook, they get a pre-approved pool of third parties to expand their world of facebook. It sounds like a win-win.

Unless facebook would like to put their fingers all over YC's, including those that aren't related to facebook in any way - e.g. "Pg says we MUST have facebook integration like this, we have this document we got from facebook on how and what to put into our product. Do it bro - he'll shoot us in the face. Here he comes, I can hear the lambda keychain. Just do it!".

scrame• 16 years ago

Yuck.

PG about to speak at Facebook, partnership announcement to follow

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