

Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? - christonog

I was surprisingly entertained. The coding sessions and tech speak were obviously my favorite part.
======
marknutter
The part that really hit home for me was the whole Winkelvoss plot-line. I got
sucked into web development because of a deep desire to create something that
will take off and become a hit - it's the best place to be if you're a modern
entrepreneur, and I wanted to be a part of it. It's become an addiction for
me, one that I fund by doing contracting work on the side. I don't have the
money to pay someone else to do it, and even if I did I'd still build it
myself.

I've met and been approached by countless Winkelvosses since I've started
doing this, and I've always had the same question in my mind: if you want to
create something for the web, why the hell don't you figure out how to create
it yourself? I started out with ZERO development experience and figured out
how to do it - pretty quickly too, in fact. I don't understand how you could
stand not being able to act on your ideas yourself if you were truly excited
about the prospect of building them out - especially when the barrier of entry
to entrepreneurialism has never been lower in the history of business.

That the twins believed they should be compensated for having supposedly given
Mark the idea for Facebook cuts right at the heart of what bothers me. The
Twins were busy training to be Olympic rowers, besides being gorgeous Harvard
supermen and screwing God-only-knows-how-many gorgeous women in the process.
Mark was busy coding Facebook. Every waking hour. Obsessively. It's true the
Twins had great insight about Facebook's (or ConnectU's) potential. But so did
I back in 2002. So did every internet generation college-aged computer geek
who'd seen Friendster and MySpace and hotornot.com.

The point, that I know has (rightfully) been beaten to death on HN, is that
it's not about the idea. It's about the blood, sweat, and execution of the
idea. If you're only coming up with ideas, you're not throwing your hat into
the ring as far as I'm concerned. You're playing with monopoly money.

By far the best line in the movie was "If you were the inventors of Facebook,
you've had invented Facebook." It was a fist pumping moment for me.

~~~
megablahblah
I don't completely agree with you. You need good ideas, and you need to be
able to execute them properly.

An alternate quote could easily be "If Zuckerberg had come up with the idea of
Facebook on his own, then he would have come up with the idea of Facebook on
his own" and the Winkelvosses wouldn't have had even a weak argument to put
forth. Zuckerberg's original execution was more along hot or not, correct? And
it wasn't until he had input from the Winkelvosses that he solidified
something closer to the current Facebook. That's an important contribution.
Whether it deserves any legal or financial reward is another story, but you
can't just ignore the importance of an idea.

And I am confident in assuming that Zuckerberg also did not come up with his
modern mission of Facebook all by himself, for it to be a social, informal
version of Google search (for lack of a better description). Without that
pivotal idea, Facebook would die or be dead already, just as MySpace has died.

Not everyone can figure out how to code so easily. That's why you have
contract work.

~~~
enjo
I don't think it "another story", I think it cuts to the heart of the
question. What constitutes a business? It is merely the functional aspects? Or
is it (as I believe) inherently tied to the larger vision?

To me it's the latter. Successful startups are built at the junction of
motivation, skill, and vision. Zuckerberg, as far as I can tell, had the first
two... but the third was certainly influenced (if not outright stolen) by his
interaction with ConnectU. The twins made a tremendous contribution to
Facebook, and were rewarded by (as far as I can tell) fraud on the part of
Zuckerberg.

That's most definitely worthy of compensation. I still think they sold out for
far too little really.

------
marknutter
I want to try to avoid hyperbole here, but I think this may have instantly
jumped into my top 5 list of favorite movies. Its pacing and acting is
unbelievably tight, and it happens to be about one of my favorite topics ever.
I have a feeling it's going to give a lot of fellow HNers a queasy feeling in
their stomachs like I got; like you need to get back to your computer and
start coding right away, and everything is passing you by, that you could
catch fire if you just found the right combination, and you should have and
maybe did think of it first.. Ugh.. it's what this is all about, HN, startups,
etc.

~~~
chops
_going to give a lot of fellow HNers a queasy feeling in their stomachs like I
got; like you need to get back to your computer and start coding right away,
and everything is passing you by,_

That is exactly how I felt watching it. It's inspiration to work harder.

