Mark Zuckerberg, In It To Change the World?

schmidt349 submitted a story about Zuckerberg that might fly in the face of what you've heard of the guy in the past. "Award-winning New York Times journalist David Kirkpatrick's new book The Facebook Effect presents readers with a complex view of Facebook's founder and CEO. Primed by hours of conversation and research deep into the history of the social network, Kirkpatrick reaches the conclusion that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg, 'a coder more than a CEO, a philosopher more than a businessman, a 26-year-old who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world.' Kirkpatrick deftly handles the controversy surrounding Facebook's sometimes cavalier attitude toward user privacy, and the result is a much more balanced and less sensationalist account of Facebook's past, present, and future."

Comments

Well Obviously.

[Adambomb]

This is true of course. He wants to change the world from one in which he has less money into one in which he has more money.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what exactly is wrong with that?

It seems Facebook's privacy policies should be judged independently from whether he is "selling out."

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

am i the only person that hasn't signed up for facebook?

the actual application is trivial save for the scaling to millions of users... i just built a custom framework on my own web server... one for each circle of friends or family. it works just as good and won't reject your video if it detects copyrighted music playing in the background as forced by the RIAA.

independent is the only way to go.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Kenoli]

It won't be popular unless braindead retards can use it unassisted, and social networking is all about the popularity contest.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Locke2005]

Funny, I thought he was only in it for the hookers and blow. Money won't buy you love, but it'll sure get you a lot of smokin' hot chicks!

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

So everyone you know has to update their facebook page, THEN go to 123.58.89.09/michaelssocialnetwork and re-enter their updates just to placate you. Sounds fun for them.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

am i the only person that hasn't signed up for facebook?

No, but I wonder sometimes if communicating by email with people these days is perceived analogous to communicating by fax machine, or telegram. I *like* email dammit.

Re:Well Obviously.

[asukasoryu]

I'm with you. I hate Facebook. I hate talking to my family, I've disowned most of the friends I've ever had, and I certainly don't want to talk to anyone from high school, my childhood, or friends of people I've had minimal contact with. If I want to interact with someone, I do it without posting details about my life on the interwebs. How can you put something on the internet and complain about privacy? Independent is the way to be.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Monkeedude1212]

the actual application is trivial save for the scaling to millions of users...

Exactly.

Now, You can spout that your independant framework is the best way to go, and even if you manage to master the untrivial task of scaling to millions of users, when you get offered large sums of money for your product, lets see you not sell out.

I may not like what Zuckerberg is doing, but I can't honestly say I wouldn't do the same were I in his position. I think a small bit of the hate directed towards him is generated by the jealousy that his product is on top.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Slashdot, you'll fit right in.

Re:Well Obviously.

[jalefkowit]

the actual application is trivial save for the scaling to millions of users...

Which is a bit like saying that traveling to the Moon is trivial save for building a Saturn V rocket.

Re:Well Obviously.

[eln]

Getting the code to work right is not the tough part. Hell, making the code scalable to millions of users isn't even the tough part. Getting enough people to use your social network so that you reach the critical mass Facebook has is the tough part.

Re:Well Obviously.

[GrumblyStuff]

No, fuck off with your updates, your farmville, your "Jimmy likes this comment!", your photo-tagging, and updated ToS (now with more caveats!) and forcing default settings to the most open option.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't even got your OWN web site with your own domain name, then you're nobody and I don't give a fuck about you.

No, I will not join up with Facebook to placate some loser who can't do or create anything for themselves.

Re:Well Obviously.

[insertwackynamehere]

Your missing a crucial point: no one cares, buddy. Chances are you are creating a world in your head where people want you to join Facebook and you refuse whereas in reality, you probably have no reason to join Facebook because you push people away in real life with the same attitude you post with on Slashdot, anonymously.

Re:Well Obviously.

[insertwackynamehere]

That works for you. It doesn't work for a lot of people.

Re:Well Obviously.

[WrongSizeGlass]

No, I will not join up with Facebook to placate some loser who can't do or create anything for themselves.

