
Mark Zuckerberg appears on CNBC to discuss a social network (2004) [video] - Michie
https://www.facebook.com/cnbc/videos/vb.97212224368/10153395251424369/?type=2&theater
======
WA
What's with the hate in this thread? He achieved something quite remarkable.
Back then, most people wouldn't have guessed that this silly campus site ever
became as big as it is now.

And now, Mark created a business with thousands of employees, changing how we
communicate, how we discover information about the cities we live in.

Give the man some respect. This isn't about his privileged background, but
about the perseverance he showed for the last 11 years.

~~~
EpicEng
>changing how we communicate...

Perhaps, though I'm not convinced it was for the better. every time I log into
Facebook I log off within five minutes wondering why I continue to waste my
time with it. Maybe that's just my problem, I don't know.

~~~
rtpg
This is highly dependent on your circle of friends. It's much more enjoyable
when you're following people who are doing interesting things

An RSS reader wouldn't be compelling if you're just subscribed to Buzzfeed,
after all.

~~~
EpicEng
Well, you're probably not wrong. 99% of my ~400 "friends" are people I knew in
high school who I haven't seen in 15 years.

I keep in contact with my actual friends, but not via FB.

~~~
tormeh
Unsubscribe from their feeds. Unsubscribing, I've basically ignored most of my
facebook friends. It's great.

~~~
SlalomStallone
So then what's the point? Since I deleted my account my relationships with my
real friends and family has definitely improved. When I see them in person we
actually have things to catch up on and talk about and those in person
interactions have much more value for me.

------
tptacek
He is a much, much better public speaker now:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/mark-
zucke...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/mark-zuckerberg-q-
a-the-full-interview-on-connecting-the-world)

~~~
gojomo
He wasn't so bad at age 19!

~~~
bithush
I came here to say just this. Considering he had no prior experience and by
his own accounts he is quite the geek I thought he spoke very well. He was
articulate, kept his answers on point and not too long, perhaps a little wordy
but people tend to over talk when nervous.

------
brainpool
Seriously. That was a rather good presentation. Doing an interview for TV
without much experience and come across without stumbling is not that easy.

------
JohnLen
We never know if our idea or product will grow big. Take the risk and launch
it. There are some chances if we launch it.

------
watson
If you want to watch the video without having to install Flash, just replace
"www" with "m" \- Not the best video quality since it's optimised for mobile,
but a nice productivity tip for Safari users ;)

------
spacefight
Good memories. 15y ago I built a social network for our graduation year, 50%
signed up ;)

------
stretchwithme
So, what happened after that?

~~~
onewaystreet
It went pretty much like he said. They expanded to every college, then to high
schools and then the world.

------
Hobotron1
Who's the scary looking bearded kid?

~~~
larrys
See this:

[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,689438,...](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,689438,00.html)

"Two years ago, Dan Stillman and Matt Eaton, then sophomores at Wesleyan
University in Connecticut, launched WesMatch.com, a site featuring a humorous,
elaborate personality questionnaire. The service allows students to rate
themselves and their potential mates in categories ranging from sex drive to
"socialisticbutterflyosity." "

------
cymetica
More interested in the algorithms of Google than a copy and paste of MySpace.

~~~
stretchwithme
Isn't that a little like saying Google is a copy and paste of Alta Vista?

~~~
cymetica
If I can copy and paste what you're thinking, then yes. Otherwise, nope. Too
hard to tell what's underlying the code in the case of a search engine,
machine learning or artificial intelligence system. Large difference between
the code behind intelligent algorithms and text entry boxes with DB calls.

BBSs, TheWell, Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, TheGlobe, Geocities, Friendster,
MySpace, Facebook, what's next? Fill in the blank I guess.

DMOZ, Yahoo, HotBot, WebCrawler, AllTheWeb, Excite, AltaVista, Lycos, Google,
what's next? Too hard to tell.

Google was founded on principles in artificial intelligence and now has a good
handle on how to implement portions of AI along with all the other things
they're doing.

Facebook was founded by a guy who was a voyeur and called its users "dumb
f*cks" for giving out personal information while rocking a biz card that said
"I'm CEO, bitch!".

Big difference and big difference in revenue too.

~~~
rajacombinator
Actually what Google does is fairly trivial and not based on "artificial
intelligence" ...

~~~
orbifold
Well it is no longer trivial at scale and I'm pretty sure they've moved beyond
the Page Rank algorithm long ago.

------
stox
And thus began the fall of Western civilization...

------
sukilot
Really shows the incredible privilege and connections he had, so early in his
life, that catapulted FB over all the other budding social networks.

It's always about who you know to give your work wings (which is apt, since
his project was a social network)

~~~
softdev12
If you really go back and do some digging into the roots of facebook, you'll
be amazed at how much press he got early on. He supposedly offered to do
computer support work for the Harvard Crimson and in return he got press
connections. Even before he launched thefacebook, he was getting write ups
with facemash.

~~~
melling
Don't people always say that you need to spend as much time promoting your
product as building it?

