The Lost Chapter

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=80

by jond3k • 14 years ago

375 236 14 years ago

EvaPeron• 14 years ago

Sour.Grapes.

I know it's a movie and not necessarily based on actual events, but people like this always make me think of the line in the social network: "If you had invented Facebook. You would've invented Facebook."

ryanmolden5• 14 years ago

I don't think you are using that correctly, you seem to be using it as a synonym for jealous/hater. I don't get the impression Aaron is disparaging fame or success; he is making the claim that Mark Zuckerberg has a questionable moral compass. That really doesn't relate in any way to the Aesop's Fable you reference. The fox didn't claim to dislike the grapes because they were ethically dubious; he disliked them as a way to feel better about not being able to acquire them.

gojomo• 14 years ago

"Stuck in a moment."

And once again, in Greenspan's own transcripts, Zuckerberg comes off better -- more focused, more observant, more strategic, seeing opportunities rather than obsessing on risks, and even more generous with offers of collaboration -- than Greenspan himself.

ipince• 14 years ago

Maybe so. But still as an immature dick.

Maybe I'm being too rosy and idealistic here, but I prefer integrity over those other traits you mentioned. Many people have a good balance, so why compromise?

daleharvey• 14 years ago

At what point on the transcripts does he come across as 'an immature dick'?

joelmichael• 14 years ago

He was 20 years old and joking around in private AIM conversations. Who shall throw the first stone?

mattmaroon• 14 years ago

"Perhaps the lesson here is that competing with and using your 'friends' in serial fashion until you totally and completely ravage each relationship is key to achieving financial success—but then it's certainly no way to define friendship."

That's certainly not the lesson. In fact what's always made me believe these sort of attacks against Zuckerberg's character is the fact that you don't see this happen with really any of the other startups that got big. Nobody is accusing Larry and Sergey of these sorts of shenanigans.

I'd say if anything, being a moral person is more blessing than curse when it comes to amassing wealth. It's obviously not a requirement though.

Apocryphon2• 14 years ago

They've accused Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of it.

wpietri• 14 years ago

E.g., Jobs cheated Wozniak out of cash money:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Early_career

brooktree4• 14 years ago

The first person who comes along and hits the web industry jackpot at an unprecedented level who is also not a stereotype antisocial nerd douchebag* is going to thoroughly debunk all theories that correlate this sort of character to financial success without any evidence of causation.

* The degree to which sheer luck and network effects are factors in this particular sector makes this plausible.

blhack• 14 years ago

Um Jack Dorsey?

unabridged• 14 years ago

>That's certainly not the lesson. In fact what's always made me believe these sort of attacks against Zuckerberg's character is the fact that you don't see this happen with really any of the other startups that got big. Nobody is accusing Larry and Sergey of these sorts of shenanigans.

I think a lot of it is about the product you are making. Google was started by people who would find Google useful. Larry and Sergey were not laughing at people for wanting to search the web. Facebook is just another in a long line of marketing triumphs, similar to movie and record producers who create movies and bands they themselves would never watch or listen to. Facebook is not a tech company, they are the worst part of the entertainment industry, the nonartists.

nancyhua4• 14 years ago

Larry and Sergey are different from other star founders who've been accused of evil (Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg) in that they were older so maybe more mature and also relatively less entrepreneurial- their goal was academia, unlike all the young dropouts. Maybe many extremely entrepreneurial people don't respect the law. In Zuckerberg's case it does seem like he doesn't care about patents at all whereas Aaron is still mad about the IP and hates that Zuckerberg ignored the rules (re: patents, Facemash, dropping out, and everything else) and got rewarded for it.

Reading the logs I don't get the sense Zuckerberg is being dishonest or that he even considers Aaron to be a friend. The main conflict seems to be the accusation that Zuckerberg stole ideas, which is a big question for software in general: ideas want to spread so the concept of IP is arguably against the nature of ideas. At the same time, we want people to be able to get rich off a great idea even if they don't implement it successfully. This question re: IP and copyrights is something we're still resolving as a society. Until it gets resolved, if ever, lots of people are going to have lots of unfair things happen to them and it's understandable to be mad about that.

But that's what life is: unfair. Just like we can't go through life feeling guilty about how lucky we are to have survived infancy unlike some absurd percentage of humans in poor countries, we can't constantly hate on other people who are even luckier than we are re: how they don't deserve their success. No one deserves anything. Life is unfair.

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

1) I don't think Greenspan is mad, he seems more disappointed.

2) It is absolutely possible to treat your fellow human beings well and find richly-deserved success - Mark Zuckerberg however does not seem capable of this.

3) Even though our society might tolerate and even reward (in the short-term at least) this sort of behaviour, should we be happy that a master-exploiter of this unfairness is the guardian of social relationships on the internet?

dasil0034• 14 years ago

People get screwed over all the time. Getting screwed over by Zuckerberg, well, that's an elite club, but time to move on with your life. If you keep it only as a good story for the grand kids maybe it won't eat up the rest of your potential.

asr• 14 years ago

Seriously, does this guy not have any parents/siblings/super close friends who can tell him it's time to move on? This is a great happy hour story, but not such a great epitaph.

On the bright side, at least he's thematically consistent! "I keep getting screwed over by life" is the only reason I can think of to start the post with so many words about Final Clubs before the pivot.... Suffice it to say, anyone who can graduate from Harvard with a CS degree and feel screwed over needs some perspective.

alid3• 14 years ago

"This is a great happy hour story, but not such a great epitaph." - nailed it!