This from someone who can't or won't even create a /. account? Hmmm ...

Re:Well Obviously.

[CohibaVancouver]

am i the only person that hasn't signed up for facebook?

I had resisted Facebook for years, but on "Quit Facebook Day" (last May 31st) I bit the bullet and signed up.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you mean a world in which he has all the money. If he sells out, that opportunity is lost.

Re:Well Obviously.

[assertation]

I wish I could mod your post up another point! LOL!

Re:Well Obviously.

[poetmatt]

well put. Of course, he plans to do that at all costs, including selling out to the highest bidder.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but isn't that the philosophy most of the world operates under? He just lucked into a bigger slice of the pie. And we're jealous. At least, I know I am.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

granted getting the code scalable to millions or billions of users isn't "tough", but it also isn't affordable for nearly anyone.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

i'm not talking about "social networking"... i'm talking about BEING social with ESTABLISHED networks.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Crudely_Indecent]

Perhaps he wants to change more than his financial position.

He probably does want to change the world, but that can only be done with obscene amounts of money.

His plan is to get everyone to give him their information so he can sell it and make the obscene amounts of money required to change the world.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

So everyone you know has to update their facebook page, THEN go to 123.58.89.09/michaelssocialnetwork and re-enter their updates just to placate you. Sounds fun for them.

actually it's kristopeit.com... their same last name, and i've allowed them to enter their facebook passwords and push "updates" to their facebook page if they choose...

Re:Well Obviously.

[aztektum]

That and the fact he is a colossal d-bag

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

I *like* email dammit.

and i like you.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

facebook is not analogous to any of the things you've listed... you really couldn't talk to your family without facebook?

get real. you're just too lazy to make something better or easier.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

scaling to millions of users is not non-trivial due to technical aspects... the server and database architecture are pretty simple. the non-trivial aspect is COST.

it is going to cost "large sums of money" to execute the infrastructure, and if you don't have it, selling out is the only option, and that is why you see it so often.

i, on the other hand, scale to only people i communicate and am often in direct physical contact with... i can serve as an interlink to the larger networks, but have no reason to be a member of them.

independent. it doesn't mean alone.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

well... NOW it is, save for COST OF MATERIALS. the designs are set.

buying an estes scale saturn v rocket, however, will cost less than your monthly ISP bill.

Re:Well Obviously.

[stealth_finger]

am i the only person that hasn't signed up for facebook?

Nope I haven't either. Maybe we should start a kind of online club or something?

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

same as using an oven doesn't work for a homeless person.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be envy not jealousy. Zuckerberg himself is jealous of Facebook. That's why he doesn't sell out! I don't think most people understand jealousy at all.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet, so how much are you selling facebook accounts for? I hear the going price is about $10 for accounts with 100+ "friends", 5$ for accounts with less "friends". Honestly, giving your password for one web site to another website to "store" is crazy.

Re:Well Obviously.

[GIL_Dude]

People who say "post something on the internet and then complain about privacy" are missing a key point: Access Controls. Facebook has them. Just like many web sites do. The problem is that Facebook has a habit of either removing or neutering certain controls and making available information that they shouldn't.

This is similar to having a HR web site at work where people can access their own records to update emergency contact, children, addresses, etc. This site probably has lots of info on you (national ID number, etc.). Now imagine the admin of the site made a change that neutered or removed the access control list so that everyone in the company could see each other's information. Well, you posted it on the intranet so it's your fault? Not really - it is the fault of that admin. In Facebook's case it is the fault of them changing their model and changing items that had an access control list to public.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

obviously you don't understand how the facebook connect API works...

but even if you didn't... if you WANT one website to interact with a different website on your behalf, granting access to the first website is the only way to do it.

so are you really saying that you think it's "crazy" for anyone to want to do that? who are you quoting when you say "store"?

Re:Well Obviously.

[dnahelicase]

This is true of course. He wants to change the world from one in which he has less money into one in which he has more money.

