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Dear Mark Zuckerberg

daltoncaldwell.com

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Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#101

Post by dalton »

notJim wrote: post #96
dalton wrote: post #48

Rather than get involved with all of these threads, I'd like to clarify something. I build a product that pre-dated App Center by several months. Facebook dev relations people tested it and actively encouraged me to build it. I was assured that it was considered "good" and "helpful" as an example of using Open Graph. At an earlier point I was offered marketing help from Facebook for my launch. I am not clear why some…

Hey dalton, I've posted my thoughts in this thread, and I'm also considering writing a blog article about this, but I have one meta thing to share with you. This letter doesn't make two things clear to me: 1) what exactly it is you're upset about and 2) what you think should have happened. Because of this, people in this thread are making a lot of assumptions which are uncharitable and inaccurate, and you come across…

1) I am unhappy that I wasted my time and energy building on a platform that encouraged me to do so, and within the matter of months changed their mind. This is the same thing that makes me unhappy with what Twitter is doing to their ecosystem: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been

2) Once Mark Zuckerberg gave personal blessing, he shouldn't have changed his mind. I have an interesting email thread along these lines.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#102

Post by ajross »

cube13 wrote: post #94
ajross wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an awfully liberal use of "bad faith". There wasn't any "negotiation" yet at all, it's just a meeting. Meetings go off-agenda all the time. It seems to me just like you say, the extent of the harm to Dalton is that he "would not have had the meeting in the first place." So basically facebook wasted his afternoon by forcing him to listen to some competition threats and trying to hand him an offer letter. Why sh…

>That's an awfully liberal use of "bad faith". There wasn't any "negotiation" yet at all, it's just a meeting. Meetings go off-agenda all the time. >Why should we care? I still don't see any ethics issues here at all. Hard negotiation isn't "bad faith". You're absolutely correct that hard negotiation tactics are not bad faith. However, like you point out, there wasn't supposed to be any negotiation about an offer in…

I guess, though I still don't see the ethical takeaway: "Don't go to meetings with Facebook, you never know when they might try to hire you for cheap!" just doesn't have the dramatic impact I'd expect from the kind of argument I'm reading.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#103

Post by 16s »

unreal37 wrote: post #79
gruseom wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop being gratuitously rude? Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake and Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna , etc. add nothing other than nastiness to Not compete with you and Acquire you , etc.

I didn't view that as rude. Eye of the beholder I guess.

Nor did I. He was likely trying to describe the self-entitlement of the younger generation. Which I totally agree with. You/we are not entitled to anything and you/we are not special snowflakes. I think that's all he meant to convey.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#105

Post by dasil003 »

sseveran wrote: post #73
DevX101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong handed and entirely legitimate.

If Microsoft was the company involved everyone would be crying fowl about how they are a monopoly and this is the ultimate evil.

You mean if this was 10 years ago. I haven't heard anyone use Microsoft and monopoly in the same sentence for years.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#106

Post by codezy »

I find building a product using a 3rd party API can be totally awesome or a complete disaster. In my case I had two experiences that stood out: RDIO: These guys are awesome. Their API is awesome, their support of devs who build on it is awesome. Their product is awesome. Kudos to Ian who works on it. We built Anthm on this and it has worked out great!

FreshBooks: These guys made me furious. We found that there were no good OSX based timers for this product so we built one. In the end they refused to put us up on their site, each time with a different excuse (we have promised exclusivity to this other app, or we are changing our app system). The developer relations guy was just a total jerk. In the end they asked us to change our name because they did not like it and even after immediately doing that, no love from them.

In short - it is getting tough to base a business on any of these third party API's that can change under your feet - yet there are still some out there that are tremendous.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#107

Post by airnomad »

dalton wrote: post #70
ryanmerket wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Business is business. It's not the Dev Relations team that decides if an app on the platform is competitive. Just because they told him to it was 'cool' doesn't mean the execs think it's too competitive... Moral: Make sure you're talking to the right people.

Um, yeah pretty sure I was talking to the right people. Marc Andreessen is on my board.

You wrote this post 40+ days after the meeting took place. That imply your timing is chosen for reasons you didn't disclose in the blog post. Hence you try to manipulate public while pursuing hidden agenda.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#108

Post by SoftwareMaven »

sseveran wrote: post #73
DevX101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong handed and entirely legitimate.

If Microsoft was the company involved everyone would be crying fowl about how they are a monopoly and this is the ultimate evil.

This is exactly how Microsoft behaved in the 90s.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#109

Post by bthomas »

dave1619 wrote: post #62
AznHisoka wrote: post #27

The purpose of a business is to make money for their shareholders. Repeat 10 times until this becomes obvious.

This isn't necessarily true. Jony Ive on Apple, "Our goal absolutely at Apple is not to make money. This may sound a little flippant, but it’s the truth. Our goal and what gets us excited is to try to make great products. We trust that if we are successful people will like them, and if we are operationally competent we will make revenue, but we are very clear about our goal."

Are there good examples other than Apple?

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#110

Post by dalton »

airnomad wrote: post #107
dalton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, yeah pretty sure I was talking to the right people. Marc Andreessen is on my board.

You wrote this post 40+ days after the meeting took place. That imply your timing is chosen for reasons you didn't disclose in the blog post. Hence you try to manipulate public while pursuing hidden agenda.

-> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325762
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