
CS50 Lecture by Mark Zuckerberg (2005) [video] - lpman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFFs9UgOAlE
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Kequc
If anything Facebook represents, it's the fact that no amount of technical
prominence matters in the general market. You can have a product built by a
single person in PHP and if it catches itself in the wind it will become a
multi-billion dollar entity.

No doubt nobody cared about Facebook. It was worthless, it was badly coded, it
was a webpage. When that thing reached a valuation of $1m I couldn't believe
he didn't sell it. What kind of idiot would offer a million dollars for such a
thing. Then it went up from there. Now I think whoever stands to gain from a
sale of Facebook is a moron. It's valued at hundreds of billions. Just retire.
Make another website on the side in your spare time, take as much time as you
like. Do whatever you like. Let whoever dropped that much cash on a website to
their devices.

At the same time I'm blown away by how many people still use that thing.
Regardless of how many scandals after scandals occur.

Facebook is one of those things that makes me not understand tech anymore.

~~~
kbenson
> You can have a product built by a single person in PHP and if it catches
> itself in the wind it will become a multi-billion dollar entity.

I think this is both true, and doesn't really convey the whole story of what's
needed. If it catches in the wind it can be successful and make some money,
maybe a few million if you're extremely lucky.

To make tens of millions, you have to be lucky _and aggressive_ , otherwise
someone will copy your idea and add the aggression themselves.

To make it to billions, you need the luck, you need the aggression, and you
need an extra level of luck to be at the right place _at the right time_ to
capitalize on a major change.

Facebook did it with social media. Myspace and Friendster were around too, but
Facebook provided a clean interface and hit critical mass sooner.

Apple did it with the smart phone. They weren't first, but their product was
better enough to distinguish itself when smart phones started really being
worthwhile for the average user (while already a low billion dollar company,
they jumped an order of magnitude with the iPhone).

Google did it with the search engine. They weren't the first, but they were
_enough better_ a the time that internet usage was really taking off that it
catapulted them into a position of leadership in search engines, and internet
starting pages.

Microsoft did it with operating systems, and was able to ride the wave of
computer ownership and business needs to dominance.

In each case, I think it wasn't just the product, but also the time being
_just right_ that caused the success. In each case there were competing
products prior to the market leader that weren't that technically inferior,
and in some cases might have had some superior features. In each case, it's
not _just_ the timing that matter, but also that they aggressively capitalized
on their fortune to expand and entrench.

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rc_bhg
Some of that is very strong on the cringe.

~~~
throwaway2016a
When I was that age (I'm actually the same age as him) I would have been
"strong on the cringe too"

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zappo2938
"When you started Facebook did you think it would become a full-fledged
business?"

"No."

~~~
erroneousfunk
It boggles my mind how many people try to replicate Mark Zuckerberg by
dropping out of college, or wearing the same thing every day, or [insert cargo
cult trend of the year here]. But everyone sits around writing business plans
and designing logos and hiring freelancers without actually having a product
yet.

~~~
gallerdude
People like the idea of starting a business. Be their own boss, do what they
want, make a lot of money. So when they design logos or make business plans,
they're indulging that dream. But starting a business is difficult, and
people, even subconsciously, don't like that part.

The sad part is, they don't know that they're dreaming.

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nikisweeting
This was posted just a couple weeks ago and made it fairly high up the front
page. I usually don't complain about reposts, but this seems excessively soon.