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

I can see how Greenspan's experience would not exactly be easy to move on from. At stake is not his own personal success, but his belief about how the world should work. Greenspan sounds like a pretty moral guy, the kind of guy who gets upset when things happen that he thinks are wrong. Basically, you're asking him to shrug and move on but for him, an antisocial bastard is in the spotlight smiling and waving and being showered with praise by the press. It sounds like, for someone like him, fixing this mistake is more important than any other typical SV-type venture he could throw himself into.

Or he could just be incompetent and bitter. Who knows.

prostoalex• 14 years ago

He got screwed by Google, Inc. as well so lightening does strike twice http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-goo...

wilfra• 14 years ago

I was thinking the same thing when reading the About page on his website. After the first few paragraphs I was like 'he's not even going to mention Facebook - how baller is that' and thought he had moved on in a very healthy way. But then I kept reading, and he devotes well over half of his about page to the saga. Sad. Really sad, that he is letting this define his life.

nancyhua4• 14 years ago

I read the transcripts, all very fascinating. Aaron's focus is on building stuff whereas Mark's is human interaction- Aaron focuses on products and consulting whereas Mark was already thinking big picture about social. Aaron seems more ambitious than almost anyone and Mark seems 10x even more ambitious than that.

Even if Aaron is the superior engineer, Mark is the superior psychologist. Vision and navigation of systems constructed by humans turns out to be more important than building a lot of stuff no matter how cool or new it is.

Also seems like mark argues there aren't any ideas to steal and admits facebook's been done before- just this time he's going to execute it better.

theorique3• 14 years ago

This article reads as being full of blame.

Tipzntrix• 14 years ago

Perhaps this is one of the places where legal action is justified? Maybe he should've got a patent like all those monsters out there today. At least his would actually have a product behind it.

It's nice to here it from the horse's mouth instead of second-hand from a movie made to generate revenue though.

gwern• 14 years ago

He mentions his own settlement somewhere in there, although it's not discussed further.

formeraapl• 14 years ago

It's damn hard to pull emotion out when writing about one's life story, but Greenspan's writing style so distracts from the meat of his story that it's frustrating.

For instance:

"both so-called Facebook veterans (a phrase that actual veterans might find laughable)"

"It was an expense I simply could not afford all over again (unlike the Winklevoss twins, my father did not have millions of dollars of disposable income)"

"[Mark] didn't understand how to speak like a mature person his age."

Bits like those just scream "I'm a vicitim" and come off as whiny.

If Greenspan laid out the timeline and the documentation sans his editorializing it would be more powerful.

Carry these same points through any follow-up interviews, testimony, etc and I sense that Greenspan would be much happier with his outcome.

brooktree4• 14 years ago

The worst was complaining about a cab fare(?) to JFK.

But don't shoot the messenger. There are plenty of facts he's giving us. It is not pure opinion. An eye witness is an eye witness. He was there. As long as he is credible, his character, for our purposes, is irrelevant.

kanchax• 14 years ago

I agree, Greenspan did come out as a victim. His style is heavy.

j_s• 14 years ago

I don't know the right phrase for the opposite of 'preaching to the choir', but that's what I think this post here on HN is: the opposite of preaching to the choir.

Skroob• 14 years ago

"Preaching to Reddit"

wmeredith• 14 years ago

Maybe something like "Fall on deaf ears" or talking to "a brick wall".

itmag• 14 years ago

I always used to say "preaching to the satanists" :)

anon8083• 14 years ago

A very large chunk of his articles are negative http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/index.html

Not saying they aren't all true, I'm sure they are.

Why focus on the negativity? Recognize it and move beyond.

powertower• 14 years ago

95% of the news is negative.

anon8083• 14 years ago

probably true, but rarely all from one author.

bcherry• 14 years ago

From the AIM chat logs:

> zberg02: but probably like 8k

> zberg02: i think that qualifies as real cool

8k isn't cool. You know what's cool...

slajax• 14 years ago

10k?

samstave• 14 years ago

640K should be enough cool for anybody.

dreamdu5t• 14 years ago

The lesson is (again): It's all about execution.

mycroftiv• 14 years ago

The accumulated evidence of Zuckerberg's poor character was already overwhelming. For me, all it took was the infamous "dumb fucks" quote to make me decide to never use Facebook. That alone disqualifies someone to be a responsible custodian of my privacy. This article's evidence isn't as significant as other established facts like Zuckerberg's invasion of other people's email accounts, but it is consistent with everything else we know: in one of the modern world's great ironies, a person with no respect for his fellow human beings is the de facto gatekeeper of "friendship" on the net.

fletchowns• 14 years ago

How old was he when he made that comment? We all do/say dumb things when we are young...

rjzzleep• 14 years ago

he hasn't gotten much nicer with age, he just got a bit more careful on what he says in public.

danielweber• 14 years ago

It was about 5 years before he became a billionaire.

If "he was young" is a defense, then "he is too young to trust as a CEO" suddenly becomes a very very valid criticism of Zuck.

baddox4• 14 years ago

I don't think age matters. We all do/say dumb things, period. I suspect very few people would be happy to be represented by a worst sentences they've ever typed or uttered. If you really want to make a case that Facebook shouldn't be trusted with privacy issues, base an argument on their previous privacy failures rather than something the CEO said years ago.

