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Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

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Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#151

Post by beambot »

jomamaxx wrote: post #131
eatkinson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I find that the major objection is that people think great science is done by luck. It's all a matter of luck. Well, consider Einstein. Note how many different things he did that were good. Was it all luck? Wasn't it a little too repetitive? Consider Shannon. He didn't do just information theory. Several years before, he did some other good things and some which are still locked up in the security of cryptography. H…

There was a lot of luck in Facebook, even if Zuck is a particularly talented individual. Also - if Harvard is a great school - how the F does someone find time to do the work and make a product at the same time? When I did Engineering, I didn't have time to take a shower.

Pareto principle applied to homework, study, and grades.

I spent way too much time worrying about grades. I'm not sure it mattered. It would have been just as good (and probably more enjoyable) to be a B-student with awesome side projects rather than an A-student with none.

(And often, esp. for college, one doesn't even need to make that trade-off when homework is largely immaterial, and your grade only depends on exams.)

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#152

Post by zump »

tribune wrote: post #141
readhn wrote: post #139

Why is M. Zuckerberg qualified to tell us how or to build us our future? Because he built brain dead website where people waste their precious time and lives? Building facebook - glorified yellowpages - is somehow a sign of high knowledge or achievement these days?

Building a $350B tech company from nothing in 12 years might be a sign of "high knowledge or achievement"...

Because stock price == value.

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#153

Post by dkarapetyan »

melling wrote: post #44
nostromo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making gobs of money and making the future are orthogonal though. Exxon makes tons of money but is likely irrelevant to the future.

"It's what you do after you build a great business that matters"

Why's that? Why not just skip the business step entirely? There is some kind of fallacy in your argument.

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#154

Post by jomamaxx »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #136
jomamaxx wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot of luck in Facebook, even if Zuck is a particularly talented individual. Also - if Harvard is a great school - how the F does someone find time to do the work and make a product at the same time? When I did Engineering, I didn't have time to take a shower.

I agree. Think if Friendster & Myspace were on top of things, they would have bested Facebook. What made them suscpetible for disruption?

Friendster was a clumsy product.

MySpace was limited in features, and a fugly interface.

Neither had talented people.

Zuck started at Harvard. That was his core user base. The Ivy League. Basically marquis 'customers' in social.

Think of how massively that affected recruiting and attention? The network effect of Ivy League x 1000. It would have been trivial for him to get investment.

But in the end - forget culture - the basic features were just better, and for every great feature, there are 'smart things' happening internally that are good. Zuck deserves credit for that.

I used to work a little bit with MySpace. Their culture was 'LA Cool Kid' i.e. 'The Standard' hang-out types.

They reminded me of a Record Label - totally hip - totally useless. I feel sorry for any Engineer that had to work at MySpace.

If you knew the culture at Lycos, Excite etc. - and compare it to Google, it's a little bit of a similar story.

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#155

Post by dntrkv »

jomamaxx wrote: post #131
eatkinson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I find that the major objection is that people think great science is done by luck. It's all a matter of luck. Well, consider Einstein. Note how many different things he did that were good. Was it all luck? Wasn't it a little too repetitive? Consider Shannon. He didn't do just information theory. Several years before, he did some other good things and some which are still locked up in the security of cryptography. H…

There was a lot of luck in Facebook, even if Zuck is a particularly talented individual. Also - if Harvard is a great school - how the F does someone find time to do the work and make a product at the same time? When I did Engineering, I didn't have time to take a shower.

You can say that about any successful person/company.

Sure, luck may have played a large role in Facebook's initial success. But that was over 10 years ago. Many companies experience that initial success and then go nowhere, e.g. MySpace. Facebook, on the other hand, has continuously surpassed everyone's expectations. It's not until recently that people have began to accept that Facebook is here to stay. Discounting Facebook's repeated successes as luck is just silly.

Building a $350B company does not happen from luck, it requires a constant stream of good decision making.

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#156

Post by elmar »

bozoUser wrote: post #137

Two things that need to be highlighted: I came looking for a video that would talk about building the future and I am surprised Sam & Mark spent lot of time talking about FB origins and other things related to FB and talk future only for the last few minutes. Its almost palpable the cold nature of the interview, they don`t shake hands nor greet each other as someone else noted the conversation seems very detached to…

Why shades of Asperger’s Syndrome are the secret to building a great tech company

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/04/0...

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#157

Post by gavinpc »

Karunamon wrote: post #126
jseliger wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the flack that Zuck is getting in this thread It's pretty safe to ignore most of the flack in this thread. Most people vote with their feet (or wallets, or eyeballs, or attention), and they've voted that they love Facebook, regardless of what a minority of people in this thread say or upvote. Nerds have a cantankerous side and are as prone to virtue signalling as any other group. Those of us who read Slashdot…

There's a difference between loving Facebook, and begrudgingly using it because that's where my friends/family are. Facebook sucks, not just because of confusing UI, or because of silent changes to privacy settings, or because it's one stop shopping for scary three-letter-agencies, but because the network effect is so damned strong, it will take a monumental misstep for it to become the next Myspace.

> There's a difference between loving Facebook, and begrudgingly using it because that's where my friends/family are.

Not to Facebook.

Re: Sam Altman talks with Mark Zuckerberg about how to build the future [video]

#159

Post by gavinpc »

Animats wrote: post #82
aresant wrote: post #27

The TL;DR of how Zuck wants to build FB's future w/his quotes: 1) "Connectivity, so getting everyone in the world on the Internet." 2) "The next one is AI. I think that that's just going to unlock so much potential in so many different domains." 3) "[The next computing platform] - I think that's going to be virtual reality and augmented reality." For all the flack that Zuck is getting in this thread he lays out a pre…

"[The next computing platform] - I think that's going to be virtual reality and augmented reality." You have to listen to Zuckerberg on this, because he's good at understanding what people will put up with. I never expected that a sizable portion of the population would walk around looking at smartphones, totally losing situational awareness. Even when not playing Pokemon Go. But that became socially acceptable. The…

I agree that's a must watch, but how is it not just HoloLens + 10 years + Ridley Scott (edit plus get me out of here)? It's a bit unfair to compare an artist's vision to a functioning (and almost shipping) device.
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