

The Next Mark Zuckerberg Is Not Who You Might Think - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/upshot/the-next-mark-zuckerberg-is-not-who-you-might-think.html

======
aaron-lebo
Who wants to be Jobs or Gates or Zuckerberg anyway?

Of course we all do, but that's pure ego. Each one of them was brilliant,
there is no discounting that, but you also can't ignore the role that luck
played. You can't just be brilliant and you can't just be lucky, you really
have to be both to have the kind of success they did. It's not surprising that
they are anomalies, hoping to recreate their success is like hoping to find a
winning lottery ticket.

We shouldn't put any of them on a pedestal anyway. The empires of each of them
was built on locking people into their closed systems at any cost. Jobs did
some remarkable things, Zuck seems like he's going to do positive things with
his fortune, and Gates might eliminate the world of a lot of disease, but you
only have to look at past cutthroat titans like Andrew Carnegie to know that
redemptive actions like that leave behind at best an ambiguous legacy.

There was a great piece on Grantland this week talking about Silicon Valley,
Halt and Catch Fire, and Microserfs. It had this bit which I thought was
really interesting:

"The moment reads two ways. Either it’s about Zuckerberg, for all his
billions, being Just Like Us — a slave to the same digital toy to which we’ve
subcontracted management of our memories, our personal interactions, and our
sense of self-worth — or it’s about how Facebook, born of Zuckerberg’s sense
of exclusion, has made us just like him. The notion that the tech visionaries
whose inventions colonize our daily lives are actually uploading the virus of
their personalities to the global unconscious is an idea that floats through
The Social Network; it’s the engine that powers Alex Gibney’s forthcoming
documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, which stops just short of
postulating that every iPhone includes a fragment of poor angry uncharitable
emotionally stunted Steve’s immortal soul, like a sliver of wormwood from
Mordor."

[http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/silicon-valley-
hal...](http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/silicon-valley-halt-catch-
fire-microserfs-douglas-coupland/)

If you want to be like Zuck, what is it about you that you are going to infect
the world with?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
It's pretty telling that everyone wants to be the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates
or Mark Zuckerberg, but very few want to be the next Niklaus Wirth, Alan Kay
or Gary Kildall.

Far fewer are interested in computing so much as a gold rush that happens to
use computing as its backdrop, which is overwhelmingly heading towards web-
based media companies.

~~~
walterbell
_> gold rush that happens to use computing as its backdrop, which is
overwhelmingly heading towards web-based media companies._

Yet Gates' and Jobs' gold came from edge clients, not web media. Clients have
never been more powerful, why is there no modern gold rush in client software?
Is it merely that SaaS/hosted software does not suffer from piracy?

~~~
virmundi
I think is part of it. It's hard to pirate something you can't get a copy of.

Other things is that the web is more universal. Say I have a great client app.
It works perfectly on a client Windows machine. If I want to tap the larger
market I have to have an OS X version, an Android version, iOS (depending if I
didn't target both when doing the OS X version), and a Linux version. To keep
all of these people happy, the versions should be pretty much the same. That's
hard to do with client software on multiple targets.

The web targets the lowest common denominator: browsers. Fortunately as those
go, the VM that is the browser is pretty powerful. Sure I might not be in my
preferred language, but I can get things done. If done right, powers are added
as the device becomes more capable my leveraging existing frameworks like
Bootstrap, etc.

~~~
boomzilla
I think there are two other factors as why web apps are dominating client
apps. The first is distribution cost. Even with AppStore and Android market,
it's still very hard to get your app to the users. People browse to hundreds
of different websites everyday, but very few try out tens of apps in their
phone. The second factor is that the web is intrinsically a lot more
connected. One web page/app can easily link to another with, doh, a link. The
linking/back button semantics are well understood by all the users.

------
AndrewKemendo
Go look at the portfolio page for your average Venture fund. The overwhelming
majority of the companies are doing really boring stuff, like compliance
management, lead generation, staff management, sales tracking etc...

And most of the founders are older guys who are also boring, they don't do
exciting movie star CEO stuff. They just found a super specific niche and are
filling it really well and making great money doing it.

So when I go and talk to these same investors, it is clear that most of them
don't _really_ care about moonshots or big market shifting ventures, despite
what they say. They want cash flow positive companies who might have a
reasonable chance of being acquired and don't really need that much work -
because make no doubt, all of those unicorns or whatever you want to call them
take a ton of work from the investors.

But I have no desire to be a part of one of those companies. They generally
aren't particularly ambitious at global scale - they aren't trying to change
human behavior or move markets like airbnb, uber, facebook, google etc...they
just want to make good money, and are generally pretty good at it. Might as
well go work for Oracle at that point.

~~~
adventured
Even most of the unicorns are boring.