23david• 14 years ago

It's really hard to change a person's character as they get older. In general I think that by the age of 18-21 most of our ideas of right/wrong and how to behave and treat other people are pretty much established.

tl;dr It's hard to stop being an arrogant asshole. I feel bad for the guy.

bicknergseng2• 14 years ago

Don't you think this is somewhat naive and limited? He was 19 years old when he made that comment. Other people with far more power over your life have done and said far worse things. Think about your bank accounts.

bherms• 14 years ago

Agree 100%. Also take into account the context and intent. I jokingly make statements like this all the time and it has literally ZERO effect on my ability to do any job or manage anything in my life.

spitx4• 14 years ago

In the Enron energy trading fiasco:

"They're f------g taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

"Yeah, now she wants her f------g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a------ for f------g $250 a megawatt hour."

Even that doesn't compare to the choke-hold (and the potential for indenture-ment) FB has over your current and continued life.

baddox4• 14 years ago

How much do you know about the CEO of Walmart? Do you trust him or her with all your personal shopping history? What about your apartment's building manager? Do you trust him or her to not have hidden cameras in your apartment? How much do you trust the head of state of your country? Do you trust him or her with the almost limitless amount of your personal information that may have been collected?

spitx4• 14 years ago

False equivalency. All over false equivalency.

Walmart isn't a service. Walmart doesn't have access to your most intimate information like Facebook does. Heck millions of Virgin Mobile accounts have been compromised. But the potential damage isn't even in the same order of magnitude of something (hypothetically) going foul at FB, either owing to deliberate policy or accidentally.

Same with JetBlue with passenger data some years ago. Not same order. Not same potential damage.

Smudge• 14 years ago

> "...and the directors and officers of any person that controls the applicant are of good character and sound financial standing." Here, the "good character" requirement would clearly preclude Mark, whose character has now been called into question more times than most of us can count.

I'm not aware of a common definition for "good character," but merely having your character "called into question," especially as a high-profile CEO (and celebrity, at that), should not be the sole grounds for being denied a license to transact money. I'm not saying there couldn't have been more to it in the case of Facebook/Zuckerberg, but in general, public defamation should not be, in itself, enough to prevent someone from building a legal business.

brooktree4• 14 years ago

Regardless of Greenspan's own character or his particular situation, he gives us a peek at the facts, which others are so quick to ignore.

I think there will be poetic justice in this story. Because the web is much bigger than Zuckerberg, or Facebook or even Google. The world is still getting online. It's early yet. But what Zuckerberg has done, how he has carried himself in the presence of enormous luck, he cannot erase. He will live with this reputation as a con his entire life. Building a website, millions of people signing up, enormous hype, making millions from display ads might seem impressive today. It won't remain that way in years to come. We're just getting started. Technology will be taken for granted. There will be more attention to the things Zuckerberg carelessly disregarded.

"Dumb fucks" indeed.

Thank you Mr. Greenspan for telling your side of the story.

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

Sir, I like the cut of your jib.

brc• 14 years ago

It's jib - as in the the front sail of a sailboat ahead of the mast. The saying is 'I like the cut of your jib' in that the way the sails are set determines both direction and style of sailing.

brooktree4• 14 years ago

The feeling is mutualistic.

john_flintstone• 14 years ago

Who cares? More to the point, who will care? Facebook will fall eventually. In the 10 or 20 years from now that you talk about, Facebook will be a distant memory.

Does anyone care about what may or may not have gone on at IBM 30 years ago? At MySpace? Facebook is not a bank and it's not a government. It's a social media site. Nobody will care.

jcfrei• 14 years ago

Aaron is (understandably) still butthurt from failing to make his houseSYSTEM successful. And Mark clearly was not only deceiving him but also downright stealing his work. Ultimately though that lack of character doesn't really matter - Mark was obviously more driven and had a clearer vision. I think the only lesson we can learn here is that dedication always wins over talent. And besides: Stealing and building a students directory across universities is one thing, creating a profitable business and amassing 900 Million users is a completely different story (and a task to which zuckerberg had a comparatively small contribution).

tharris0101• 14 years ago

Here is what I don't get about this whole thing: Friendster - 2002 Myspace - 2003 LinkedIn - 2003

Not to mention the dozens of other social media clones around that time (I remember being members of countless social media sites in those days)

Its not like anyone at Harvard stumbled upon an amazing new idea that was going to change the game. They were building what they hoped would be better versions of things already out there. Mark registered thefacebook.com because "Face Book" is a very common phrase/object.

For better or worse, Zuckerberg won the social networking race. Congrats to him, everyone else at Harvard at that time trying to stake a claim needs to just get on with their lives.

jonny_eh• 14 years ago

I assumed he got thefacebook.com because facebook.com wasn't available.

aheilbut• 14 years ago

and sixdegrees - 1996

jacques_chester• 14 years ago

I remember thinking that nobody would ever overtake MySpace.

80 million users!

Facebook gives me great comfort that the race isn't always to the swift.

And the contrast between Facebook and the launch of Google Wave has demonstrated that having a dense social graph early is critical to success.

tptacek11• 14 years ago

Logline: Zuckerberg mistreats Aaron Greenspan, is therefore greatest con of all time.

theorique3• 14 years ago

Well put. While he may be simply "telling his side of the story", Aaron Greenspan comes off in his own writing as a sanctimonious, sour-grapes-y, whinger.

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

I disagree. For someone at the very least arguably cheated out of a lot of wealth and at worst simply deceived and mistreated in a very nasty way by another human being, I think Greenspan writes with a tremendous amount of calm and balance, and also I don't think he is writing simply to vent bitterness or jealousy.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I think this lacks a bit of compassion. It's one thing to have some idea, not work on it, and then later see someone who made it happen. It is another thing entirely to work on an idea for years, bring someone into the group that is working with you on it (or at least advising) and then have them roll off with it and become one of the richest people in the country. Sure a zen master might take some comfort in validation of your ideas, but man it has to really hurt to not be a billionaire. That can really screw over your psyche in a bad way.

