
10 people who don't matter (2006) - ssclafani
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/21/technology/10dontmatter.biz2/index.htm
======
tptacek
OOF:

 _In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit
for launching his online social directory for college students just as the
social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly
making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net.
But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and
run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer,
holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself
to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's
second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace
has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to
imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran._

As I remember it, Facebook didn't have wireless either, and had less space
than a nomad.

~~~
Cushman
I don't get it— do these people hit more often than they miss? Why do we still
listen to them?

~~~
jordan0day
Well, if you look at the rest of the list, Zuck's the only one who really
_stands out_ as a "they sure couldn't have got that more wrong".

~~~
InclinedPlane
Netflix CEO, Linus. Both are as relevant or more relevant than ever. Netflix
is getting to be as big a force, in revenues and viewership, as any big cable
company. Linux is very much still relevant in the server world and in the
mobile and tablet computing world (android). And Linus' Git is growing in
popularity (github?) and influence.

It's questionable whether the Vodaphone CEO is "relevant", but Vodaphone is
definitely still a major competitor, they make more money than google and
amazon combined.

~~~
Adaptive
Yes, plus Linus is relevant and important for _both_ linux and git.

Git has been hugely, positively disruptive in a way no Dvcs was prior.

And anyone (cnn evidently) that thinks Linux developers are fungible misses
the point of having a fierce, opinionated, blunt semi-dictator running the
show. Great things can happen. He's the anti-steve jobs.

~~~
spitfire
"fierce, opinionated, blunt semi-dictator running the show." That doesn't
sound like the anti-Steve Jobs to me.

His complete lack of (aesthetic) taste might make him the anti-steve jobs
though.

~~~
LaGrange
He has aesthetic taste, just for other things. He's the Steve Jobs of system
internals.

------
dredmorbius
Sparing the pain of paging through the list one javascript link at a time:

    
    
         1  Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
         2  Jeffrey Citron, Vonage
         3  Reed Hastings, Netflix
         4  Ken Kutaragi, Sony
         5  Warren Lieberfarb, HD-DVD promotion group
         6  Rob Malda, Slashdot
         7  Aurun Sarin, Vodafone
         8  Jon Schwartz, Sun Systems
         9  Linus Torvalds, Linux
        10  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

~~~
jeez
i was just about to do the same! :)

~~~
dredmorbius
I might've let it alone if the Firefox AutoPager extension had worked on it,
but no.

I fucking hate that linkbait shit.

~~~
eric-hu
Do they do this so they can show ads on multiple pages? I couldn't tell since
I'm always browsing with an adblocker on

~~~
dredmorbius
That and simply inflating pageviews / counts / visits and user time-on-site,
all of which are typical performance metrics used by websites.

------
meterplech
I'm impressed with the list actually. It's hard to create something like this-
in order to be interesting you have to pick people others would consider
relevant.

There are only two picks that are obviously wrong: Reed Hastings and Mark
Zuckerberg. And, it's a testament to both of them that they succeeded in
challenging circumstances.

And, they did a great job picking Ballmer and Torvald. Their explanation of
why Torvald is included (open-source as a movement has out-grown just his
brilliance) is very prescient.

~~~
SwellJoe
I consider Torvalds one of the big mistakes on the list. This predates the
rise of git, which is more innovative (though possibly less revolutionary)
than Linux.

I wouldn't even write him off today, though it's hard to imagine what else he
could touch that could be as world altering as Linux and git.

Also, this was before Android, which is now the most important mobile OS. So,
Torvalds' impact continues to resonate and grow. I agree with them that Linux
has outgrown a single person...and so, they may have been somewhat right, had
git not sprung almost fully formed from that massive brain of his.

~~~
jordan0day
My gut instinct to the inclusion of Torvalds was "No, that's totally wrong",
but on further reflection I think it makes sense. Linux is much bigger than
him now. The whole point of the list is "In the areas where these people are
considered 'important', who could I totally piss off and not see too many
negative ramifications?'" I just don't see Torvalds wielding the kind of power
or influence to really make or break a person/business.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to besmirch Linus, I think he's pretty
awesome. I'm just saying, after thinking about it some, I understand why he
might be on this list.