~~~
stretchwithme
Distribution is as important as product.

~~~
felipel
Yeah, that's why there are so many Christians right now.

~~~
stretchwithme
Totally. They aren't digging it out of the ground.

------
cymetica
Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks'
[http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-
use...](http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-
fucks)

"Mark Zuckerberg admits in a New Yorker profile that he mocked early Facebook
users for trusting him with their personal information."

~~~
rmc
It's almost like he's a human being and is fallible.

~~~
bch
What seems to be passed off as a foible seems to me to be sociopathic.

Edit: less accusatory

~~~
dang
Trash talking at that age is an embarrassingly normal thing to do. Accusing
people of sociopathy without evidence is worse.

It's also hugely diluting of signal/noise ratio in threads. Grandiose
accusations are noise, and no evidence means no signal. Please don't post such
things to HN.

~~~
bch
Re: accusatory tone - I adjusted my comment to reflect more clearly this is
only my take away. But I think his words and actions are the evidence. I
understand trash talk, but calling your users (behind their back) "dumb fucks"
sounds like nothing but contempt.

~~~
dang
Thanks for adjusting your comment. I want to expand on the point a bit further
because I think it's important for Hacker News. But I don't mean to pick on
you personally, so I hope you don't feel that way.

How many people have any real basis for knowing what Zuckerberg meant by those
words? A line like that could mean almost anything. You'd have to have known
him at the time. Also, how many people can truly claim never to have said
anything just as bad or foolish? Those two groups must be minuscule, yet to be
justified in making such an accusation, you'd have to belong to both of them.

Far more likely, what's going on here is wishful thinking, where the wish is
e.g. to see someone else as a monster. The quote is just a convenient prop.

People bring it out at the slightest provocation. It has become an internet
reflex, so it no longer adds any information. More importantly, it's the
opposite of the principle of charity—i.e. giving the other person the benefit
of the doubt—which we try to practice here.

~~~
eggie
> How many people have any real basis for knowing what Zuckerberg meant by
> those words? A line like that could mean almost anything. You'd have to have
> known him at the time. Also, how many people can truly claim never to have
> said anything just as bad or foolish? Those two groups must be minuscule,
> yet to be justified in making such an accusation, you'd have to belong to
> both of them.

I did know him at the time. He was not a friend, but I saw him every day. My
friends were his roommates and in the same circles as some of the early fb
people, so I saw and heard a lot to explain the guy and his motivations.

It is not an exaggeration to say he has done sociopathic things. He didn't
hurt people physically (obviously), but he exploited them to the maximum
extent that he has been allowed. Harvard attracts people like this guy, but
honestly he was a bit extreme, maybe even out of our league. If you don't care
about what people feel or think beyond what they can do to you, you can make
the most optimum decisions for yourself.

He demonstrated this capacity in impressive form on several occasions which
are now public so don't need to be described here. My initial reaction, before
the media had taken up and transmitted its own interpretation of these
stories, was exactly what many here are saying. So you don't need to moderate
the discussion by noting that no one involved knew the guy at the time--- what
people are saying is on point. His character is evident in his life's work.

Life requires compromise, so it's unlikely that he can do anything really bad
now, due to the size of the operation and how many people are working together
toward the greater goal of making "the" communication platform. That said, the
idea that people need facebook to communicate on the internet is a conceit.
The goal of this company is to centralize your communication and social life
so it can be analyzed, exploited, and manipulated. That structure has grown
from the motivations of this 19 year-old, aloof, and rather arrogant kid. The
world has accepted it. Fair enough.

~~~
dang
Assuming the details are true, your comment does count as substantive: it
describes concrete personal experiences. It also seems to have an agenda, but
readers can evaluate that for themselves.

The moderation point is off, though. An unsubstantive smear doesn't suddenly
become a good comment just because someone else shows up and posts a better
one.

------
time4hn
Zuck

------
gcb0
And 20yrs later, they are still trying to serve me a flash video.

sigh.

~~~
Aoyagi
Still better than serving only HTML5 video as far as I'm concerned. Until
someone makes a browser that can natively (...or at least with some plug-in)
block those players and make them click-to-play like I can do with almost any
Flash.

~~~
gcb0
uh... i'm not sure which crappy browser you use, but firefox mobile, the only
browser you should be using this day and age, has this in the settings menu
(don't even have to go to some hidden about:config) page.

~~~
Aoyagi
Can you name a browser that can natively block Flash objects and HTML5 videos?
FF can't as far as I know.

I'm talking desktop, mobile is irrelevant for me.

Edit: Oh, I didn't notice that "the only browser you should be using this day
and age". That's enough to know about you to not be interested in anything you
have to say. Have a nice day!

~~~
gcb0
firefox desktop there isn't a UI option, but about:config
media.autoplay.enabled=false will do the trick.