I know I would be pretty bitter in a similar situation.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

Mark Zuckerberg is not the only reason Aaron Greenspan is not a billionaire.

tptacek11• 14 years ago

I'm never going to be a billionaire. I would prefer that billionaires not get themselves elected President to cut the top tax rates, but that's about as far as it goes. We are sailing on an ocean of executable ideas, and we've got some of the best winds we've had in 10-15 years. Who has time to write 3000 words on someone else's "unjustified" success?

zingahgud7• 14 years ago

It's one thing to study others' work and take ideas from it. Everyone does that.

It's another thing to actively engage others, talk to them as if you are friends or enter into agreements to work together, and then take ideas from their work. It's the betrayal of people's trust that's gotten him the reputation for being a con and a thief.

ryanmolden5• 14 years ago

I believe the greatest con of all was likely in reference to this line:

He may, in fact, be the greatest con of all time, having effectively convinced an entire nation, including the President of the United States, to believe in his extremist philosophy of radical openness.

It isn't clear if getting someone to believe in your 'extremist philosophy of radical openness' is necessarily a con, unless of course you yourself don't believe in it and/or are doing so only in furtherance of some other interest which you are obscuring.

philiac2• 14 years ago

"It isn't clear if getting someone to believe in your 'extremist philosophy of radical openness' is necessarily a con, unless of course you yourself don't believe in it and/or are doing so only in furtherance of some other interest which you are obscuring."

I do believe this is what Greenspan was getting at.

interg122• 14 years ago

How about Kudos to Zuckerberg for screwing with so many people and winning without tipping his hand?

jamesaguilar6• 14 years ago

I don't understand why this person thinks Mark owed him all the information he complains about not being given. Am I obliged to inform my competitors of my intentions at every turn? Am I obliged to tell them when I change my mind about my plans? Am I indeed obliged not to deceive them? How do we know that Mark even viewed this guy as a friend, rather than perhaps as a friendly acquaintance? I can say for sure that I had many more and longer conversations on AIM with my real friends.

Maybe this guy has a reasonable beef, but it's far from clear to me.

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

I don't think Greenspan is complaining - I think this is meant as a warning. He's not saying that Mark acted unfairly and that he should have been nicer to Aaron (which would come across as petulant, and I think Greenspan seems quite realistic and calm about what happened), but that Mark has acted with only ruthless, narrowly-defined "self-interest", displaying no loyalty or kindness, and this bodes very poorly for the company, its investors and its users. Facebook is Mark's creation, and at the core of the company, beneath its social-open-sharing buzzwords there is no philosophy of human relationships, only Mark's shallow, self-centered heartlessness and lust for power and profit. We might think so what, but maybe we've been desensitised by the often shitty and kinda sociopathic (or socio-agnostic) behaviour of web entrepreneurs. Anyway point is the arbiter of "friendship" on the internet is a megalomaniac who seems to understand nothing about friendship - a strange situation perpetuated by a star-struck, gutless press too busy slathering him with praise to think critically. Greenspan is just pointing this out, fairly it seems.

jamesaguilar6• 14 years ago

Isn't this basically the same as saying tesla and spacex will fail because Elon Musk is a jackass?

jimbokun• 14 years ago

"Am I indeed obliged not to deceive them?"

From the perspective of being a decent human being, the answer to this question is pretty much always "yes".

zingahgud7• 14 years ago

If you read all the IM's, carefully, and you know a bit of Facebook history, you should see that the targets Zuckerberg chose from which he stole the ideas he used for Facebook, like Greenspan, were the type of people who could easily be taken advantage of. He knew who he was dealing with. But there is no empathy.

In the IM's Zuckerberg goes so far as to tell Greenspan he considers him to be "like a friend" (see IM for exact wording). This is really sickening.

dbul• 14 years ago

So it happened that in my junior year of college, I came across the web site of one of the many finals clubs on campus, the Fly Club.

It's "FINE-UHL clubs" not "FINE-UHLZ clubs."

And he shockingly did not understand why information privacy might be a controversial issue.

And then

He had been searching the houseSYSTEM Facebook for the twins' profiles

So much for privacy.

Aside from the Facebook, the sites had overlapping features for course schedulers, photo albums, message boards, digital posters for student groups, and eventually exchanges for buying and selling on campus and mapping your network of friends.

Irrelevant. People only used Thefacebook for obvious and simple things: connecting with people they knew, poking, messaging, and photos. No one used mapping your network of friends (which sucked, incidentally, and also was faily most of the time) and no one even used the course scheduler. To state the obvious, facebook was not successful for its features, it was successful because how it was executed!

This was claimed to have been written for historical significance, but I know that every time an article is written by this author and about this subject dozens of people are thinking the same thing: move on. Create a successful company first, then retire and write about this topic. I'd love to see blog posts regarding Think Computer's technology. As it stands, this blog post gained a lot of attention but there isn't even a a sidebar with "Hi, I'm Aaron Greenspan and I'm the CEO of Think Computer. We have this product, click here to learn more." It's a marketing failure to not capitalize on such an opportunity.

gee_totes• 14 years ago

At the bottom of the blog post, it says: Aaron Greenspan is the CEO of Think Computer Corporation and author of Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era. He is the creator of the FaceCash mobile payment system, ThinkLink business management system, and PlainSite legal transparency project. (and there are hyperlinks)

lisper• 14 years ago

> click here to learn more

There's a reason there is no such link. FaceCash is currently prohibited from doing business in California by the Money Transmission Act. Aaron is trying to resolve this, but until he does his hands are kind of tied.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

> FaceCash is currently prohibited from doing business in California by the Money Transmission Act.

