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

Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#41

Post by palish »

bigboote wrote: post #38
banned_man wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His 2007 talk was awful. He basically said: hire young people only.

It was a little more nuanced than that. The point was that young people were willing to take risks because they had little to lose and no responsibilities. He mentioned that (at the time) he slept on a mattress on the floor, so he wouldn't be trapped by possessions and paralyzed by fear of losing everything. People with mortgages and retirement plans are (rationally) conservative, and they won't take big gambles with…

I was there for Zuck's talk in 2006. It was pretty terrible. He came off sounding like an arrogant jerk.

What you are saying is true. But it is unrelated to what is being said. What we're saying is, Zuck needs to drink less of his own kool-aid and start caring about people other than himself. I admire his commitment, but it's a shame that he doesn't recognize, or isn't thankful for, the large amount of luck that played a role in Facebook's success. If he had attacked the problem of "MySpace, but better" at a different school, or in a different way, or any number of things, then Facebook wouldn't be what it is today.

If he's acting like Jobs, he's premature. At least Jobs' company was very profitable in the early days. Also, I just left a company run by a Jobs/Zuckerberg type; good sense of design, but very controlling, and needlessly so. I don't envy Facebook employees. There is more to life than working for the arrogant.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#42

Post by unalone »

palish wrote: post #41
bigboote wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a little more nuanced than that. The point was that young people were willing to take risks because they had little to lose and no responsibilities. He mentioned that (at the time) he slept on a mattress on the floor, so he wouldn't be trapped by possessions and paralyzed by fear of losing everything. People with mortgages and retirement plans are (rationally) conservative, and they won't take big gambles with…

I was there for Zuck's talk in 2006. It was pretty terrible. He came off sounding like an arrogant jerk. What you are saying is true. But it is unrelated to what is being said. What we're saying is, Zuck needs to drink less of his own kool-aid and start caring about people other than himself. I admire his commitment, but it's a shame that he doesn't recognize, or isn't thankful for, the large amount of luck that play…

At least Jobs' company was very profitable in the early days.

Brush up on your Apple history. Jobs was fired because he was running his company into a financial mire thanks to his over-the-top idealism.

I don't envy Facebook employees. There is more to life than working for the arrogant.

They chose where to work. Just like Apple employees chose. If you're not the sort of person who works well under a very brilliant, very arrogant man, you're allowed to find other places to work.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#43

Post by parenthesis »

unalone wrote: post #42
palish wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there for Zuck's talk in 2006. It was pretty terrible. He came off sounding like an arrogant jerk. What you are saying is true. But it is unrelated to what is being said. What we're saying is, Zuck needs to drink less of his own kool-aid and start caring about people other than himself. I admire his commitment, but it's a shame that he doesn't recognize, or isn't thankful for, the large amount of luck that play…

At least Jobs' company was very profitable in the early days. Brush up on your Apple history. Jobs was fired because he was running his company into a financial mire thanks to his over-the-top idealism. I don't envy Facebook employees. There is more to life than working for the arrogant. They chose where to work. Just like Apple employees chose. If you're not the sort of person who works well under a very brilliant,…

But Apple had already made heaps of money from the Apple II by that stage, no?

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#44

Post by banned_man »

patio11 wrote: post #36
banned_man wrote: post #19

This, uhh, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but does anyone know if there's a way (synthetically, perhaps) to short an IPO? I repeat this has, umm, nothing to do with any particular company. Yeah. Just so you don't try to copy my trading strategy. I repeat: nothing to do with, um, any particular stock. I'm just asking a technical question about shorting IPOs, now or in the future. Yeah...

short an IPO Buy put options on the underlying stock. This gives you the right, but not the obligation, to force a sale of stock at the strike price. Say you have a hot Internet IPO which debuts at $10. People assume it will follow the Google trajectory and be worth hundreds within a few years. You can buy puts at $10 for a year from now -- this would entitle you to sell any shares you held at $10, regardless of what…

Can you buy puts on a pre-IPO stock? I didn't think you could.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#45

Post by gaius »

mingdingo wrote: post #29
Frazzydee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would be fairly easy to monetize, purely because it's so popular. Why? Popularity as a free service doesn't necessarily imply that said popularity will be retained upon introduction of a monetary fee.

The monetization need not be direct (i.e. charging people to use the site). It could be better ad placement, a search engine that knows more about you than google does, monetary transactions (auctions, payments), as well as other stuff... Like it or not, facebook has real utility (just like central park), and people are willing to pay for real utility in one way or another.

What I'm surprised they haven't done already is extend their event planning mechanism to partner with ticket agents, train companies/airlines, cinema chains, restaurant booking systems, pizza delivery, etc etc.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#46

Post by unalone »

seunosewa wrote: post #39
unalone wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's the best cheerleader Facebook could have. He gives speeches, but hides personal information. If you're a spokesperson for a company whose number-one selling point is privacy, the best marketing move you can make is to stay hidden. When I was younger I wrote him a friend request and a little message, which he promptly ignored, and my respect for him swelled for that. In a Silicon Valley that's becoming infamous f…

You respect him because he ignored you? Not the ideal reason to respect a person, imho. You don't have to be great to be an asshole.

He's not great because he ignored me, he's great because he made Facebook. So even if he was a complete socialite, he'd have my respect. But I like that instance because it made me think that he wasn't primarily making Facebook for money, he was making it for his own privacy.

There are good reasons to be social to people. I'm a social person. That said, I respect immensely the people who don't feel pressured to talk to every person that writes to him.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#47

Post by unalone »

ashot wrote: post #33
chris11 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not as easy as it seems. I use facebook because it easily allows me to see what is going on in a lot of people's lives. There are no huge technical or design hurdles to beating Facebook. The problems are social. Only sites with a lot of users, like Myspace, could quickly become a threat to Myspace. Facebook has surpassed a critical mass of users, so they probably would have time to respond to any technical chal…

ala twitter, sf geek crowd

Don't compare Facebook to Twitter. It's enormous in comparison. Twitter may be getting lots of press, but my friends who've tried it have nearly all abandoned their accounts.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#48

Post by lisper »

banned_man wrote: post #44
patio11 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

short an IPO Buy put options on the underlying stock. This gives you the right, but not the obligation, to force a sale of stock at the strike price. Say you have a hot Internet IPO which debuts at $10. People assume it will follow the Google trajectory and be worth hundreds within a few years. You can buy puts at $10 for a year from now -- this would entitle you to sell any shares you held at $10, regardless of what…

Can you buy puts on a pre-IPO stock? I didn't think you could.

Nope. Options don't become available for several weeks after an IPO. There needs to be some historical price data to feed the black-scholes formula in order to price the options.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#50

Post by TweedHeads »

unalone wrote: post #42
palish wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there for Zuck's talk in 2006. It was pretty terrible. He came off sounding like an arrogant jerk. What you are saying is true. But it is unrelated to what is being said. What we're saying is, Zuck needs to drink less of his own kool-aid and start caring about people other than himself. I admire his commitment, but it's a shame that he doesn't recognize, or isn't thankful for, the large amount of luck that play…

At least Jobs' company was very profitable in the early days. Brush up on your Apple history. Jobs was fired because he was running his company into a financial mire thanks to his over-the-top idealism. I don't envy Facebook employees. There is more to life than working for the arrogant. They chose where to work. Just like Apple employees chose. If you're not the sort of person who works well under a very brilliant,…

Zuckerberg is neither very briliant nor very arrogant, just plain arrogant and lucky.
Post reply on HN