I have to disagree. I believe he's in in to change the world. We all would like to change the world. He's not concerned about money because he's young and already made more money than the normal person can spend in a lifetime.

After you've started one of the most popular things in the world, been banned by numerous oppressive regimes, annoyed everyone that can be annoyed by you, and moved your company to the country of your choice... what is left but saying you're in it for the good of the world?

I like to feel like the world needs me too...

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious?

Are you seriously saying that scaling a web app like Facebook to millions of users is even remotely near the difficulty of building a Saturn V rocket?

Geez. Slashdot is supposed to be "news for nerds," not "news for technical illiterates."

Scaling something like Facebook would present challenges, but to any experienced programmer such challenges would be absolutely trivial compared to your example.

Even if you're a non-programmer, use some common sense. Do you think web sites grow to a certain size then die because it becomes too theoretically/technically difficult to accommodate more users? This is laughable. Sure, sites can sometimes die due to persistent slowness, but such failures more due to 1) a stubborn refusal to address the problem or 2) a lack of revenue to pay for hardware/bandwidth.

Re:Well Obviously.

[maxwell demon]

am i the only person that hasn't signed up for facebook?

No.

Re:Well Obviously.

[david_thornley]

To rephrase your last phrase, social networking is all about the network effect. Facebook is useful to me because I've got friends and family on it, not because of (shudder) Mafia Wars. A social network without anybody I wanted to, um, socialize with would be useless to me.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

the actual application is trivial save for the scaling to millions of users... i just built a custom framework on my own web server... one for each circle of friends or family.

I was going to joke about how you were probably a riot at parties, but god knows you probably don't get invited. The whole point of social networks is that I can interact with Circle A and Circle B, and they can interact with me and their own circles and, perhaps over time, the circles can interact with each other. By saying "come to my website if you want to interact with me" you've essentially stuck yourself 10 years in the past.

Hell, you may as well just use email. At least that's a little more flexible.

Re:Well Obviously.

[ncohafmuta]

Just make it better than the other guy and the advertising will take care of the rest.
Everybody thought Myspace was the sh*t, and then Facebook came and did it better from a feature and usability standpoint, and that was all she wrote.
If somebody makes a better Craigslist, Craigslist would fall into the same hole as Myspace. I'm still surprised nobody has yet. That's oodles of money just waiting to be made.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am *almost* convinced that he wasn't being sarcastic... not even a little.

Re:Well Obviously.

[jeffmeden]

You are right, it's strikingly easy. Step 1: code everything in PHP with a lightweight database behind it. Step 2, get a hundred thousand servers (not an exaggeration) scattered all over the world to host it. Step 3, site back and watch the "perceived value" of your company continue to grow.

Then again, somehow Twitter has managed to have a far shakier time scaling up despite being responsible for a collection of 140 character strings and a few microscopic pictures... So apparently there is some luck/magic/skill involved along the way.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

and this is how your circles reach out to "others" that don't use facebook? enjoy your inability to get THOSE circles together. hypocrite.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Michael Kristopeit]

oh yeah... sarcasm means you can't be wrong. i forgot all about that new rule.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't claim it was "strikingly easy." I claimed it was technically trivial compared to building a Saturn V rocket.

Re:Well Obviously.

[severoon]

I can't help but notice--no one has mentioned diaspora yet, the open source distributed facebook replacement on the way.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Hortensia Patel]

Getting enough people to use your social network so that you reach the critical mass Facebook has is the tough part.

Or maybe just the luck part. I think a kind of weak anthropic principle applies when talking about network-effect successes. They succeeded as a matter of a posteriori necessity, because otherwise people wouldn't be sitting around talking about why they succeeded.

Re:Well Obviously.

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

I have a band signed up for it, but not a personal one. So I'm close to you.

Re:Well Obviously.

[victorhooi]

heya,

I still write damn letters sometimes, ok...lol....

There's something to be said for getting a handwritten letter in the mail, and opening it.

My handwriting does suck somewhat, though...haha.