Aaron Greenspan has a whole song and dance about how the state of California screwed him over, too. The guy comes across as nothing but a professional victim.

dkarl• 14 years ago

It's a marketing failure to not capitalize on such an opportunity.

Geez, we're supposed to think less of the guy for not milking his controversial history with Zuckerburg for cash? If there's ever a right time to refrain from marketing yourself, it's when you're accusing someone else of being an opportunistic sociopath.

rickdale• 14 years ago

Hm, anyone else have old AIM conversations stored on their computers? Seems convenient.

gknoy• 14 years ago

I do. My chat clients are set to automatically log, so that when I talk to someone a week later, I can look at the history. More importantly, a lot of questions get asked and answered over IM, so I can check it for answers to "why is X broken" or "How do I Y, again?", or "what was your mailing address?" without having to actually _ask_ the person again.

I've never looked back at archived IMs from years past, though, but they are still squirreled away on the removed hard drives from past machines.

pnathan• 14 years ago

I do. I log all chats by default.

2pasc• 14 years ago

Agree with all of you who say it is all about execution and timing. Zuckerberg had the right vision for what he wanted of Facebook though: a casual place to procrastinate. That is something that nobody else saw as clearly as him...and that's why his product won.

mratzloff• 14 years ago

I fully believe that Zuckerberg is every bit the scumbag his former friends assert. But bitter, much? This is a diatribe more than an essay.

pbreit• 14 years ago

As smart as Greenspan is he has no clue whatsoever what it takes to create a widely used service. He is constantly stuck on legal matters and splitting hairs that no one else cares about. He would be so much better off spending his considerable intellect and productivity on more valuable activities.

kevinalexbrown• 14 years ago

I'm not going to publicly speculate on either party's moral character. But I did skim the transcripts, and I noticed one curious fact:

Zuckerberg starts and ends most of the conversations.

To clarify: I'm not sure precisely why I find it interesting, it was just one of those phenomena that raised an eyebrow, and passed my "don't publicly engage in debates about people's character whom I haven't personally met"-test. (To be fair I do make practical judgments based on moral reputation when deciding whether or not to enter relationships with others.)

jemfinch• 14 years ago

Can you clarify why that's interesting?

patmcguire2• 14 years ago

It's not if it's once, but if it's always the case? Seems kind of transactional - I need to talk to this person for this, so I do; I completed that, so we're done.

misiti3780• 14 years ago

haha

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

Most, I guess. But even though I wasn't really paying attention to that I did make note of the fact that the conversation about how much Z was paying people was started by ThinkComp.

grellas2• 14 years ago

Institutional investors made the mistake - again, and again, and again - of validating Mark's duplicitousness by pouring literally billions of dollars into his company, and then billions more into startups seeking to emulate it. Some of their investments created out of thin air industries that contribute absolutely nothing to, and in many cases even detract from, society. . . . Most mind-boggling of all, it's been clear for a long time that Mark's "social" business model doesn't work anyway: venture capital returns are down, and not just a little bit. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost to society is enormous: with engineers and capital allocated to virtual-sheep-throwing, worthless advertising and sharing ad nasuem, almost a decade's worth of real innovations got the short end of the stick, including but not limited to mine.

There needs to be a label placed on the idea of feeling the need to bow to the wishes of critics who try to limit the idea of valid entrepreneurship to activities deemed "beneficial to society." I propose Founder's Guilt Complex.

Why on earth - when life is so big and beautiful and complex - should I feel guilty if I make money from an activity that does nothing more than give people a diversion from life's burdens and problems? College football may be a joke to pointy-head types but then reading Latin (my own peculiar idea of fun) is equally a joke to the cheering fans who join in inter-collegiate rivalries. Likewise for playing video games or hiking in the woods or listening to rock-and-roll or producing reality-TV shows or most any other activity you can name whose main goal is relaxation, entertainment, escape from life's burdens, or just plain self-indulgence. And social networking is no exception. I may not do much on Facebook (I don't) but so what? Others can and do like to share things with people of varying degrees of relationship to them and more power to them for liking to do this. It is their choice. It is a free country. It is not for me to be a scold who upbraids them for doing so. Nor should I be crabbed or pinched about what founders choose to do to create and market products and services designed to satisfy such proclivities or to make money from them.

Yes, I can set about in life to conquer diseases or to abolish poverty or to alleviate people's suffering and all such things are ennobling. I can do such things via a profit-making venture or I can make my money on other things and then use it to advance higher goals through giving. Or I can devote time and energy to helping others in my personal life. All of that is great but it hardly defines the boundaries of worthwhile human activity. Life has enough problems without having someone of a judgmental spirit continually taking us to task for wanting to have some fun as well or for trying to promote fun things for others. In a free society, there is room for fun things as well and for those who see it as worthwhile to take risk in building companies that seek to market less-than-weighty things to the public.

Life certainly can be perverse. In 17th century England, as modern western society was taking shape, you had, on the one side, royalists who despised political freedom, who valued rule by a church hierarchy, and yet who were much given to licentious habits in their lifestyles while, on the other, you had those who agitated for political freedom, who fought oppressive forms of centralized rule, who ultimately broke away to form what became America, and yet who in their personal lives bore the grim face of the puritan that sought at every turn to chain, quarter, and shame everyone all about who thought it might be fun to dance or to have a little fun in life. It seems that in our modern society we have ported over the spirit of the puritan in castigating others even as we have won the freedoms that allow us under law to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Well, if the pursuit of happiness was deemed a worthy goal of a society's founding documents, far be it from me to stand grim-faced telling others that they should feel guilty in not conforming to my narrow view of acceptable life activities - and that includes how I choose to make my living or start my business.

