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Dear Mark Zuckerberg

daltoncaldwell.com

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Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#171

Post by nl »

gruseom wrote: post #150
16s wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps it would be helpful to unpack this. "You" did not refer to a generation, but to a person, so the language was personally insulting. The bar for personal insult is much higher and this comment doesn't pass it. First, the OP did nothing to deserve it, so it was out of place. Second, delete the insulting language and the comment not only doesn't lose information, its point (defending Facebook) becomes clearer. T…

I think writing a rude[1] letter to a public figure and posting it on your blog does change the rules somewhat.

I do think that the author's post came off as somewhat precious. Saying Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake? was less polite than perhaps is ideal, but OTOH the author's post was also less-than-polite.

[1] "I didn’t want to believe your company would stoop this low. My mistake.", "rotten-to-the-core “platforms” like Facebook", etc

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#172

Post by temphn »

tjic wrote: post #3

I don't understand what you think Facebook did wrong. They intend to enter this new space, using their technology and their people. As a courtesy they offered to hire you / throw a lot of money at you. What would you have had them do instead? Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake? Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna, giving you your own team and allowing you to take your own technical di…

I don't get it either. Last week this guy wanted to make some sort of paid Open Twitter competitor. This week he's mad at Facebook for offering to acquire his company rather than simply build a first party feature!

No good deed goes unpunished. Moreover, it's just not smart to publicly pick a fight with Facebook after they offered to acquire you. If you're the guys on the other side of the table, you might well brand this guy "unreasonable" and reckon that Kevin Systrom beat him once (score of $1B to $0), and Kevin is now playing for Facebook.

Seriously, this was not a good move on Dalton's part. As for this ("perhaps the public markets...will give you the time and goodwill to fix the obvious structural flaws"), he must be joking. Facebook has helicopter problems. Their dilemma is whether they are worth 20 billion dollars or 100 billion dollars. For Dalton to lecture Zuck in this tone, when Zuck has lapped him like 1 billion times over, and after they extended him a hand in good faith...just not smart.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#173

Post by chollida1 »

I'm having trouble seeing why Dalton seems so put out by this

If you try to look at this from facebook's perspective the most likely out come looks something like:

> Ok, we've decided to go this app route. Wow app.net is really going to be steam rolled by this. We already have a relation ship with them, what can we do to help them out?

> Well I guess we can offer to aquire them, they probably have some expertise we can use and it will generate a lot of good will for us from our own developer community. Yes, this seems like a win win.

> Well this is a pretty delicate conversation so bringing it up over the phone is pretty bushleague. Let's do teh right thing and tell him face to face. I see we've already got them scheduled for a meeting in a couple of weeks.

> This seems to be working out perfectly for both of us. How much do you think we'll need to offer them to acquire their company?

I'm really having trouble seeing how people don't see this as the most likely way things happened.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#174

Post by mikeleeorg »

I know it's been pointed out endlessly elsewhere, but it seems necessary to highlight this excerpt of the OP's post:

As someone that wants to build quality social software, software that doesn’t force users to re-create their friends list, or not use oAuth, etc., I have to endure huge platform risk.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#175

Post by mbell »

16s wrote: post #103
unreal37 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> He was likely trying to describe the self-entitlement of the younger generation. Which I totally agree with.

This argument has been made for likely as long as the human race has existed and is completely worthless. May as well say you walked up hill both ways through snow on your way to school every day.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#176

Post by DenisM »

Dalton, thanks for having warned the rest of us. The opinions may differ on whether this sort of bait and switch is a legitimate tactic, but I think we can all agree we're better off knowing about this sort of things than not. Good luck with your business.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#177

Post by larrys »

_delirium wrote: post #136
larrys wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is equating "“platform developer relations” " with "ombudsmen" apparently. Unfortunately this is a business. Not a university, non-profit or a government entity.

It's not that uncommon for for-profit businesses to have someone in an ombudsman role, responsible for advocating on behalf of the (official) customer. It's most widespread in news companies, where most newspapers, news magazines, and TV stations have a role specifically designated to be the readers'/viewers' advocate. Of course, it's ultimately self-interested, but it's the kind of self-interest that involves convin…

"It's not that uncommon for for-profit businesses to have someone in an ombudsman role"

I definitely understand your point but I don't think it is correct to use the phrase "not that uncommon" with respect to "for-profit businesses" without defining what types of businesses you are referring to.

The overwhelming majority (anecdotal of course) of for-profit businesses do not have anything like an ombudsmen. I would agree that with respect to newspapers that statement would be correct from what I've seen and probably universities.

I wouldn't want to speculate on the percentages here, but if we believe the numbers as far as the amount of businesses of all sizes that are out there, I think it's safe to say that the majority don't have an ombudsmen. So I would say it is uncommon.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#178

Post by klawed »

csallen wrote: post #147
fatbird wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an ambush that was designed to give FB an advantage in negotiating with him. It was hardball tactics, carried out in bad faith. Why should Dalton feel neutral about being on the receiving end of that?

I don't understand how they gained an advantage through that meeting. It seems that, meeting or not, they already had the advantage by controlling the platform.

Dalton sums up his issue with FB's tactics pretty succinctly right here:

Your team doesn’t seem to understand that being “good negotiators” vs implying that you will destroy someone’s business built on your “open platform” are not the same thing.

He then goes on to call out the root-cause of the problem as FB's understandable but unfortunate focus on ad-revenue. This puts them at odds with the developers who use the platform and that's clearly not a good dynamic. Both MS and Apple have long understood that getting developers and keeping them happy was essential to keep a platform fertile.

EDIT:fixing typo/poor construction in last sentence.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#179

Post by dedward »

grecy wrote: post #137
ryguytilidie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely stunning to me how badly people miss the point on here. You really wouldn't be annoyed if I scheduled a meeting with you, decided to make the meeting about something else and then basically acted like I was being a good guy when it was clear I was trying to milk as much as possible out of the deal in a meeting I lied about the purpose of while I was wasting your time? Would you then want some angry a…

> You really wouldn't be annoyed..... You're absolutely right, I would. The OP has a point. But let's be honest here, we're talking about a multi billion dollar company with thousands of employees, now traded on the stock market, so presumably aggressively trying to spin a profit. Expecting said company to be "nice" is naive at best.

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.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#180

Post by zobzu »

All I know is that I'd be irritated if someone started each paragraph with my first name, specially without knowing me personally. That's impolite, authoritative and just annoying.

My 2cts :P

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