

Mark Zuckerberg to speak at Startup School 2011 - naz
http://startupschool.org/speakers.html

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teej
I understand why they want Zuck to speak (it helps raise the profile of the
event) but I'm not particularly excited. His talks are notoriously stodgy and
unfocused, especially his Startup School appearances.

I'm much more excited about Max Levchin and Drew Houston. From past talks I've
seen them do, I feel their message will be better focused and higher yield for
the startup audience. The best talks last year were from entrepreneurs who had
tasted a mix of failure and success - Dalton Caldwell and Brian Chesky.

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pg
He's not giving a talk. He's being interviewed, like last year.

The only time he gave a talk was the first time, in 2007. That was anything
but stodgy.

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teej
I can only comment on my admittedly limited experiences, none of which have
been stellar.

I'll keep my mind open. I think Jessica is a fantastic interviewer and has the
potential to make this year's talk with Zuck the best one yet.

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Raphomet
Startup School in 2010 was the reason I quit my job and went straight to
Airbnb without taking a single day off in between.

This event is a life-changer.

~~~
stevederico
Startup School last year convinced me to leave my job at a big tech company
and follow my passion. I am now a full-time freelance iOS developer and I
couldn't be happier. This event is a life changer, congrats to all accepted
this year.

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kwamenum86
His interview was underwhelming but a couple years he spent a lot of time (at
least half an hour) in the hallway afterward talking to a handful of attendees
(~8), which is pretty awesome.

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staunch
Damn, the line up is amazing as usual. So thankful they're recorded and posted
online. I've watched many of the previous talks repeatedly.

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sumukh1
Excited to go, but I do have to say the amount of valley stars that come every
year is a testament to the quality of the event. And link for previous year's
video clips (this years stream too?): <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool>

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g0atbutt
Solid list of speakers, thanks for putting this together YC team! Is there a
Google Doc of everyone that is planning on attending?

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dmazin
I'm excited to go to this.

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rhizome
One might say his startup palmares are a little stale by now. I'm sure he
talks to a lot of startuppy people though, so maybe he's just a good one-stop
shop for trends and certain facets of the conventional wisdom.

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m0nastic
Considering that it seems like a large preponderance of startups are trying to
be "the next Facebook", I think the guy who started the current Facebook (I'm
assuming the Winklevei were unavailable) would be super relevant.

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rhizome
Isn't Zuck's expertise in being "the actual Facebook," though? Is the
conventional wisdom that business (in general) is fractal?

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m0nastic
I would think that Zuck's experience is in founding a tiny startup, and
growing it into the company that everyone points to as the poster-child target
for your liquidity event.

I don't disagree that for people who are now in the early stages of launching
what they hope to be the next big thing, there isn't a 1:1 application of
advice from the creator of the current big thing. I'm just puzzled that your
initial comment seemed so puzzled about what value having Zuckerberg speak
could bring.

The guy started a fantastically successful startup. He's bought a bunch of
other startups. That would seem to make him a good candidate for talking at a
startup-themed event (even if his current company isn't really a startup
anymore).

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pork
> I would think that Zuck's experience is in founding a tiny startup, and
> growing it into the company that everyone points to as the poster-child
> target for your liquidity event.

Not really, by the time Facebook became a proper "company", it was already
huge and growing faster. This is where we must draw a distinction between a
"website" and a "startup". When Facebook became a startup, it was already in a
position (vis a vis growth) that 99.9% of startups never achieve.

