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Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

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Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#51

Post by staunch »

pg wrote: post #26
staunch wrote: post #2

It's probably the most damning and valid critique of The Valley. How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? Sometimes it's because the founders aren't really passionate enough about what they're working on. Other times it's just financially insane to say no. A great example is Mint.com. How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to ma…

It didn't seem to me that he was complaining about founders selling companies quickly so much as employees flitting from one to the other so fast. In my experience, founders in the Valley are more likely to have the confidence to turn down acquisition offers than founders outside it. All the examples you list are Valley startups.

I also think he was reflecting on some of Steve Jobs' views. Jobs had repeatedly bemoaned the flip mentality and respected Zuck a lot for not selling. I got the feeling that made a big impression on him and has soured him a bit to a portion of SV culture.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#52

Post by alexwolfe »

Although I agree there are plenty of people who want to start a company before they have a product or passionate area of interest I don't agree this is a reason for him to have stayed in Boston.

Zuck is not appreciating the fact the one of his most valuable assets (Sean Parker) was out here and help him raise a tremendous amount of capital for facebook. The story could be much different if he was in Boston without Sean Parker. I certainly think they wouldn't be doing better, and he might not have control of the company anymore. I just think its silly to rewrite history in your mind and assume you would have the same success.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#53

Post by mobileman »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #43
timsally wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine you're being downvoted by people who don't know what winter in Chicago is like. ^^

I, and many other true Chicagoans, am very much proud of our winter weather, thank you very much.

Why??? How can you be proud of something you dont control? Its irrational.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#54

Post by alexwolfe »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #45

If Zuckerberg really thinks that Silicon Valley VCs are short-sighted (and I'm not saying that they are or they aren't), why doesn't he put his money where his mouth is? He's in a unique position to be investing in companies that could achieve success on a timespan that exceeds the five to ten year horizon that VCs are constrained by. Also, which of these Boston investors are investing long-term? I want to meet some…

Good points. It seems he certainly has an interest in startups in the tech industry. It would be great to see him work with or invest in companies he has a lasting interest in.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#55

Post by WildUtah »

timsally wrote: post #15
jrockway wrote: post #5

One reason to live in the Valley is the opportunity to exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year. That's why I want to move out there, anyway. Winter is highly overrated.

I would imagine you're being downvoted by people who don't know what winter in Chicago is like. ^^

My last winter in Illinois there were two weeks where the high temperature never got up as high as -15ºF. Pants freeze to your legs, glasses ice over in seconds, even if you're sufficiently bundled your eyeballs can get frostbite.

People underestimate how much nicer the world is away from the Chicago-Boston-DC triangle.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#56

Post by dschobel »

mobileman wrote: post #53
ComputerGuru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, and many other true Chicagoans, am very much proud of our winter weather, thank you very much.

Why??? How can you be proud of something you dont control? Its irrational.

I'm sure there's some psychological term for what long-time Chicagoans feel for the winter there... you'll find it amongst the chapters concerning victims who identify with their abusers. (I did my five years in Chicago and gtfo).

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#57

Post by rsingel »

Zuckerberg's answers were really bizarre (though I appreciate what he was saying about Silicon Valley, which is a reaction to his belief there are too many tech employees who don't commit to a long term vision.)

But bizarrely, he said 1) he had no intention of forming a company when he came to Silicon Valley, even though, 1) they brought interns and 2) had already incorporated badly.

Even more odd was his assertion he started with the idea of building a social graph identity system and then built Facebook. I'm not knocking either of those innovations, but I seriously doubt this narrative. I think the graph grew out of watching what people did on Facebook and then realizing, brilliantly, how he could build an extensible social-identity service that would turn Facebook into internet infrastructure, instead of a MySpace replacement that could be jettisoned by users when the next cool social network (Google+, for instance) came around.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#58

Post by dr_ »

The problem with this way of thinking is that it works if you are successful, but it doesn't allow much room for failure. And failing can be as important as succeeding. In the Valley if you fail, despite having investors and solid employees, it sucks but you basically close up shop and move on. There may be some short term resentment, but basically you are forgiven and allowed to try again. Zuckerberg criticizes the shorter term employment of most people in the Valley - but that's because better opportunities come along. If a company fails, you don't have to feel as bad cause the employees you've let go should find work elsewhere in a reasonable amount of time. That's not as easy in other cities. But it's important for the ecosystem to thrive.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#59

Post by crystalis »

staunch wrote: post #6
gnaritas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? If the founders exited with the cash they were looking for, so what? > How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to make $40M personally? You don't, and why should you? > That's more than he might have made in an IPO after years more work. Who care about an IPO? If you can cash out before…

The world is better off when companies like Dropbox exist as large transformational forces of technology progress. If they all get strangled in their crib's progress slows. Imagine if Yahoo hadn't flubbed the acquisition of Google? We'd all be worse off.

On some level, yes, but companies don't magic employees into existence. It doesn't matter too much if the Go language comes out of Dogpile or Pets.com instead of Google, does it?

I can definitely see that Google is more likely to foment transformation than a Yahoo, but I think it's a lot harder to say that we're better off with fewer acquisitions. It seems like the only good metric is number of good employees at good companies, and it doesn't matter much if it's Google or a company that decided not to get acquired by Google. (Although I don't think it'd be that great if Google were the only 'good company' in this hand wavy metric.)

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#60

Post by Jarred »

rsingel wrote: post #57

Zuckerberg's answers were really bizarre (though I appreciate what he was saying about Silicon Valley, which is a reaction to his belief there are too many tech employees who don't commit to a long term vision.) But bizarrely, he said 1) he had no intention of forming a company when he came to Silicon Valley, even though, 1) they brought interns and 2) had already incorporated badly. Even more odd was his assertion h…

He also said that there was no drinking.

This video shows the opposite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--APdD6vejI

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