They're overwhelmingly in "fintech", "big data", and productivity software.

[https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-
companies](https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies)

~~~
techbio
These are some bizarre categorizations! By whose POV are they sliced and
sorted?

eg. Uber and Lyft are "On-Demand" not the more natural, "Transportation";
Spotify and Evernote are "Internet Software and Services", not "Media" and
"Productivity" respectively; another is denoted "Greentech" not "Energy".

I suppose $1B can call anything anything.

------
NathanKP
> Asking whether a programmer in Silicon Valley plans to start a company is a
> bit like asking a waiter in Hollywood about his or her acting ambitions.

I wonder if many of these programmers don't really like coding, just like the
waiter doesn't really like serving people.

Maybe it is just because I live outside the Silicon Valley filter bubble but I
have no plans to ever start my own company. I like to architect really nice
systems, and turn them into well coded implementations. I don't ever want to
have to touch a pitch deck, or deal with investors, or worry about making
money, or burn rate.

I'll be the first engineer at someone else's startup, but I don't want to be a
businessman first, engineer second. To me coding is not a gateway to getting
rich by creating the next Facebook/Snapchat clone. Instead coding is the
destination, and I'm at that destination, doing the thing that I enjoy every
day.

~~~
Mikushi
I'm an "engineer", went through Web dev, lead dev, CTO, and now Senior
Technical Architect. But I don't like coding much, I'm good at it, but it's
nothing more than a mean to an end for me, which is solving problems.

Same goes for the business side actually, most of it is pretty
boring/unchallenging, but it's a mean to an end, and if I want to meet that
end I must do the best I can to be great at all those aspects.

Or hire someone that will fill that in for me. But in early stages, I'll give
my fullest on all angles.

------
jseliger
I sent a letter to the corrections department at the NYT and to the author
because of this:

 _“I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg,” Paul Graham,
co-founder of the seed investor Y Combinator, once said._

Graham already pointed out that this is a joke and that the quote was taken
out of context:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/tricked.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/tricked.html)

~~~
jseliger
Sorry to reply to myself, but I got a reply from Louis Lucero II at the
_Times_ :

 _Thanks for your email. I 'm confident that most readers will understand that
the line was tongue in cheek, however. The idea that a co-founder of Y
Combinator could be persuaded to part with seed funding simply by dint of the
solicitor's wearing a hooded sweatshirt is, of course, preposterous. At any
rate, there is nothing to "correct," so to speak, as Mr. Graham did in fact
say those words._

Not surprisingly I disagree with his assertion, but apparently he won't change
the article or issue a correction.

Things like this explain why public figures have to be canny when dealing with
the press: the desire to willfully misinterpret is strong, and, even when
pointed out, often isn't corrected.

~~~
sopooneo
Yeah. You have to be careful not just about what you say, and what context it
could be taken in, but what any distinct set of N consecutive words will sound
like when isolated between quotation marks.

 _You can 't just ["]Abuse drugs and alcohol when you're young["] and think it
won't catch up with you_

------
tedunangst
> The average founder is 38, with a master’s degree and 16 years of work
> experience.

If we want to predict what the next MZ is going to be like, shouldn't we
restrict our training data to the set of successful unicorn founders instead
of the set of all founders?

Most startups fail, so it seems this data is most useful for predicting who
won't be the next MZ.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Be fair; entrepreneurs are very likely the set that will produce another. The
set that predicts who won't be, is the rest.

------
adultSwim
Even the New York Times is using click-bait headlines now. Sigh...

~~~
compostor42
Its a race to the bottom. Online newspapers are really feeling the squeeze
with regards to declining ad revenue.

Everybody has to adopt the click-bait tactics now or be left behind.

~~~
minthd
Maybe in the end we'll all be curating high quality blog posts, from people
who aren't paid by views ?

------
auganov
Mark and Bill are not so anomalous being Harvard students that dropped out to
purse an already promising opportunity. Jobs is the closest to most people's
idea of a "college dropout".

------
applecore
_> […] Venture capital still relies heavily on referrals. “Show me another
industry where the way you find your customers is to wait for your friends to
introduce them to you,” Mr. Bahat said._

The deep irony of the consumer-focused venture industry—for all its talk of
technology and transparency—is that it still operates with the shrouded
obscurantism of a medieval guild.

------
noreasonw
A model to explain the bias.

People find more likely what they they recall more easily and vividly, so this
is like adjusting a linear model only considering the outliers (top or under
stellar), so the fitted model don't represent the general population of
founders whose life is more mundane and less interesting that a film star.

Edited: To clarify.

------
eranation
This is encouraging a little, I'm 37 and will finish my masters next year! Now
just need a good startup idea...