And I don't know that I would call git innovative, _per se_. git wasn't the
first dvcs, and it's not substantially better than some other systems
(mercurial, for example). git's prevalence today is purely because it won the
popularity contest, plain and simple (being Linus project certainly helped!).
On top of that, while git may be a big deal for developers, git's importance
to the world at large is _tiny_ \-- frankly I'd argue that github is more
important than git itself.

~~~
SwellJoe
_git's prevalence today is purely because it won the popularity contest, plain
and simple_

I don't believe that is at all plain and simple (or correct). I worked with
many DVCS systems before git. git was obviously better, from the moment I
first tinkered with it, and the more I understood of its internals the more
obviously better it seemed. There's a reason that after _years_ of DVCS
fighting it out for turf and never really gaining any traction, git exploded
onto the scene and took over a huge portion of projects. git got everything
right...that's why it won the "popularity contest".

 _On top of that, while git may be a big deal for developers, git's importance
to the world at large is tiny_

Developers make the world as we know it today. And git is what developers use.
github is awesome, but git is the engine to github's fancy automobile
exterior.

~~~
4ad
And people buy automobiles, not engines.

~~~
SwellJoe
The internal combustion engine changed the world. It did it by way of
automobiles (and other powered machines), but the internal combustion engine,
in and of itself, was required for any of that stuff to come into existence.
Likewise, git is the engine for numerous things.

I'm not sure I understand how _hackers_ can continually underestimate the
impact of our own tools and technology. There are _millions_ of developers
using git today, and the ones who use git are the most important and
influential developers in the world. Sometimes I wonder if nerds even realize
how much impact they have on the "real world"....

~~~
4ad
It is the _idea_ of the combustion engine, and the fact that it became
technical possible to build them that changed the world. It's not any
particular combustion engine, but the combustion engine industry as a whole.

Yes, the combustion engine is very important for a car, but it became a
commodity.

Yes, DVCS changed the world. Git maybe more than others because of its
popularity, but slowly I think they are becoming commodities. Github could
function with any other DVCS and practically all major DVCS (git, mercurial,
darcs, bazaar) are interoperable one with another, making the choice more
personal than technological.

------
mekoka
I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment. Many of us would have agreed
on Zuckerberg and Netflix on this list back in 2006 and probably on Linus as
well. Some of us would have even been pretty vocal in defending Blu-ray and/or
HD-DVD. Maybe at this very moment someone is not convinced that Steve Ballmer
should be on the list.

The fact that 5 years later some events altered the course for some of these
guys' projects doesn't negate on the arguments put forth to include them.

We already know what Hastings and Zuckerberg did to stay relevant. Torvald's
inclusion is explained as being _by design_. That is, Linus himself is
designing the growth of his baby toward as much self-sufficiency as possible.
Lucky for us there was the Bitkeeper debacle and he had to pull his ass out to
give us Git. Right now the kernel is at version 3.0, most distros out there
(including Ubuntu) still uses something like 2.6.xx and people are nonetheless
very happy. I'd say, seen from a purely Linux angle, it would make Linus a lot
less relevant.

Now, something that would've made CNN look much better 5 years after posting
this, would have been to moderate their zeal by excluding stuff like _"But as
respected as they might be for their past achievements, their best days are
behind them"_ , especially when covering the ever changing tech business.

~~~
norswap
It has been said many times, but Linux 3.0 is just really 2.6.xx+1 with a
change in version numbering.

~~~
apetresc
Exactly. Not to mention 3.0 has been out for less than a month. Are you really
acting as if the fact that major distributions haven't switched yet is a point
against it?

------
megaman821
I can't believe in 80+ comments no one has defended Ballmer. They basically
predicted his imminent retirement but in reality Windows 7 was released and
became the best-selling of version of Windows ever. Also, it looks as if he
has locked in his CEO position of Microsoft for years to come. You don't have
to be a Microsoft fan-boy to point out this article was wrong in their future
prediction of Steve Ballmer.

~~~
dredmorbius
Given that the userbase of personal computing devices (not necessarily PCs or
laptops) is still growing and will be for a while, the point at which
Microsoft offers an operating system that _isn't_ the "best selling version
ever" will be a disaster for the company.

Truth is: it's very difficult to buy large classes of equipment without buying
Windows due to OEM relationships, same as it's ever been. I've got Win7 that
came with my current Thinkpad, but I've booted it maybe two or three times,
getting as far as logging in. Otherwise it's strictly been Debian. Haven't
even bothered setting up Win7 under VirtualBox yet.

I don't know that Ballmer's been a disaster for Microsoft, or if it's just
running down the Christensen "innovator's dilemma" curve, but the company's
best days are behind it.

In ten years I see it as a legacy provider of business servers to late-
adopting companies, ossified industrial giants, some government sectors, and,
principally, gaming and entertainment. Possibly merged with Sony.