I don't think this is a mere technical issue either. I believe that no guilt or stigma should attach to ventures doing legal things just because they don't set out to solve World Problems. The poor have always been with us. So too have wars, rapes, and murders. Ditto for disease and death. I am the first to say "bravo" to those who do not sit resigned to accept all these destructive elements in life but who instead spur themselves to do something to help make things better not just for themselves but for the broader society too. That said, such activities cannot be the only things that define our goals in life, nor should they be. There is value in having enjoyment and fun in life and this is a transcending value that betters society. In the entrepreneurial world, there is no room for a spirit of self-righteousness. Therefore, I say away with Founder's Guilt Complex. If you want to do a venture, do it honestly and with integrity, drive, boldness, and energy. Just don't let others tell you that you should feel guilty about offending their scruples. Enjoy and make it work without guilt. You can deal with Weighty Issues too if you are so led. Just don't listen to those who say that what you are doing is not worthwhile unless it is narrowly confined to them.

So if the VC industry chose to pour all kinds of money into creating something called social networking, and if all kinds of talented engineers have flocked to that industry in pursuit of money or other personal goals, that is by definition a great benefit to society because it has given many, many people the chance to do things that were scarcely thought possible just a decade ago - and to derive simple pleasures from the diversions or other benefits afforded to them through such networking. Whatever the flaws associated with individual people or companies in such an industry, there is nothing whatever wrong with those who devoted their money and their efforts to making all this possible.

corporalagumbo20• 14 years ago

Jeez, did you have to write all that? Anyway, although I think you are focusing on the weakest part of Greenspan's argument - the point where he comes closest to bitterness - I was wondering if you'd like to invest $20,000 in my new venture. I'd like to sell crack heroin to junkies in Detroit. I'm sure as a fellow champion of guilt-free founder consciences, you will support my endeavour as I give gangbangers the chance to flock to this exciting new industry and do something they scarcely thought possible - to help give people a diversion from life's burdens and problems.

And don't worry, I'll do it with plenty of integrity, drive, boldness, and energy. Just like Zynga : )

dmansen• 14 years ago

Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what he meant. Ugh.

homosaur• 14 years ago

I want to invest in your startup. Sounds like a great opportunity, definitely profits from day one.

lifeisstillgood7• 14 years ago

In a free society, he is free to write as much as he likes and you are free to neither read nor reply to it.

The base of his argument is offending a persons preferences is not sufficient to self censor ones own actions - and I agree.

I also agree where he said any legal start up is fine and free of guilt - but don't worry I would be behind any start up or government initiative that gave away heroin to Junkies. The so called British System worked very well for many years, until the Puritan guilt pressure ended it in spite of empirical evidence that harm reduction did in fact reduce harm

so convert your start up to social entrpreneur status, and go make something to be proud of

the only reason to feel guilty is to have talent to create and not do so.

mattmanser• 14 years ago

Careful, you'll bring the HN grellas lovers down on you. While I always despair at his inability to say something succinctly, he generally always makes an excellent point.

Facebook provides an excellent service to most people in the world and it does so at a level that your $20,000 cannot buy. While we as a more discerning social customer may see it as extremely low value, the production values are actually extremely high. I always think of my national rag the Sun in these instances, it's utter trash, but they really worked hard on making it extremely good trash.

Alas for the article, to be honest the whole thing reads of bitterness, not unjustified if we are looking at 'justice'. But Zuck is a complete $&!t, and an extremely lucky one at that, but in business that's just the way it works. Moaning about it is futile. The only way to end up playing at that level is probably ending up being a complete $&!t as well. There are few big founders who haven't done very dodgy things in their time.

Apocryphon2• 14 years ago

Given the current popularity of certain cable serial dramas, your proposal has excellent mindshare.

tptacek11• 14 years ago

Ok, Corporal A. Gumbo: Write it better.

Do it and I'll donate $1000 that I promise I was not going to donate anyways to Partners In Health.

There's an idea common to forums that I don't frequent that I recently learned of called an "ideological Turing test". The idea is to take a group of people divided along a controversy, and to get each side to anonymously write a coherent argument that capture's the other side's perspective. Then everyone tries to tell, "which is the real argument, and which is the cunning fake?".

In that spirit: if you think you understand what 'grellas is trying to say so well, go ahead and take a whack at saying it better, and demonstrate that you actually grok his perspective.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

Yegge, is that you?!

001sky2• 14 years ago

I don't think this is a mere technical issue either. I believe that no guilt or stigma should attach to ventures doing [legal] things just because...