~~~
neilk
Also, to not waste time pontificating about the future of mankind and to snort
the cocaine from the underage girl's stomach.

~~~
chopsueyar
He only wiped it off her stomach...and the girls and coke were sent in as a
setup.

------
limedaring
I went into it expecting to not like it. Actually, I didn't want to see it in
the first place ("Psh, a movie about Facebook?") but got free tickets through
StartupDigest and decided to go.

Really happy I did — the movie is one of my favorites now. Writing was
awesome, soundtrack was fantastic (by Trent Reznor, and $8 to buy:
<http://www.nullco.com/TSN/>), cinematography was enchanting (the tilt-shift
part during the crew race was particularly great), and I thought that Jesse
Eisenberg in particular did a great job creating both an arrogant but
sympathetic character.

Additionally, the movie is pretty inspiring, as other commentators mentioned.
Kind of disappointed in myself for being such a 'hater' in the beginning
before actually seeing the movie.

~~~
chopsueyar
Yeah, I really like the tilt-shift, and alot other interesting camera work
during the crew race set to _In the Hall of the Mountain King_.

~~~
otwixto
great scene in the movie and definitely the most "fincher-esq" part of the
movie.

THe movie was scored fantastically as well.

~~~
limedaring
Listening to the soundtrack right now, in fact. Great working music.

~~~
otwixto
the opening credit score where Mark is running through Harvard was beautifully
crafted. totally set the tone for the 1st half of the movie. Great electronic
composition with sparse organic elements.

------
trickjarrett
Lawrence Lessig's thoughts on the movie, posted as a separate story on HN, but
I felt I should add it here as well: [http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-
arts/78081/sorkin-zucke...](http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-
arts/78081/sorkin-zuckerberg-the-social-network?page=0,1)

I left the movie quite satisfied. It was such marvelous dialog paired with
excellent directing. I love Fincher's style, though at times it felt like he
was being held back, such as during the regatta segment, I felt like he
couldn't go as crazy as he would like given the soundtrack.

Sorkin is a master of dialogue, and though the story is wildly inaccurate, I
suspended disbelief and enjoyed the ride.

~~~
marknutter
To be fair there'd be no way it could ever be 100% accurate - this is how it
goes in real life too. Ask 100 participants in the Facebook history how it all
went down you'll get 100 different versions of the story.

~~~
linhir
That's true, but I think it is a little worse than just accounting for
multiple perspectives. The movies is based on "The Accidental Billionaires,"
whose author didn't interview most (any?) of the main participants other than
Eduardo Saverin. When you combine that with Sorkin's loudly proclaimed
internet ignorance, I think you can end up with a great movie, but not one
that is particularly related to a careful analysis of the 100 different
versions of the founding story of Facebook. In The Accidental Billionaires,
"Mezrich allows that he invents dialogue, synthesizes details, and puts
imagined thoughts into his characters’ heads." If you want a less sensational
book, but one where the author interviewed many of the principals I'd suggest
Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect

------
melito
I thought the tech stuff was pretty realistic (although I refuse to believe
Facebook was written inside of emacs).

Also I felt the whole "I scored 1600 on my SATs" and shooting down his
professor with some technobabble about memory management was a little much. I
understand there needs to be elements to add dramatic effect, but I can't help
but feel there's a whole generation of assholes out there taking notes and
thinking that being arrogant all the time = being right all the time

------
naner
Very engaging and reflective of the current culture/generation.

As a geek, I liked how they didn't do a lot of fake flashy computer stuff
(looked like he was using KDE3 and it was butt ugly). Though netbooks weren't
around yet in 2003. ;)

~~~
frisco
How accurate was the jargon? When they talked about hacking, or were coding on
screen, was it realistic?

~~~
il
It actually was pretty realistic. When he was talking about writing a shell
script to wget images from Harvard facebooks, I smiled to myself a little.

~~~
birken
That part at the beginning was certainly realistic.