~~~
megaman821
I am not trying to argue he is awesome, he isn't, just that the list was wrong
about him. There is no chance he will be considered a revolutionary but he has
done an adequate job of maintaining against really strong competition.

------
staunch
These lists are always bullshit, whether they're positive or negative. They're
nothing more than a few random people's opinions assembled for the benefit of
easy page views.

------
pseudonym
For additional giggles, under the related articles section: 50 people who
matter.

" _Rank: 14

Brian McAndrews

CEO, aQuantive

Why He Matters: McAndrews is the most important adman on the Internet, and his
innovations have played a big part in making the Web an effective marketing
platform._"

Today?

According to Google, " _Quantive is now Microsoft Advertising._ "

Talk about also-rans.

~~~
pud
Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion.

~~~
evilswan
That'll do nicely, sir.

------
jeffreymcmanus
The real point of this is: don't turn to CNN for your technology industry
news.

~~~
evilswan
Don't turn to CNN for your technology industry predictions. They're fine
reporting facts, but predictions are hard for anyone!

------
pseudonym
The fact that Netflix is on the list amuses me as well.

Although I love how they decided to call it both ways by putting Blu-Ray _and_
HDDVD on there.

It is a little weird to see companies that I literally don't remember on it.
Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, _very_ faint bells in my mind.

~~~
hugh3
_Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind_

I'm afraid that's a problem with your mind, not with Vodafone.

Wikipedia sez:

 _Vodafone Group plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in
London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications
company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by
subscribers (behind China Mobile), with around 341 million proportionate
subscribers as of November 2010. It operates networks in over 30 countries and
has partner networks in over 40 additional countries. It owns 45% of Verizon
Wireless, the largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States
measured by subscribers._

------
mmmmax
Save some time and go all the way to the last person on the list, Mark
Zuckerburg.

[http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/fr...](http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/frameset.exclude.html)

~~~
gjenkin
“In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit
for launching his online social directory for college students just as the
social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly
making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net.
But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and
run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer,
holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself
to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's
second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace
has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to
imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.”

~~~
wisty
Don't discount also-rans. Google was an also-ran. In 2000, Apple was an also-
ran. Microsoft was (and arguably still is) the _master_ of the successful
also-ran.

------
wtracy
Not that it matters in all the noise here, but here's my comments on their
picks:

Steve Ballmer: He got where he is entirely by riding on Bill Gate's coattails.
He did and still does belong on this list.

Jeffrey Citron: Obviously a correct call now. I don't know enough to say
whether I could have called this one correctly at the time.

Reed Hastings: Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it seems like from the very
minute on-demand media became really feasible, Netflix was dragging Hollywood
along kicking and screaming. I'd say he should never have been on this list.

Ken Kutaragi: You can argue now about whether or not he has been influential
in the last five years, but I know that at the time I definitely would have
agreed with CNN on this one.

Warren Lieberfarb: CNN and I would have agreed and we would have both been
correct.

Rob Malda: CNN called this one correctly. I probably would have disagreed with
them at the time, and I would have been wrong.

Arun Sarin: Same as with Citron--obviously correct in hindsight, but I
couldn't have called it one way or the other at the time.

Jonathon Shwartz: Obviously, in hindsight CNN called it correctly. At the
time, though, I had really high hopes for Jonathan Shwartz. Regardless of how
talented he may be, he was put in an almost impossible situation as CEO of Sun
--too much damage had already been done.

Linus Torvalds: First, a personal disclosure--I am a huge Torvalds fanboy, and
would certainly have disagreed with CNN on this one. That said, you could now
make a good case that CNN got this one right. In the last five years, Linus
really hasn't done anything big from a business perspective. Absolutely he has
been busy creating software that people use and care about (Git and continuing
Linux development). However, none of has recent activity has had a major
economic impact. (Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git?) Even
the major things that Linux has done in the last five years (Android, for
example) happened without being driven by Linus. I'm going to say I was wrong
and CNN was right on this one.