--There's a reason for ethics in law, economics and public policy.

moocow012• 14 years ago

Hes referring to the opportunity cost. If our society is focused on rewarding those that make little trinkets to distract everyone, I guess so be it but I think the argument is that we'd rather invest those people in solving the things we are trying to distract ourselves from. To people that have been unfortunate enough to experience real poverty, medical problems, and other struggles, the equivalency of a company who makes people have some fun and distraction versus a company who contributes to the elimination of very distressing human conditions is nowhere close - although I will admit they do both produce value.

pyoung• 14 years ago

Is there really an opportunity cost? There are tons of companies, non-profits, and academic research being conducted in the medical and other more worthy spaces. It's not like the existence of Facebook changes that. Also, the tech talent wars are really only driving up the costs of Computer engineers who are interested in the social web. It's not like this impacts non-profits very much, they are still getting talented people, they just don't happen to be in the market for CS engineers.

billjings• 14 years ago

I'm not taking sides here, but is there something about defending a billionaire that magically makes a person write in a Victorian voice?

bluekeybox• 14 years ago

Yes, I can confirm that from my own experience. Another fun language fact: after four bottles of beer, I start speaking with a posh British accent. After the fifth bottle, it changes into something resembling Australian with a hint of Russian, after the sixth into Irish, and then it goes downhill from there.

freshhawk3• 14 years ago

There is a label already, "ethical". Argue all you want over the ethics of facebook, or if entrepreneurs have any duty to act ethically, not unethically, not illegally or just not get caught. You don't need a new label though.

You sure did write a lot complaining about people using their free speech to criticize businesses they feel are either harmful or a waste of resources because this is a "free country". I was under the impression that the philosophy behind a free country was that allowing the people to openly criticize and discuss things allowed a society to thrive without overly restrictive laws. I guess they didn't consider the hurt feelings of entrepreneurs. I propose a new amendment: Freedom from hurt feelings resulting from the people's reaction to one's actions!

I'm actually very content with having the chosen method for encouraging altruism to be social norms. I'm happy you are free to invent a new addictive and time wasting form of entertainment who's contribution to society is null or negative. Complaining that some internet words made you feel guilty about it or that there is too much social pressure to actually contribute to the society on who's back you built your business is ... well, it's fucking ridiculous frankly.

tptacek11• 14 years ago

Only in places like Hacker News is there a consensus opinion that Facebook is "a new addictive and time wasting form of entertainment who's contribution society is null or negative". Facebook has increased the number of interactions I have with my extended family by roughly a factor of infinity --- and I'm one of those nerds who's run a mailing list for his family since the mid '90s.

A more concise way to say what 'grellas said is that these complaints about Facebook have nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with fashion. They are just a new way of proclaiming to the world that "I don't even own a television".

Concern for masses frittering away hours on meaningless entertainments is at least as old as the mechanical player piano. Despite the countervailing evidence of the Salk Vaccine, the ARPA IMP, Google, stem cell transplants, McGee's _On Food And Cooking_, and everything else society has managed to accomplished while beset by the horrors of entertainment, you are welcome to hold the view that you are better not only than the people who avail themselves of that entertainment, but also the people who manage to produce and maintain it using computer systems running at a scale unimaginable just a decade or two before.

Just do it with better writing, because the bar for articulating this particular concern is set very high; you might start with _Infinite Jest_.

tatsuke953• 14 years ago

>"actually contribute to the society"

Facebook has created a vast amount of wealth for a huge number of people. If you believe in capitalism, then Facebook has benefited society greatly, by definition.

31reasons• 14 years ago

On an unrelated note, I am curious, how can you write such long comments while working as lawyer ? Are you taking any Nootropics ? Please note that this is not a sarcasm, I am just trying to be as sharp as you are with the limited time that I have during the day :)

interg122• 14 years ago

This article actually demonstrates Zuckerbergs savvy in being the one who took the social network to market. Mark played everyone extremely well and deserves credit for implementing an idea that everyone had. THis story isn't about coming up with new ideas, it's about shipping something people want.

alid3• 14 years ago

Wowzers, why are people so keen to be negative? Facebook are doing awesome in their mission to make the world more open and connected. And regardless of fluctuations, Facebook's value still sits around, what, $48 billion? This is far too personal - Mark was 19 and in a private chat with a friend (and he's remarkably more motivated, mature and respectful than many guys I went to uni with at that age lol). We all grow and learn a heap from college days, so to link the success of a company today to factors from almost a decade ago is a low shot. Go forth and direct your energy into creating your own empires!

spitx4• 14 years ago

And let's not forget the Google smear campaign, only last year, orchestrated / bungled by Burson-Marsteller.

http://www.wired.com/business/2011/05/facebook-google-smear/

at-fates-hands• 14 years ago

To me, it's like Aaron lost the game with Zuckerberg because Zucks wasn't fighting fair and Aaron expected him to. The expectations were clearly different on each side. Zucks wanted to win the game and take all the marbles any way he could, and didn't care at the who's expense it came, including his friends. I think Aaron expected more fairness and is hurt, but not surprised Zuckerberg hasn't changed.

swordsmith2• 14 years ago

I've been reading Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power recently, and throughout this essay, I can't help but think just how all the "moves" Zuckerburg were accused (and infamous) of were exemplary of a number of these laws. Not trying to pass judgement on Zuckerburg's virtues or lack thereof (it's best to accept the inherent unfairness in life on the road to power), but he is a master of power plays:

Law 3: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies. If only Zuck's "friends" knew about the first part of the law. Zuck was, however, a master in exploiting and gaining information from his "enemies". Further, he used what his competitions to frame what his product should be.

Law 4: Conceal your intentions. "Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions" -- apparent in both the Winklevoss and Greenspan's stories. Zuck misled and deceived until the right time.

Law 5: Always say less than necessary...classic Zuck, "There was a need for facebook, so I made it"

Law 6: Court attention at all cost. His fight to receive coverage in the Crimson ensuring the early dominance of thefacebook.

Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit. If any of the stories about facebook is true, then Zuck's a textbook example of observing this law. According to Greene: using other people's work "not only will [...] save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed". Clearly it has worked to achieve his "genius" aura.

Law 9: Win through your actions, never through argument. He never let the lawsuits detract him away from the work too much. Now that facebook is too big, what actually happened really doesn't matter anymore.

