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Instagram’s CEO

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Re: Instagram’s CEO

#91

Post by kevincrane »

dionidium wrote: post #57
kbenson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about this. How much inventive is that? When the person thinks "if I work really hard and this, I'll increase my huge pool of money from an amount I can't easily spend given the rest of my life to an amount almost six times as much!", does that really resonate? It's not like it's the same as $700 to $4,000, or even from $7,000,000 to $40,000,000. There are things you can buy to spend most of thos…

> but those are things it's not really worth buying multiple of (e.g. houses, super yachts) Don't think consumer goods. Think: * own and run a professional sports team * spearhead a transit project in your hometown * build 100 libraries with your name on them * influence politics for a generation * fund the cure for the rare disease that killed your mother If all you can think to do with a few billion extra dollars i…

> spearhead a transit project in your hometown

> build 100 libraries with your name on them

> fund the cure for the rare disease that killed your mother

Tax them at 90% and the government can and should do that all for them.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#92

Post by eitally »

storgendibal wrote: post #59
eldavido wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

Ben also said in today's update that the "relative importance decreases over time as things like network effects and business models come to bear". This is another way of putting Marc Andreesen and Steven Sinofski's point that if you have product / market fit, then you can do almost everything wrong and it won't matter. I think Ben gets that the tech and product are the only thing that matters pre-PMF, but post-PMF,…

I think I'd simplify even further, and say this this way:

If you assume a startup has the technology, as it's nothing without it, then by definition the differentiated recognition of business potential will be achieved through business performance, not technology.

IOW, you've got nothing without the tech, but you don't have a successful business if all you have is the tech.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#93

Post by ktta »

hbosch wrote: post #83
kbenson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about this. How much inventive is that? When the person thinks "if I work really hard and this, I'll increase my huge pool of money from an amount I can't easily spend given the rest of my life to an amount almost six times as much!", does that really resonate? It's not like it's the same as $700 to $4,000, or even from $7,000,000 to $40,000,000. There are things you can buy to spend most of thos…

> what does another billion buy you, besides bragging rights? The only real way to look at wealth is through the lens of power and influence. In day-to-day life, is $250 million that much different than $1 billion? Probably not. But when it comes to power and influence, $1 billion (or more) is an incredibly better place to be. Once you get into this kind of wealth, you can attack global problems. The Bill & Melinda G…

> We will see in the next few decades what the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative can do for education, or what the Bezos Day One Fund can do for homelessness and poverty.

Note that while I don't doubt that Zuckerberg will give away a big part of his wealth, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative is an LLC and not a 501(c)(3) like a 'proper' foundation should be.

Another thing to note is that it has been investing in startups, and not really giving away money, although the startups themselves seem to be for good purposes. So it might be a way for that money to make more, while putting it in noble causes?

Or it just was made that way because he would still retain control over the shares even though he 'gave' it to the initiative.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#94

Post by vmarsy »

mooreds wrote: post #17

This is a sobering look at what it takes to build a business vs a product (vs, even smaller scale, a feature). You have to be willing to put in the long hours (err, years) and the schlepping to do all the business-y stuff: * distribution * monetization * back end systems for admin users * sales channels etc, etc Or, you can cash out and assimilate, err integrate, with a larger company that has done that hard work and…

Is there any good book/resources covering some of or all the 'business-y stuff' that people recommend?

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#95

Post by 1290cc »

They traded their company for hundreds of millions of dollars. Good on them for turning a product into something that was so lucrative for FB and a real enjoyment for so many people the world over. I think it can't be understated how Instagram has become a pillar of so many brands and online businesses today.

But in reality their departure is really part of the business of software, the founders sell out, become exceedingly wealthy. After a few years the disillusionment with being part of a corporate machine (and not in control) sets in and they quit to spend time on their burning man floats. Its always been this way and theres nothing wrong with that.

