
Lisa Zhang, Facebook Data Intern: Things I learned - wslh
http://www.lisazhang.ca/2010/12/things-i-learned.html
======
huangm
I have to wonder if a lot of the people criticizing this blog post actually
read the whole thing.

Note the title: Things _I_ learned. She's posting about _her_ internship
experience and the lessons _she_ learned. She's not trying to give nuanced,
universally applicable advice for how to become famous in every circumstance
and industry.

She's talking about "fame" from a specific perspective -- that of a student
who might be intimidated by the success of someone like Zuckerberg. She
relates the example of Paul Butler and his "fame". It's clear he's not
"famous" in the conventional sense, but that he simply created something that
people in the industry liked enough to tweet and email around. She realizes
that there may not be anything intrinsically different about the people who
attract "fame", and that her having cut Zuckerberg in the lunch line makes him
just another regular person who lines up for lunch and gets cut in line. The
reason Zuck's famous is that he did something that people liked (and now he's
arguably conventionally "famous" because peopled liked it at scale).

I found this to be a simple and useful reminder that our heroes are human too,
and all of them got where they are by doing stuff.

There's an almost pathological compulsion here to analyze every word and
sentence, hoping for some incisive way to show one's cleverness. I think
that's missing the point.

~~~
chegra
I debated whether to add the comment criticizing it. I gave a compliment first
of what I liked about the essay. Then, I realize some might take the essay
another way, so I said it wouldn't hurt to put in my 2 cent of this. No
conspiracy.

~~~
alnayyir
What is fundamental to most peoples' lack of accomplishment?

Is it a lack of understanding of the meta behind fame and accomplishment, or
is the fact that they have done anything yet?

Priorities man. :) Lets try to promulgate what will get people productive and
moving and then we can start nitpicking over the peculiars of how people come
to fame in their field.

------
chime
> "Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to
> it, and nothing less."

I agree with the "they do things" part but wholeheartedly disagree with
"There's nothing more to it." There's a LOT more to it. I have a really good
friend who ran a social network between 2003-2006 and had millions of users.
He is a brilliant coder and worked really really hard to grow the site. He
"did things".

He had a vision, built the foundations himself, assembled a capable team,
delegated appropriately, and oversaw the operations as needed. But he's not
famous today. Why not? Because his social network didn't make it big. It was
successful enough to give him a good middle-class lifestyle (better than ramen
profitable) but it didn't make him millions. And today nobody knows of his
brilliance or leadership skills. You could say he's not famous because he
didn't push through harder but then you better hold that criteria for everyone
else who is famous too.

~~~
guylhem
IIRC the american dream doesn't come with any warranty. There's no entitlement
to success. He did his best but failed. Kudos to him, but he'll have to try
again.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Since when does "comfortable middle-class lifestyle" equal failure? I think
most people would love to make a decent income off their own project as
opposed to getting a paycheck to be subservient to a boss.

------
chrisbroadfoot
Donald Knuth's Christmas Tree Lecture 2010: [http://stanford-
online.stanford.edu/seminars/knuth/101206-kn...](http://stanford-
online.stanford.edu/seminars/knuth/101206-knuth-500.asx)

~~~
Bjoern
Thanks for that!

mplayer -dumpstream
"mms://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/musings/101206/101206-knuth-500.wmv"

------
chegra
The money quote for me:

"I did some things I'm proud of and a few that I'm not. I failed a lot, but
learned a lot too. Hopefully, in 2011, I won't let trivial fears set me back:
I'll do more, try more, and say "yes" more. There's just too much to lose
otherwise."

Fortis cadere, cedere non potest(The brave may fall, but never yield.)

------
paraschopra
For a well-reasoned counter argument, may I recommend the excellent Fooled by
Randomness? "Doing things" is necessary but not sufficient condition to
becoming great.

------
Anon84

         1) Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to it, 
         and nothing less.
         3) When you decide to do things, opportunities come.
    
    

These two always bear some reitaration.

------
alnayyir
Money quote:

" I realized that their ticket to fame is actually really simple: when they
had an idea, they followed through.

Simply put, they did things. They executed."

Now we just need to make that stick.

~~~
chegra
I'm very much against this type of thinking. My garbage man does stuff, but I
don't see him famous. A lot of people do stuff. Doing stuff is maybe a
prerequisite of being famous but it is not sufficient(or maybe it is not, you
can be born into it :D). What I see central to all these guys is a capacity
for taking risks with the potential for high payoff.

~~~
iamwil
When she says "does stuff", she means, when you have an idea that you want to
see realized, and then you follow through and take it to its logical
conclusion to have an impact on others. Then repeat.

Many, many smart people have ideas, but can never finish anything. Or for that
matter, never start anything.

You hear "does stuff", and take it out of context into its broad definition,
which includes your garbage man. Then of course it doesn't make sense.

~~~
rick_2047
So stuff means only startups and hacking here right? My dad took an exam in
which people well above his age fail, but he passed and got selected in a
prestigious government position. He then went on to work in a lot of
departments of Indian government. In short he has done a lot of "stuff" stuff.
But I don't see him being famous.

~~~
iamwil
No. It's not a hard and fast rule of the world and the way it works. It's a
good first-order approximation, and a necessary, but not sufficient condition.

Your dad may be famous amongst his peers.