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you. Facebook is too big now...G_G

Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim. The part about facebook's frequent change and backtracks of privacy must has something to do with this.

Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude. Zuckerburg appealed to Greenspan's desire to help entrepreneurs when asking for advice. Also, his claim that Greenspan was one of those on his level can be seen more of a classic ego-stroking rather than admission of admiration.

Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy. "Knowing about your rival is critical. Play the spy yourself to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. [...] There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying". Yeah, Zuck's a master at this.

Law 15: Crush your enemey totally. Check.

So out of the first 18 laws, the rise of facebook and Zuckerburg have observed 11, textbook style. His amoral approach to power and life is definitely key to his success.

ryanmolden5• 14 years ago

>His amoral approach to power and life is definitely key to his success.

Bit of a hasty conclusion. Have you really analyzed the sum-total of his behaviors/moves and feel you can conclusively state that the above 11 "laws" are the cornerstone of his success? I doubt that. Also, the book you reference is really not useful for any human being that intends to be part of a actual society. It is a great primer for a sociopath, but I will assume that is not what you aspire to be. Some people see successful sociopaths and incorrectly conclude their sociopathy is what made them successful. That is like assuming Steve Jobs, who was somewhat notorious for being...blunt, was successful because he was an asshole, instead of in spite of that characteristic. It also willfully ignores a lot of non-sociopaths that are successful and disregards other factors that may be more causative.

I would take that book with a big grain of salt and not use it as a manual for life. Or you can, I just don’t predict great success. I would predict a long string of people telling other people what an ass you are and causing you to have countless doors closed to you without ever knowing it or knowing why; primarily because people don’t relish partnering with/working for/associating with sociopaths. For every "successful" sociopath you see that lives by those "laws" there are millions of others that also live by those "laws" that have nothing to show for it but a string of failed relationships and a complete and utter lack of friends. Beware of survivorship bias[1], it can teach you only the wrong things.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

swordsmith2• 14 years ago

Thanks for the comment, you're right, my conclusion was definitely hasty and very much lacking reading it the second time. The 11 laws were illustrated through historical examples, showing how observance and transgression of each primarily resulted in the win/loss of power. I found it very interesting that Zuckerburg's rise illustrated many of these laws.

However, I don't think the laws outlined (or at least all of them) only apply to sociopaths. Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies. This is just as defensive as manipulative, we would like to think our friends will always be loyal, but that's simply not true.

Law 3: Conceal your intentions. Law 4: Always say less than necessary. Law 6: Court attention at all cost. Marketing and public relations use these all the time.

Law 7: Get others to do the work, and you take credit. Indeed, this one breaks hearts and how we wish that no one ever does this. You can chose to play the game, or learn how it can happen to better defend against credit-stealing. If only Tesla was aware...

Law 9: Win through actions rather than arguments. I actually don't see anything sociopathic about this law at all.

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you. Gaining early traction is pretty important for a startup's success.

Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim. This is mostly used in adversarial situations, more like a law of war rather than law of life. But again, "crush your enemy totally" is preached in Sun Tzu's Art of War, but the book is still a classic.

Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude. This is one of the tenet in Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people", simply explains human nature.

Like every piece of knowledge, the laws outlined in the book really depend on your own interpretation and how you apply them. It's similar to learning about security so you can protect yourself against exploits and make robust products.

johnx123-up2• 14 years ago

So, we can't find good businessmen?

davidmathers• 14 years ago

Previously: http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/zuckerberg.html

patmcguire2• 14 years ago

Has everyone on HN always been this cynical?

zingahgud7• 14 years ago

Have a look at the last IM exchange between Greenspan and Zuckerberg on the idea of protecting the privacy of students' home adresses from being accessible to any student at any university using Facebook. It is toward the end of the timeline.pdf document. The problem: Thanks to some sloppy php, anyone at any univeristy could download a .csv file of all of someone contacts including their home addresses and other private information, if that person had ever requested to export her data to csv format. Greenspan wanted this security hole fixed promptly. Zuckerberg didn't care; he just fired off an email to someone else (same guy who wrote the sloppy php?) and put it out of his mind. Then when Greenspan made others aware of the problem, Zuckerberg was upset because [un]"savvy" users might learn of security holes in Facebook. What a terrible thing that would be. We see that same sort of denigrating view of users and concealment attitude continuing at Facebook to this day.

Say what you will about Greenspan but at least the guy is responsible. We can't say the same for Zuckerberg. The kid is reckless and unremorseful.

tomasien• 14 years ago

Zuck's business model doesn't work? What a joke. They're profitable and make billions and billions of dollars a year.

abalone• 14 years ago

This poor soul has been grinding this axe for years. He's simply blaming others for his own failures. The prose is magnified by his clearly high intellect but it's easy to see through it. You need only take a look at the mess that was housesystem (his attempt at a campus social network among other things) to get an idea of why it didn't take off like facebook. Or if that's not enough, how about his payments startup facecash. No evil Zuckerberg character to blame there.. It was just a very poorly designed and executed project. Facebook won because it was better and Mark was right not to hire this guy. The sad thing is he (Greenspan) is clearly hyper intelligent, and if he'd only focus that intellect on figuring out where his work could improve instead of laying his problems at his more successful classmate's feet...

huffer• 14 years ago

feeding the tinfoil hats industry: the European Commission blocked this website and flagged it as illegal/scam :)

I apologise for not contributing, but I can't access the page so I have no idea what it says.. but by the amount of extensive comments here, I'm dying of curiosity

The Lost Chapter

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