
"This is Tayo. He's 11 and showed me a game he built called Spike Rush" - abula
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103109919772641
======
hardwaresofton
Maybe I'm too much of a pessimist/cynic, but while I certainly love that Zuck
is doing things like this, I hope he's not just trying to butter Nigeria up to
the free basics anti-open-internet bullshit that he tried to pull on India.

Nigeria and Africa are definitely the next big frontiers for the internet, and
I honestly doubt that whatever facebook's got planned is mutually beneficial
enough. Though if FB decides to establish and maintain a persistent, competent
power company in Nigeria, it might actually be worth it, NEPA is shit.

~~~
throwanem
I don't think you're overly pessimistic in this at all. Facebook does what's
good for Facebook. So does Mark Zuckerberg.

~~~
jhall1468
I can't stand this mentality. Why do people think that because someone is a
shareholder/CEO in a company, all their deeds from that point on are purely
self-interest?

Same shit happened when he pledged 99% of his stock charitable causes.
Everyone was up in arms about how the organization was an LLC instead of a
charity, claiming he did it purely for the tax benefits, despite that being
bullshit.

I guess at the end of the day, once you are a billionaire for creating a
successful company, everything you do is based entirely on greed. I'm sure we
can come up with a self-interest reason Bill Gates is spending hundreds of
millions eradicating malaria too.

~~~
theobold
_Why do people think that because someone is a shareholder /CEO in a company,
all their deeds from that point on are purely self-interest?_

Depends on the CEO and company. The behavior of a company reflects the
behavior of its CEO. Microsoft and Facebook both have a a history of bad
behavior.

~~~
jhall1468
"bad" is relative. The CEO's of the tobacco companies had a history of
knowingly killing people. Microsoft was aggressively anti-competitive,
Facebook was (and still is) very much opposed to privacy on the Internet.

A company is many cogs. The fact that Bill Gates was anti-competitive doesn't
make him, the individual, a bad person. That's very clear from the work he's
doing now. So assuming that all decisions stem from greed, from anyone, is a
silly assumption.

~~~
gm-conspiracy
I am paraphrasing, but the quote goes something like "Yesterday's robber-baron
is today's philanthropist."

~~~
n-gauge
Your quote reminds me of Robin Hood.

~~~
wavefunction
Not sure why? Robber Barons steal from the poor and give to themselves.

------
vegabook
Facebook's transparent attempt to own the internet in Africa is scary,
distasteful, but strangely tinged with inevitability due to Mark Zuckerberg's
unstoppable hunger and relentless competence. I hope Africa is as savvy as the
West (has belatedly become) to his self-serving PR stunts, and gives him an
almighty neo-colonial kick in the butt.

~~~
sevenless
Comparing a company to a colonial empire is a bit silly unless you're talking
about the East India Company. I don't believe Facebook has its own warships
yet.

~~~
ucaetano
English East India Company, Austrian East India Company, Danish East India
Company, Dutch East India Company, French East India Company, Portuguese East
India Company, Swedish East India Company, Hudson Bay Company, United Fruit
Company, Danish West India Company, Dutch West India Company, French West
India Company, Swedish West India Company, Royal African Company, etc.

I'm not judging if they were good or bad, but there were (and still are) far
too many.

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cmarschner
Great to see Mark promoting talent from Nigeria. Africa is yet to untap the
potential of its people, and Nigeria will play a central role.

~~~
ScotterC
Agreed. That's the central tenant of Andela [1]. I just got back from Kenya
and was blown away by how talented the engineers were. Going to Nigeria next
month and can't wait to compare and see what Zuck was seeing.

1\. [http://andela.com](http://andela.com)

~~~
cheez
Can you elaborate what made them talented?

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dolftax
Why are posts like these trending/upvoted?

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foxylion
If someone is interested in the original Facebook post (also viewable without
an account):
[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103109918599991](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103109918599991)

~~~
dang
Yes, we changed the url to that from [http://naijafixer.com/programing/mark-
zuckerberg-help-in-pub...](http://naijafixer.com/programing/mark-zuckerberg-
help-in-publicising-11-yrs-old-nigerian-tayo%27s-spike-rush-app/msg77/#new),
since that one is just a copy of this one, and HN calls for original sources.