Mark Zuckerberg: Obviously wrong in hindsight. I'm not sure whether I could
have done any better, though. In 2004 I definitely would have accepted the
notion that Facebook was unlikely to be worth more than Myspace. I'm not sure
whether I would have still thought that in 2006.

~~~
Empact
> Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git?

Well, it's certainly decreased the significance of commercial and closed-
source development tools & support. It's also made the market for programer
talent more transparent and meritocratic, thus potentially increasing
compensation for talented developers. One would expect this to lead to shifts
in the employment from other sectors into programming.

Doesn't that count as disruptive? Sure he didn't make a bundle in the process,
but he did make the world a better place.

~~~
adestefan
You really need to get out of the HN bubble. I could pick 10 random developers
off the street and I'm guessing you'll get 1 or 2 that know what git is.

------
pilgrim689
This is a trite and insulting article. Saying an individual "doesn't matter"?
There are very respectable people in that list, and they've all reached a very
successful point in their careers. They definitely all have a lot of power to
do good in the tech world, and try really hard to do so.

Maybe it's just a semantics thing...but I find saying someone "doesn't matter"
is way over the top.

------
leeHS
Thanks for posting this. By far my favorite is the Facebook versus MySpace.
It's amazing how quickly things change.

------
anon5
One name (Zuckerberg) tells how foolish anybody who predicts future can seem.
And therefore tech journos almost always do. 'Idiots just shutup' I say to
them!

Another one (Torvalds) screams of _insensitivity_ to the real impact created
by some one. The journalist(s) deserves a whack in the back for this.

There are many people who do something noteworthy, and then fade away, for
various reasons. Calling them out, in a derogatory manner is bad. 'Idiots just
go away. Look at your loser self, in the mirror, when creating a list like
this' I say again.

~~~
rwmj
Most of Zuckerberg's $13 billion net worth is based on an imaginary valuation
of Facebook, apparently engineered by Goldmans. There's still plenty of
opportunity for Facebook to disappear into obscurity, overshadowed by the next
big thing, just like Myspace, Mixi, Friendster and Livejournal.

~~~
anon5
What you say can happen. Agree with you. My main peeve is with any such list
in the first place - "actors who don't matter...", 'techie greats who don't
matter' etc. etc. Makes me very angry, purely from basic human feelings POV.

And its obviously a link bait - '10 people who don't matter...' easily
attracts people on to read (or just page visit) '50 people who do matter...'.

------
heydenberk
It's likely anyone who makes a "10 people who don't matter list" will look
like an idiot in 5 years, because there's little insight to be gained from
trying to understand the tech scene as a series of people who "don't matter"
-- a poorly-defined category of people whose "best days are behind them." And
the inclusion of Torvalds is bizarre, regardless of whether he "matters."
Everyone else on this list is a founder or an executive, working in worlds
with entirely different definitions of success.

------
alanh
“Ironically, the whole [Blu-Ray/HD-DVD] debate may well be pointless. There's
little evidence that consumers are eager to upgrade their existing DVD
collections, and by the time the latest format war is settled, most of us will
simply download movies in our living rooms instead of hoarding them on little
plastic discs.”

The above was a pretty accurate call, minus the surrender of the HD-DVD camp —
and I love how Netflix, far from becoming irrelevant, became one of the top
players in the streaming movie camp!

~~~
aidenn0
I think the jury is still out on netflix. They are king of the hill today, but
there's lots of companies with deep pockets that want to change that.

------
waterlesscloud
Reed Hastings and to some extent Linus Torvalds are a bit ironic as well.

~~~
tptacek
The logic behind putting hastings on the list (that Netflix would be eclipsed
by VOD) is funny. I think the hook for Torvalds being on the list was
uncharacteristically insightful for Business 2.0, though.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Yeah, that's why I said "to some extent" for Torvalds. Their reasoning was
sound, but he's still far more influential than that reasoning predicted.

------
buster
Haha: " After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last
year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is
growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's
80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an
also-ran."

------
dkrich
I think Ballmer at number one makes the list. Anybody trying to make a
statement at any point in time about which tech products will be relevant in
the future will be hard-pressed to hit better than 50%.

