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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't post personal attacks to HN, regardless of $Person. A comment like this does not gratify curiosity, only indignation, and we're here for the former not the latter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I definitely didn't mean this as a personal attack.
This is where it crossed from critique to attack.
I've always felt that Mark Zuckerberg got lucky with Facebook and that he has no real lasting talent as a technologist or visionary. He seems to attempt to chase the latest "it" thing and has very few original ideas that actual stick long-term. He's quite the charlatan.
In what way has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain, as befitting the word charlatan? He is the CEO of Facebook and we're told to not like Facebook, but when has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain? He's one of the richest people in the world and has been using that money to do things he wants to do. I don't think he's ever claimed to eg be a PhD AI research…
I will ask though, has he been honest when he’s testified before Congress? At best, I think we can say he hasn’t been very transparent many of those times. If that’s not for power and/or financial gain, what is it? [0]
- [0] https://dispatch.techoversight.org/top-report-mark-zuckerber... - which was previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060486
> “we're told to not like Facebook…”
I didn’t have to be “told” to not like Facebook or Meta. The company’s actions for well over a decade and those of its executives, including the CEO, allowed to form that opinion on our own. I’d be willing to bet that experience is not unique to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't post personal attacks to HN, regardless of $Person. A comment like this does not gratify curiosity, only indignation, and we're here for the former not the latter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I definitely didn't mean this as a personal attack.
It's not that you owe Zuckerberg or any other specific person better, but rather that you owe this community better if you're participating in it. (And by 'you' of course, I don't mean you personally, but all of us.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't post personal attacks to HN, regardless of $Person. A comment like this does not gratify curiosity, only indignation, and we're here for the former not the latter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
um, I'm not sure exactly why what motivated that comment, but its extremely possible to believe every word there from a purely logical perspective, as opposed to an emotional one. yes we shouldn't post personal attacks, but saying 'Zuckerberg got lucky' and 'seems to chase the latest "it" thing' doesn't need to qualify as a personal attack. these can just be normal observations. see I wouldn't say the same things abo…
I doubt that a purely logical evaluation is possible of any statement at all, outside of formal languages, but let's not digress. (Or maybe we should! it's at least more interesting to talk about than how $Billionaire-CEO just got lucky, lacks talent, or is a charlatan.)
> I think it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" to think about what motivates tech ceos and talk about how they do things
Yes, that's possible, but if one is venting indignation then one is doing something different.
To digress again: "intellectual curiosity" is a funny phrase, one I don't entirely care for - it verges on pretentious and reminds me of Hemingway's ten-dollar words*. But I've stuck with it because you can't just say "curiosity", because there are other kinds of curiosity and they are quite different.
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Brother, YouTube is quite literally a money printing machine. I don’t know where you’re getting information from.
YouTube has a lot of revenue, profit isn't known as far as I'm aware. Alphabet doesn't report YouTube earnings separately, and when they were still sharing that information it was a pretty large amount of losses IIRC. But if you have sources I'm happy to change my mind
And for a long time (pre-AI) youtube was the biggest load on Google's entire infra. The number i recall was ~30% of all Google's cpu utilization was for youtube, and google spent a lot of effort optimizing it.
Holy mimic batman - Mark, its ok to have a little of your own innovation and not copycat nor buy every single good idea.
Facebook innovation is their ads algo. They copy existing consumer success (which is incredibly difficult to create), and then execute it incredibly well.
Their innovation isn't in ads, it's in creating a sticky app experience that downranks posts with external URLs to keep people on their site, one that's now fine-tuned to retain the lowest-common denominator of technology user (boomers). Ironically, a segment that the OG Facebook avoided like the plague is now their bread and butter.
People who don't understand nor care about how the system works are the ones most likely to click on targeted ads, share sensationalist slop and comment positively on AI videos of of Hegseth fighting Godzilla.
And even then, for ad buyers, the ROI is a complete crapshoot because of how purchase attribution works on every ads platform. Every ad platform puts their marketing pixel on your site, and they all try to take credit for every sale made on it.
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> Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook Social networks were all the rage. He executed the best of all and had the right strategy to build the user base.
He was also a wealthy kid with connections. People place far too much weight on execution. Most of it is being in the right place at the right time and having existing connections. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat... https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-i... Not what I'd call great execution anyways.
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YouTube has a lot of revenue, profit isn't known as far as I'm aware. Alphabet doesn't report YouTube earnings separately, and when they were still sharing that information it was a pretty large amount of losses IIRC. But if you have sources I'm happy to change my mind
They report YT's earnings, iirc it is about 60B (40B ads + 20B subs) annually, with 10% YoY growth. They don't disclose youtube's profits outside of Google Services (which has ~40% margins), so yes youtube is a money printing machine. And for a long time (pre-AI) youtube was the biggest load on Google's entire infra. The number i recall was ~30% of all Google's cpu utilization was for youtube, and google spent a lot…
I can‘t help but wonder what goes on inside of the upper management of these big companies, and why nobody ever stops for a moment to think about whether what they are up to does any good for the end users beyond making more money. But then again, this is very on brand for Meta/Zuck, so I‘m not surprised.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
YouTube has a lot of revenue, profit isn't known as far as I'm aware. Alphabet doesn't report YouTube earnings separately, and when they were still sharing that information it was a pretty large amount of losses IIRC. But if you have sources I'm happy to change my mind
They report YT's earnings, iirc it is about 60B (40B ads + 20B subs) annually, with 10% YoY growth. They don't disclose youtube's profits outside of Google Services (which has ~40% margins), so yes youtube is a money printing machine. And for a long time (pre-AI) youtube was the biggest load on Google's entire infra. The number i recall was ~30% of all Google's cpu utilization was for youtube, and google spent a lot…