The part where there were 6 guys interviewing for facebook by taking a shot a
minute "cracking SSL" or whatever it was surrounded by 30 screaming people was
not realistic.

~~~
neilk
Yeah, it was Swordfish-esque. And they started so well. Too bad.

I guess the screenwriter just needed a "triumph" moment at that point in the
script, something that the audience can share in other than some interns
completing a programming assignment.

------
davidedicillo
I was definitely surprised by how good it was, I read the book last year (very
good as well), but I was expecting the movie to be more cheesy. I would see it
again with no problems when it will be on netflix.

------
ashitvora
My ratings: 5/5

When I read about this movie, I thought this is something to bring down the
image of Mark Zuckerberg.

After watching the movie, it seems, # of sign ups on facebook will sky rocket.

------
jchonphoenix
I was highly disappointed with one thing:

They only referenced emacs and not vim.

Where's the love? ;)

~~~
forkandwait
Where's the ctrl-x-( <hacker magic> ctrl-x-) ctrl-x-e e e e ...?

(edited)

------
rms
Maybe Zuck did go to see the movie?

[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38848471&fbid=7078...](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38848471&fbid=707881996643&id=217560)

~~~
waterlesscloud
I am amused that Zuckerberg's profile page lists The West Wing as one of the
two TV shows he likes.

Ender's Game is the only book, which isn't too surprising.

------
waxman
Lots of subcultures have their own movies. I'm just glad that ours is so damn
awesome!

Also: I think the screenplay, the directing, and the score (Trent Reznor!)
will be nominated for Oscars.

~~~
chopsueyar
Subculture's movie? 500 million people.

~~~
wyclif
I really don't think the grandparent meant that Facebook is a subculture. I
think he meant that startups and founders are the subculture and that Facebook
is a result of that culture.

~~~
waxman
Yeah, that is what I meant.

At it's core the plot is about a pretty specific experience (the challenges of
founding a tech startup as a young, inexperienced hacker), but the emotions
and the drama are universal, which is why I think the movie will enjoy
widespread success.

At the end of the day, though, it's about founders and hackers and startups.
And that's awesome.

------
chopsueyar
If you enjoy "startup" type movies, might I also suggest these (documentaries,
not comedy-drama):

startup.com <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/>

e-dreams <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/>

------
christonog
I enjoyed the mental thought process and geek speak of Zuckerberg when he
tried to hack into harvard's network and hire the first intern. A lot of
people in the theatre around me were visibly confused, while I was actually
able to follow along and think to myself "hey, I know that term!." Pretty
cool.

------
zackham
Anyone else notice they were writing PHP and said it was Perl?

Great movie, though. Amazing to see a popular film come out and do a decent
job of portraying a software guy.

~~~
trustfundbaby
I think you're mistaken.

The part he talks about Perl is when he's writing utility code to download the
pictures he used to build his first hit website at Harvard.

Correct me if I'm wrong though.

~~~
drags
The code on the screen in the utility code scene appeared to be PHP, given
that every variable began with a $.

~~~
rmc00
FWIW, PERL variables start with $ too, see
<http://www.cgi101.com/class/ch2/text.html>. It looked like PERL to me.

------
davidwparker
The best part for me was when Mark was hacking early in the movie and
mentioned Emacs... I looked over at my wife who laughed, as she's used to me
saying similar things.

------
trustfundbaby
Best line of the movie for me

"You're not an asshole ... but you're trying really hard to be"

Awesome movie ... I have no doubt any hackernews faithful will love it.

~~~
skinnymuch
Except he kind of was an asshole.

------
jpwagner
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hoping it's better than
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/>

------
lzw
I thought it was a very well made movie, and Fincher has a way with these kind
of scripts that lack a traditional story arc that leaves them compelling
anyway.

It is kinda funny that Sean Fanning's name in the movie is Sean Parker. Or was
that character supposed to be someone else and to protect the identity they
claimed he made "napster" instead of whatever he really made? Certainly
Timberlake looks nothing like Fanning.

I think the movie is a bit kind to Zuckerberg, but then, it is pretty hard to
make a movie focused on a single individual and not have it come out
sympathetic. Unless that individual is, say, hitler or idi amin.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
Sean Parker _and_ Shawn Fanning cofounded Napster:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Parker>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Fanning>

Sean Parker _was_ President of Facebook.

~~~
natgordon
That's really helpful.

In the movie when the girl says, "But Sean Parker founded Napster", in real
life she would have said "Shawn Fanning".