Microsoft repeatedly throws good money after bad, chasing the latest fad but
never getting any of them completely right or, more importantly, creating any
game-changing innovations to speak of. They saw Sony making the PS3 and
decided they had to build a competing product and threw away billions in the
process. They saw Google, and assumed they needed to build the same search
engine to remain relevant. I can't believe that Ballmer has managed to stick
around as long as he has, but if I were a Microsoft employee or shareholder, I
would want his head to roll.

------
malkia
Steve Jobs might've been in this list if the article was written 10 or more so
years earlier.... And look what happened instead!

------
michaeldhopkins
To be fair to the writers of this article, M. Zuckerberg took the criticism of
himself seriously and worked hard to become a great executive -- the news
affected reality. One could argue that if all the press about Facebook (and
Zuckerberg)at the time was positive, Facebook might not be as successful
today.

------
evilswan
Tough job making any prediction like this.

They were right about Aurin Sarin and Sony - but for the wrong reasons.

------
BasDirks
The Business 2.0 Magazine staff are missing from the list.

Also: stop trying so hard to come up with justifications for idiotic choices
like Mark, Linus, etc.

------
njharman
> its[Netflix] raison d'etre itself - the DVD

Ha! Anyone who believes DVD is what Netflix is still about is either so far
out of touch they should be banned from spreading their ignorance publicly or
are on the payroll of the the dead but don't believe it yet media industry who
still hopes "the Internet" will just go away.

~~~
latch
you realize this was posted in 2006, right (which is the point)?

~~~
njharman
Nope, author(s) weren't worth paying attention to then either.

------
thought_alarm
Well, folks, when you're right 52% of the time, you're wrong 48% of the time.

------
winsbe01
this just proves how fast things can change in our industry. don't be afraid
of the criticism, because you never know what will happen in 5 years.

------
marcamillion
Ahh..so this is what it looks like when you have egg on your face.

Why do people keep doing this? Over and over again.

~~~
SwellJoe
Seven out of ten isn't all that bad.

Sure, they didn't realize what a force git would become, and Zuckerberg showed
them a thing or two, and Hastings/Netflix turned out to be smarter than anyone
gave them credit for. But, the rest of them...yeah, pretty good calls.

Some of their 50 people who matter were stupid choices, however.

~~~
srl
> Seven out of ten isn't all that bad.

Actually, it's pretty terrible - bear in mind that they could have picked ten
(reasonably well-known) people at random, and chances are 8, 9, or all of them
would be "has-beens" in four years.

~~~
SwellJoe
These aren't merely "reasonably well-known" people. They're people who changed
the world in one way or another. Though, the people who had most changed the
world back then, turned out to continue to change the world...their boldest
choices turned out to be the most wrong.

So, you might be right. Where they went bold, they got it wrong. Where they
chose people obviously in decline (Ballmer, Schwartz, etc.), they turned out
to be right...but it wasn't surprising to anyone (me included, as I remember
reading this article when it was new).

------
subnetvj
ahhh !! just what it would feel like to have your foot in your mouth !!

------
xilun0
who reads CNN Money anyway?

------
nirvana
My favorite in the "not-getting-it" department from this list is Reed Hastings
of NETflix. Way back in 2003, I remember being struck by how brilliant the
name NETflix was. If I'd had the idea for DVDsByMail, I would have opened
DVDsByMail.com Hastings was smart enough to call the company NETflix, which
works fine for DVDs by mail, but really shines as the name of a streaming
media company.

So, I find it hilarious to see people writing him off presuming he didn't have
a streaming media plan. It is in the name!

Also, Linus shouldn't matter. I've met him. He's a decent guy, and that he
"doesn't matter" in the way Steve Jobs _does_ matter, is a good thing. Linux
should be bigger than him... at some point if your platform is dependent on
you that's a weakness in the platform.

------
zackattack
Anyone want to deconstruct this article. These are 10 people who "you can
safely snub at conferences". But by doing so you are also submitting to CNN's
authority.

------
arepb
I can only imagine the dickbag who came up with this idea at the editorial
meeting.

------
SonicSoul
this article is total BS (accept for Balmer of course) it's easy to say
"timing is everything" after the fact, but Zuckeberg did an awesome job. as
in, series of great and innovative moves .. not just good timing. and " Last
spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer...Bad
move" Facebook made 2 bil in 2010.. what am i missing here?

~~~
whatusername
You missed the (2006)

