I'm not real because my facebook profile is private • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm not real because my facebook profile is private

#31

Post by maxklein » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 12:20 AM UTC

camworld wrote: post #14

Just because he's figured out how to spam Hacker News with his navel-gazing, amateurish blog posts does not mean you should listen to him. If he's too chicken to post under his real name and stand by what he has to say, then he's not someone I'm going to listen to. His posts are very trollish in nature. Stop giving him the attention he so craves and the traffic that is fueling his profits. Update: Looks like "Max Kle…

Don't be hasty to criticize people - it may feel good in the short term, but over the long term it always turns out bad. And upvotes and downvotes really don't matter, you know.

Re: I'm not real because my facebook profile is private

#32

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 9:03 AM UTC

jallmann wrote: post #22

blackwoodHolt2 wrote: post #16

(I tossed my login details but i'm the same guy who posted this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353050 ) The best lie is a half truth. "Max" the reason people read your articles is because you've said you make $40K a month from niche iphone apps. Mark (lets drop the pretense) you sound like you have read Positioning by Ries, A. and Trout,J ( http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/044... ). Your…

> That's only half the story though isn't it? The reality is your $40K a month is made from these apps ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/feather-moor-ltd/id3053457... ) 1 star apps with content ripped from sites like ehow.com. So what? HN also rabidly follows a guy that sells bingo cards. It's not about what you do, what's interesting is how you do it, and the story you tell doing that. Project management and bug t…

The guy that sells bingo apps is genuine and probably the #2 contributor to the site (the #1 being grellas) when it comes to start-up advice that actually works.

Re: I'm not real because my facebook profile is private

#33

Post by olefoo » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 1:38 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #29

olefoo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is an aspiring journalist in the audience, now would be a good time to track down Mr. Essien and the various other players involved, interview them and put together a definitive account of as much as is known. It would make a decent cover article for Fast Company, or do it as a blog with raw information dumps and crowdsourcing the factchecking.

You'd be rather disappointed, I think. I'm not secretly Michael Arrington. And any aspiring journalist should feel free to come question me - the details of how long it takes me to walk to work or how my back-ache is doing would make for an interesting story for me, but I'm not sure many will care otherwise. It's all rather undramatic, I'm afraid.

Undramatic? But, the knife fights, the tense meetings with corrupt Chinese officials who could have you thrown in jail, the forty thousand a month, the 5-star hotels; all of that, undramatic?

The problem is that you are now an unreliable narrator; you may not even be the protagonist in your own story any more. Who is Max Klein? A cipher, a nobody, an anonymous entrepreneur sharing his tales from behind a veil of mild obfuscation? Or is he a device in a larger scheme? Perhaps he is an advertisement for a correspondence school? A scheme to defraud a Saudi prince? A character escaped from a novel, whom the author is desperately trying to contain? Who knows?

Re: I'm not real because my facebook profile is private

#34

Post by maxklein » Fri, Aug 20, 2010, 1:38 AM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #33

maxklein wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be rather disappointed, I think. I'm not secretly Michael Arrington. And any aspiring journalist should feel free to come question me - the details of how long it takes me to walk to work or how my back-ache is doing would make for an interesting story for me, but I'm not sure many will care otherwise. It's all rather undramatic, I'm afraid.

Undramatic? But, the knife fights, the tense meetings with corrupt Chinese officials who could have you thrown in jail, the forty thousand a month, the 5-star hotels; all of that, undramatic? The problem is that you are now an unreliable narrator; you may not even be the protagonist in your own story any more. Who is Max Klein? A cipher, a nobody, an anonymous entrepreneur sharing his tales from behind a veil of mild…

Drama comes from the choice of words - every narrative can be told in an exciting way. Everybody has had similarly dramatic experiences, but they are not writing about them. My dramatic experiences, which are less than 10 articles, are spread out over 7 years. I'm sure anyone can find interesting things he has done in the last 7 years.

I'm 29 years old. At 21 you may not have seen a lot, but at 29, you have enough independent years to have gone through a few adventures.

And I've gone through a LOT more than the few I have written in my blog, those are just the ones that made sense for that blog.

Re: I'm not real because my facebook profile is private

#35

Post by Mz » Fri, Aug 20, 2010, 2:21 AM UTC

I've seen this type thing before on the 'net and, to a lesser degree, been on the receiving end of it. Wondering if people would be willing to toss out their two cents worth concerning what signals "authenticity" to them and what signals "fake" to them in the online world (preferably without further trashing the individual in question, which is not a conversation I really want any part of). I can think of legitimate reasons for doing things like not posting photos on the 'net (and have, in fact, taken photos of me off the 'net to stop the influx of unwelcome, highly personal e-mails).

Any takers?

Thanks in advance.