I think many of us would do exactly the same given the option of struggling for a decade to profitability or a $10m+ exit with a comfortable VP level role.

I find it interesting that Instagram would want to include more adverts, as I find myself drawn to brands/interests without the help of annoying ads.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#96

Post by abakker »

character0 wrote: post #56
abakker wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

information dissemination with the internet is drastically better than when MacOS lost to Windows, or when Betamax lost to VHS. Nowhere is this more apparent than in cars, where manufacturers are held accountable by numbers, reviews, and even interior design decisions that might have been ignored 20 years ago when a magazine wouldn't spend the pages to complain in detail about why you shouldn't have highly reflective…

I generally agree with this, but it really depends on the consumer not being lazy. We all have the friend that scours the forums, but 10x more friends that just buy the highest rated item on Amazon.

Even the ratings on Amazon are more than a single article/ad in reader's digest, or just hearing about it from a friend.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#97

Post by [deleted] »

subdane wrote: post #76
eldavido wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

Also a daily subscriber to Stratechery. Ben (Zuck?) under-indexes on the feeling of good will associated with a good product experience. But I agree that we over-index on it here on HN. IG won on speed, usability and UX over early competitors like Hipstamiatic and Flickr. But for sure the network was the addictive glue that brought users back, new users in and made the entire product grow. FB feels like the opposite…

[deleted]

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#98

Post by krebby »

subdane wrote: post #76
eldavido wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

Also a daily subscriber to Stratechery. Ben (Zuck?) under-indexes on the feeling of good will associated with a good product experience. But I agree that we over-index on it here on HN. IG won on speed, usability and UX over early competitors like Hipstamiatic and Flickr. But for sure the network was the addictive glue that brought users back, new users in and made the entire product grow. FB feels like the opposite…

It's funny you call out FB for having a bloated product. Early in its history Facebook was the restrained option vs Myspace, Friendster, etc. The fact that you couldn't add custom CSS, sparkly unicorn gifs, and auto playing music was a major differentiator from the other personal homepage / social networks of the early 2000s. In a similar way, Instagram was very restrained compared to the other photo apps of the time. No albums, no video, no stickers.

I think this is a classic case of the Innovator's Dilemma: you start by making something worse than existing products on the market but that completely address the features your customers care about most. Eventually your customers demand more features and you have to turn a profit, so the product gets bloated and the p90 experience suffers.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#99

Post by konschubert »

JacobDotVI wrote: post #55
kbenson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about this. How much inventive is that? When the person thinks "if I work really hard and this, I'll increase my huge pool of money from an amount I can't easily spend given the rest of my life to an amount almost six times as much!", does that really resonate? It's not like it's the same as $700 to $4,000, or even from $7,000,000 to $40,000,000. There are things you can buy to spend most of thos…

I'm not sure about the psychology of incentives angle, but this old post from reddit shows the monumental difference in wealth between $700M and $4B: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...

The sibling comment cites from this post.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#100

Post by dzonga »

cpeterso wrote: post #87
subdane wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a daily subscriber to Stratechery. Ben (Zuck?) under-indexes on the feeling of good will associated with a good product experience. But I agree that we over-index on it here on HN. IG won on speed, usability and UX over early competitors like Hipstamiatic and Flickr. But for sure the network was the addictive glue that brought users back, new users in and made the entire product grow. FB feels like the opposite…

An example of how little UX can matter: Facebook ran an experiment where they intentionally crashed their Android app to discover the threshold at which users would give up and go away. But someone familiar with the experiment said: “The company wasn’t able to reach the threshold. People never stopped coming back”. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/05/facebook-...

That's when you know you're peddling a powerful drug, eh product I mean. & simply right there that's Facebook's moat. I don't use FB, but gotta give to them anywhere I peek at someone's smartphone in public spaces, they're using a FB product e.g FB, Whatsapp or Instagram. Hell, right now FB pays my rent, cause of the tools I make at work that integrate with FB
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