Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#21

Post by Periodic » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:50 PM UTC

ujjwalg wrote: post #15

In short: If you are successful, you are remarkable!!! and I agree with vaksel completely: it sounds like a slave driven environment.

Slave labor can accomplish some amazing things. Almost every ancient wonder was created by slaves, and they stand out as colossal (pun intended) compared to other structures of the time.

Some people are slaves by force, others by addiction, others by ambition. Some people thrive under that sort of pressure, others break down. I'm not sure where I'd stand.

Also, there does tend to be a huge survivor bias in talking about startups. I suppose it's much easier to talk about the few successes than the many many failures.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#22

Post by unalone » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:50 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #14

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you misunderstood something; I wouldn't judge someone to be a prick based upon a such a brief nonverbal exchange.

I agree. But that was really dismissive. The only other billionaire I have met, was a lot nicer in public, even to people that he didn't know. But he also is alot older though.

Mark has a reputation for superb arrogance. Have you read the leaked emails he sent to the ConnectU people? They basically read, "It doesn't matter what you wanted, I have a better idea than you, and I won't waste my time trying to make you feel good about yourself."

I actually recently interviewed a bestselling author in the middle of promoting his new movie, and he acted the same way. Perhaps I'm in the minority of people who really enjoy people like that. It takes courage to call somebody out on their shit, and when you do it makes life more pleasant for everybody else involved.

However, as was said above: How do you know he wasn't rolling his eyes at what somebody said, and just happened to be looking around at the same time?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#23

Post by unalone » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:52 PM UTC

ujjwalg wrote: post #15

In short: If you are successful, you are remarkable!!! and I agree with vaksel completely: it sounds like a slave driven environment.

Did you read the article? It mentions how many different things he's tried and how much he's been criticized for his many failings.

He's remarkable because he was willing to change his company and himself again and again till it worked.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#24

Post by n-named » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:52 PM UTC

"""Zuckerberg insisted the goal was easily attainable. He took regular breaks throughout the day to do 10-15 pushups, even if he was in the middle of a meeting with visitors. He completed the 5,000."""

5000 push-ups, one week = 715/day assuming 7 day week. That means 48 breaks per day of 15 push-ups. So assuming 12 hour days, 4 breaks per hour.

So every 15 minutes he did 15 push-ups for a week?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#25

Post by ivankirigin » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:54 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #9

csallen wrote: post #3

After all the negative press constantly surrounding Zuckerberg, it's refreshing to hear something positive for once. And, as always, it's inspiring to see evidence that tech founders can potentially be great CEOs. I think the real value of this article is the info on Facebook's internal policies, though. Ranking people based on relative performance? Relentlessly replacing lack-luster employees? A focus on providing i…

sounds like a slave driver environment, if you ask me. It can't be good for morale, having people rotate through the company every month.

it is nothing like a "slave driver" environment. People are extremely smart and focused on building cool things fast - top to bottom.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#26

Post by ardit33 » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 7:56 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #20

vaksel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like a slave driver environment, if you ask me. It can't be good for morale, having people rotate through the company every month.

It depends on whose morale. I would love to work at a place that made an effort to place only brilliant people around me and that didn't tolerate less. Netflix works in the same way.

I agree. But if the guy next to you, working the same stuff as you, is paper worth 5mill more just b.c he started there 6 months earlier than you, then the equation changes.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#27

Post by oakmac » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 8:01 PM UTC

n-named wrote: post #24

"""Zuckerberg insisted the goal was easily attainable. He took regular breaks throughout the day to do 10-15 pushups, even if he was in the middle of a meeting with visitors. He completed the 5,000.""" 5000 push-ups, one week = 715/day assuming 7 day week. That means 48 breaks per day of 15 push-ups. So assuming 12 hour days, 4 breaks per hour. So every 15 minutes he did 15 push-ups for a week?

This goal is definitely attainable; it depends on your fitness level.

I would have no problem doing 100 pushups every hour 8 times a day.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#28

Post by vaksel » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 8:05 PM UTC

ivankirigin wrote: post #25

vaksel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like a slave driver environment, if you ask me. It can't be good for morale, having people rotate through the company every month.

it is nothing like a "slave driver" environment. People are extremely smart and focused on building cool things fast - top to bottom.

oh please, it's facebook, not Google, their "cool" projects involve translating the site into pirate and latin languages.

+ with ~1000 employees, chances are you as a programmer are most likely doing mundane crap. The "extremely smart and focused" people don't take well to having to do bullshit projects.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#29

Post by leftnode » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 8:06 PM UTC

mlLK wrote: post #17

Are there any Facebook employees/ex-employees here on HN? I've often wondered how many PHP developers they have on staff and how they manage deploying/integrating stuff in PHP for production.

I do not work for Facebook, nor have I ever, but they do have some pretty neat things PHP-wise on their open source section of the site.

http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php

Particularly, Thrift is what they use to use PHP on the front end of the site to communicate to servers running C++ and Erlang environments. At least, thats what I've heard.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

#30

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 8:12 PM UTC

oakmac wrote: post #27

n-named wrote: post #24

"""Zuckerberg insisted the goal was easily attainable. He took regular breaks throughout the day to do 10-15 pushups, even if he was in the middle of a meeting with visitors. He completed the 5,000.""" 5000 push-ups, one week = 715/day assuming 7 day week. That means 48 breaks per day of 15 push-ups. So assuming 12 hour days, 4 breaks per hour. So every 15 minutes he did 15 push-ups for a week?

This goal is definitely attainable; it depends on your fitness level. I would have no problem doing 100 pushups every hour 8 times a day.

[deleted]