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Facebook's Little Red Book

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Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#251

Post by evanelias »

deadbabe wrote: post #72

Anywhere to find an original copy of one of these?

Two copies have sold on ebay over the past month, with each listed at $1000 despite being later prints and having slight damage. That price seems absolutely bonkers to me.

The copy in the scan has a 2014 date, suggesting they were still giving the book to new hires in 2014 or maybe 2015. (I was hired in mid 2013 and my copy has a 2012 date.)

So based on company headcount those years and accounting for turnover, I would guess the total print run was at least 10,000... there are definitely copies of it around.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#252

Post by jjeaff »

wyclif wrote: post #181
pie420 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm sure there's lots of tech optimists in absolute numbers, but my personal experience in the bay area has been that a vast majority of my friends in tech and tech adjacent have become highly pessimistic of the current tech landscape, AI, VR, etc.

All you have to do to see this is to look at how some of the biggest tech CEOs and moguls like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Elon, Jeff Bezos, etc. treat giving their children screens to babysit them. Pretty sure most of them don't, because they know how bad that is.

or they don't because they have full time, live-in nannies to keep their children occupied.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#253

Post by gosub100 »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #242
gosub100 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US Gov's decisions are also keeping millions of people desperately poor. what's your point?

How is the US Government keeping people poor? There are so many programs that provide financial or medical assistance to low income households.

Giving corporate welfare,tax cuts, and bailouts to mega corps. While not equally helping small businesses, in fact quickly shutting them down when they fail to pay taxes or get permits. Regulatory capture and certain regulations too, preventing people from ever breaking out and owning their own business. It's technically possible but practically not. So they (many blue collar workers) get stuck as working poor.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#254

Post by ajkjk »

fragmede wrote: post #184
ajkjk wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us felt exactly the same way about it then that we do now. The only difference is that fewer people take that cringy utopianism seriously now.

Is that based on any sort of actual data or are you just going off the scientifically supported totally unbiased data collection method known as ~:/vibes/:~ ? I imagine the future looked pretty bleak during world war I, and then again during II, and maybe something else during the civil rights movement, or there was also the cold war. Cynics and optimists have existed since there was something to have feelings about.…

Of course it's vibes. How would you even get data on that? But just going through life, most of the people you meet now, or met then, are not silicon-valley idealists. Maybe they were if you lived in Silicon Valley? Living elsewhere, everyone I ever knew rolled their eyes at it, and maybe transparently parroted it for the money if their job required it.

But every once in a while you came across a person who seemed to genuinely believe the corporate kool-aid they were saying, usually working at Facebook or Microsoft. These people are horrifying: completely manipulated, willing to not only say but believe whatever it took to, basically keep earning their money. I have no doubt that if the winds in America turned towards some kind of communisty cult-of-personality thing they would be first in line: a true believer of anything that it's convenient to believe in.

(and I'm thinking of the USSR-type of cult here, the type described in Milan Kundera novels here. Trumpism is rather different.)

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#255

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

sprice wrote: post #164
chucknthem wrote: post #75

I remember this. Wish I'd kept my little piece of history. Written at a time when people were still optimistic and hopeful about tech.

A surprising number of people are optimistic and hopeful about technology while not experiencing an existential crisis about it. FWIW I’ve noticed with some confusion that over the past years HN has become more cynical and pessimistic towards tech.

This has always been the case, particularly for Facebook. Even when they acquired Instagram, the vast majority of the comments were negative (the top comment called it well though).

I do think that HN has gone from indie entrepreneur/ real startups to Big Tech and then back again over the time I've been hanging out here.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#256

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #84

There's a lot of altruistic sounding stuff about connection in there, but it's hard to believe it's sincere when their product is a space where paid accounts don't have to bother with consent.

This was a very, very different time and written by a company that no longer exists.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#257

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

ninth_ant wrote: post #187
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most crucial damage had already happened — people gave up on trust that Facebook could handle their data responsibly, and trust that they’d have a good experience on the site. I think it was also that people were beginning to see the consequences of “over sharing” with people you’d never normally share things with. The vision of connecting everybody sounds great but not everybody needs, wants or even should hea…

You’re right about how this decline happened. But encouraging people to share to the widest audience was another aspect where short-term growth of metrics was prioritized over long-term health of the platform. There was a possible future where FB leadership didn’t get worried about/envious of Twitter and push so hard on public sharing. But that type of call was solidly on Zuck and not Sandberg.

To be fair to Sheryl Sandberg, she kept telling them that posting to everyone was a terrible idea but Zuckerberg and Cox didn't listen.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#258

Post by tim333 »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #246
incog_nit0 wrote: post #236

As a jaded 40+ year old developer this got me choked up. I remember that optimistic view we all had of technology in our youth. For me the optimism was a little earlier than 2012 so maybe it goes hand in hand with being young and less experienced (jaded?). I agree with some of the other commenters that a corporate structure makes altruistic goals like these impossible. Only Wikipedia and The Internet Archive for me c…

>Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit. ....a...Government?

Or B corp? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification)

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#259

Post by allthing »

incog_nit0 wrote: post #236

As a jaded 40+ year old developer this got me choked up. I remember that optimistic view we all had of technology in our youth. For me the optimism was a little earlier than 2012 so maybe it goes hand in hand with being young and less experienced (jaded?). I agree with some of the other commenters that a corporate structure makes altruistic goals like these impossible. Only Wikipedia and The Internet Archive for me c…

A public benefit corporation is sort of something in between

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#260

Post by fargle »

yuliyp wrote: post #177
fargle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

particularly the bit where they are painting over the old Sun Microsystems sign. a solid engineering company that actually build good stuff, destroyed in collateral damage from the dot-com bust, sold off to oracle of all things. now further being humiliated by this narcissistic, exploitative, personality-disorder-masquerading-as-a-service company?

Huh? That's a weird take. What should they have done? Left the entrance to their headquarters with a Sun Microsystems logo rather than their own? The Sun Microsystems sign continues to be there at the end of Willow Road, just facing toward the campus vs toward the street. This is doing more to honor Sun than any other realistic choice they could have made.

i didn't say there was anything that FB should have done different. it's just sad.

it's sad to see a genuinely good company gone and replaced by a slimy one. actually if you include oracle, two slimy ones. who are both inarguably far more successful.

it's sad because it's a statement about what our current economy values and what it does not. and to any of you who have the word "engineer" or "scientist" in your job title: it's definitely not those things.

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