Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Mark Zuckerberg

daltoncaldwell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 272 posts

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#211

Post by ricardobeat »

grecy wrote: post #202
dedward wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? I expect honesty in business dealings, large or small. That doesn't preclude me from having some mean lawyers on my side to ensure I'm covered, but the up-front negotiations aren't driven by them. I'd walk out too.

> It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? Yes, I agree that it is a sad state of affairs. Whether you accept it or not, this is the world we've created for ourselves. (Obviously you do accept it, as evidenced by the lawyers you mention)

The world hasn't ended yet; not accepting things you think are wrong is what creates the world for ourselves.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#212

Post by joering2 »

So Facebook is more or less like a Casino: its fun to play, you are welcome to come and bring your friends along, have fun, win some, lose some and then go home. And don't forget to come back. But if you are bringing your genius gambling skills, plan on making money here, and you keep on winning one after another, you will be kindly asked to leave, or removed with force.

At the end of the day, its nothing new. Its a bit of a ponzi scheme where a company offers something (in case of Facebook or Twitter: an access to their dataset) under a false promise of achieving fame and/or fortune if you built something fun and cool and attract large audience. So you are welcome to try while we keep on building our company on this "don't be evil, connect people" promise. But rest assured if somehow someway you come close to making it a reality and bump on our radar, we will gladly shut you down this or another way.

And I'm having hard time blaming Facebook here. Perhaps that would be weird before IPO and an audience of stockholders watching their every move, but especially now where there is a crack in the boat and it runs 40% underwater, all eyes are on captain's hands. He needs to be as fierce and violent in his moves as possible and if someone even remotely comes close to eating up even little bit of his advertising cheddar, he/she will be torpedoed down.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#213

Post by anthonyb »

Androsynth wrote: post #151
anthonyb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a facet of marketing, sure - but you're marketing your platform/API/library/company to developers, not the general public. It doesn't really matter whether they're currently using your system, since they might be in the near future. The implication is that by having a large ecosystem with lots of developers, the company will benefit, but in this case, FB appears to have shot themselves in the foot.

Its not marketing. Dev Relations is a liaison to developers. They will champion your cause when it is mutually beneficial. But they don't work for you and are not obliged to stick up for you.

All the liaising in the world is not going to help you when all the developers who use your platform think that you're an asshole, or you're too busy managing your ad portfolio to pay attention to them.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#214

Post by joering2 »

dalton wrote: post #101
notJim wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

But Dalton was it really such a surprise for you? Was it a first time you heard or had a felling that someone is building something cool and dataset owner wants to shut them down? Seriously, I have at least 50 different cool ideas taping into both Twitter and Facebook streams, but will never lose a minute on any of those because I know that the stream can be turned off any minute. If you ever read techcrunch, mash, sai, a vc etc, you would sooner or later stumble upon a similar situation. "Blessing" from Mark doesnt change a shit -- he doesnt answer to you, he answers to the board and stock owners and since IPO with this thing tanking 40% he is on a very tight leech and you are the last one to answer to.

You story also reminds me of a gentleman agreement I had with Don Dodge. His "blessing" and interest in my idea made me work days and nights to deliver asap, and at the end he totally backed out. It was painful and disappointing, but one cannot do nothing about it.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#215

Post by cbr »

natrius wrote: post #49
caleywoods wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. He's angry because he didn't want to be acquired and didn't want to have his business shut down by Facebook turning off his access.

Nothing in the post suggests that Facebook threatened to turn off access.

They threatened this in a phone call, but he didn't record it so he didn't include it in the letter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#216

Post by rhizome »

freehunter wrote: post #200
385668 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can tell him that they're interested in an aqui-hire before hand. That's how they can act in good faith. If he shows, he gets the info they gave him at the meeting anyway. If he doesn't, they crush him, which they plan to do now, after the meeting they had in bad faith.

What else would the meeting be for? He's incredibly naive if he honestly thought that the meeting was going to be them congratulating him for making a good product and nothing more. I was hoping the outcome of this meeting would be executive-level support for my impending product launch. What executive-level support would they give him except to buy him/his product? The bad faith here is going into this meeting with…

It's not OK to take advantage of a naive person. They could simply have explained their position in a way more appropriate for the kind of meeting they had portrayed.

If Facebook wanted an acqui-hire from this meeting here, they sold it awfully poorly. They don't have to care, of course, they'll likely just look elsewhere and scoop up 5 people to do the same thing, but from a business perspective this meeting would have seemed to be a waste of time for all concerned. Again, FB has the cash so who cares, but to drag people in with the hope that they'll forget themselves and jump at whatever opportunity is presented. They're taking time and attention away from the thing that attracted them to this person.

Heck, that they kind of throw offers around like this is kind of a lesson for future targets simply to triple their ask. "Sure, $50MM all cash." Screw those jerks.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#218

Post by lightyrs »

ivankirigin wrote: post #125
unreal37 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nope, unambiguously rude. This kind of negativity is why this community is worse than it used to be.

Pardon me for barging in on this discussion but I find the use of "Nope" in a manner not humorous, ironic, or otherwise deceptively rendered to be quite rude indeed. I do not question your motivations but maybe we are — many of us — to blame for the ills you decry.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#219

Post by jpdoctor »

csmeder wrote: post #190

A lot of people seem to be missing Dalton's point. Dalton isn't complaining Mark's behavior is bad (in the short term). He knows why Mark did what he did, it makes sense if you are thinking short term. It makes sense if you think Facebook is worth 110 Billion. This isn't a letter so much to convince Mark that he is heading down the wrong path. I think Dalton is convinced FB as an organization has made too many promis…

> So don't build your apps on it.

The other reason: Putting a company with FB's reputation in your critical path is just asking for trouble.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#220

Post by lucisferre »

csmeder wrote: post #190

A lot of people seem to be missing Dalton's point. Dalton isn't complaining Mark's behavior is bad (in the short term). He knows why Mark did what he did, it makes sense if you are thinking short term. It makes sense if you think Facebook is worth 110 Billion. This isn't a letter so much to convince Mark that he is heading down the wrong path. I think Dalton is convinced FB as an organization has made too many promis…

This pretty much nails the sentiment I took from the story. He isn't so much complaining or railing against Facebook, but kicking himself for being, in hindsight, so naive. Not that anyone could blame him for it though. I mean, it certainly made perfect sense at the time, in fact for most of us, it still appears to make a lot of sense which is precisely why he is putting out these words of caution.

The one line summary seems to be: Facebook and Twitter represent a closed model of social networking, which rails against the very nature of web and internet as a technology platform and it probably won't last.

Not saying if I agree or disagree with that statement and prediction, but I definitely see the argument.

Post reply on HN