------
sprkyco
_-“Show me another industry where the way you find your customers is to wait
for your friends to introduce them to you,” Mr. Bahat said._

Illicit drug industry sounds like one. Am I taking this quote out of context,
are startup founders customers of VC's? Did not realize that was the hierarchy
if that is the case.

~~~
tedunangst
The analogy is imprecise, so it's not clear who the customer in the quote is,
but it could also mean VCs are customers of startups. They are seeking to buy
opportunity. (Also, one usually gives the sales pitch to the customer, not the
other way around.)

------
sjg007
This is basically straight out of Moneyball.

------
kanamekun
From the article:

<< Yet if someone like that came to a top venture capitalist’s office, he or
she could very well be turned away. Start-up investors often accept pitches
only from people they know, and rely heavily on gut feelings, intuition and
what’s worked before. “I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark
Zuckerberg,” Paul Graham, co-founder of the seed investor Y Combinator, once
said. >>

Paul was right - this meme just won't die.

<< People will probably still repeat that quote, but now if someone does it
will be proof that either (a) they didn't do their research or (b) they have
an ideological axe to grind. >>

[http://www.paulgraham.com/tricked.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/tricked.html)

~~~
hackuser
From the link you posted: _As if anyone would think it did. Could anyone be so
naive as to think that resembling Zuck would be enough to make a founder
succeed? And is it plausible that we, of all people, who 'd interviewed
thousands of founders, would think such a thing?_

This undermines the argument. Clearly very many people, in very many areas of
our society, filter those they do business with based on appearance. It would
be naive to think otherwise about society and the business world (though
applying the generality to a specific person, such as Paul, is a mistake).

I thought the original quote represented Paul well -- it demonstrated
awareness of the very human weakness in all of us, to instinctively prefer
people like ourselves. Having the instinct doesn't mean Paul acts on it, or
that it's his only instinct; being aware of it is what enables people to
control it (or control for it).

EDIT: Added a few sentences.

~~~
JesperRavn
I don't see how that is fair.

1\. PG claims he was joking, and doesn't actually believe what he said.

2\. The article quotes him as if he truly believed this, when in fact he
believes the opposite.

3\. You claim that if PG's argument for why he doesn't believe it is wrong,
then the quote is likely to be true even if PG didn't mean it, and _therefore
it 's accurate to quote PG as if he did mean it_. That last part makes no
sense.

~~~
hackuser
> 3\. You claim that ... the quote is likely to be true even if PG didn't mean
> it, and _therefore it 's accurate to quote PG as if he did mean it._ That
> last part makes no sense.

I didn't say that or even talk about those issues (other than saying that to
speculate on PG's actual thoughts would be "a mistake"). Maybe that's why it
makes no sense to you.

------
gboone42
If we get another Mark Zuckerberg, does that mean we're getting another
Facebook. I can barely handle the one we already have.

------
JesperRavn
This is typical of politicized reporting that really really wants to push
diversity.

First, the article says

 _Many people think they know what the founder of a tech start-up looks like:
a 20-something man who spent his childhood playing on computers in his
basement and who later dropped out of college to become a billionaire
entrepreneur._

And then refute this with the more "diverse" reality that

 _The average founder is 38, with a master’s degree and 16 years of work
experience._

Note no mention of the gender of the average founder. Next, they consider the
study by Bloomberg Beta that the article implies refutes the "myth in our
heads of what the prototypical start-up founder is, and that myth is an early-
to mid-20s white male who studied computer science at an elite school and
dropped out"

But the methodology of the study is to create a machine learning model that
uses the "backgrounds" of people (which seem to include which companies a
person worked for, and I would guess also which school) to predict which
people will become a founder. They then define the people who the machine
learning model scores highly, as "potential founders" and examine the
demographics of potential founders. The results quoted are:

 _While only 12 percent of current founders are women, when they searched for
potential founders based on the other characteristics of successful founders,
20 percent of the people they found were women._

 _“If you look at just the professional histories of the people who got
funded, then it suggests people who share those histories are much more
diverse than the people who get funded,” Mr. Bahat said._

 _Only 53 percent of founders have technology backgrounds, indicating that a
computer science degree is not a requirement. Of potential founders, 8 percent
of those with technology backgrounds are women._

So in the strange logic of the author, the machine learning model's validity
is not called into question even when the difference in gender bias between
"potential founders" and actual founders is mediated by highly relevant
information, such as a technology background. To be specific about the problem
with this logic, if the machine learning model selects a completely different
looking population (ignoring gender) from existing founders, that is evidence
that the VCs are biased, but it is _also_ evidence that the machine learning
model is wrong. The high level problem with this approach is that the same
variable they are trying to show is biased (being an actual founder) is the
one they are using to train the model which selects "potential founders" in
order to prove the bias.