Cheers,
Victor

Re:Well Obviously.

[rtb61]

Now that is the interesting challenge, who will win, the inherent douche bagginess of privacy invasive corporate executives and their marketdroid public relations armed with unlimited astroturf or the internet are actual public opinion currently based around legions of bloggers and public forums like /..

The great mass media public relations B$ (lies for profit) seems to have come to a grinding halt, along with the honesty of Bill Gates, the genius of Steve Ballmer, the magnanimity of Steve Jobs, the generosity of Bono, the sanity of Dick Cheney and, the reliability of Rupert Murdoch (amongst many others). No wonder the corporate hero types are trying to hide in the background more and more as the golden B$ era of the eighties, nineties early tens is well and truly over and net neutrality will ensure it never comes back.

I admit I signed up to Facebook, but it was a one time thing because I was interested in a particular political website and Facebook leveraged that to force registration (otherwise who could have been bothered). Disconnecting was a lot more complex than connecting and really annoying to go through the hassle seeing as I never really used it but I was forced to do it rather than come off as rude for unreturned friend requests. Really pissed me off when I had to do go through it twice because of an accidental log it from a link on another site and that was after a bunch of other failed attempts to free myself from that site.

Re:Well Obviously.

[protektor]

Call me back/let me know when they actually have code that you can look at and test and see if it is everything they are claiming it will be, and not something impossible for the average mother to set up and use. If you have to have someone else host the software/site for you and set it up then what is the point. It's no better than Facebook, because the admin could change anything at anytime and expose your info in ways you don't want them to.

Re:Well Obviously.

[jdgeorge]

Rephrase: ...change from a world where he's very rich into a world where he's insanely rich, and has instant access to all the personal info for every hottie on Facebook.

Re:Well Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprise surprise, he's not some arch, supervillain. :-/

Of course he's not, nobody is pure evil, but the road to hell is often paved with good intentions and a cavalier attitude to his "customers'" security is likely to result in a world that is worse - not for any real loss of privacy due to facebook, but due to loss of accepted standards of democratic freedom resulting from reactions to Facebook safety.

Brave new world indeed

[girlintraining]

...who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world

Yeah, if you overlook Facebook Ads, the massive support framework for extracting personal data and giving it to third parties under the guise of 'gaming', the Beacon program, and extending the API so any website can add things to your profile through IFRAMES if you don't delete your cookies/logout. No, Mr. Zuckerberg has a very clear vision of how he intends to change the world: He recognizes the incredible value of having personal information on the majority of people connected to the internet, and he wants to capitalize on that.

He intends to sell the information to the highest bidder, while keeping the market where these exchanges take place to himself. That's his brave new world.

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

He intends to sell the information to the highest bidder, while keeping the market where these exchanges take place to himself. That's his brave new world.

This * a million.

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooops!! Looks like you forgot to 'check' the coward box this time.

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

lol talk about selling out, but hell if it works...free money

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Arthur Grumbine]

Say goodbye to karma for that /. account spiffydudex. For your pleasure, Bill Hicks has a special message for your kind.

Re:Brave new world indeed

[spazdor]

Okay, fuck it the second time around. You're goin' down, buddy.

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

...who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world

Yeah, if you overlook Facebook Ads, the massive support framework for extracting personal data and giving it to third parties under the guise of 'gaming', the Beacon program, and extending the API so any website can add things to your profile through IFRAMES if you don't delete your cookies/logout. No, Mr. Zuckerberg has a very clear vision of how he intends to change the world: He recognizes the incredible value of having personal information on the majority of people connected to the internet, and he wants to capitalize on that.

He intends to sell the information to the highest bidder, while keeping the market where these exchanges take place to himself. That's his brave new world.

Ah Facebook, where a -1: Troll gets modded up to +5: Insightful.

Facebook Ads keeps the site up. Do you think that every web site should have no revenue or charge its users? People willingly sign up for games. They know what they're getting into, and the game companies make money from ads, anyway. Beacon's a decent idea that was missing explicit user confirmation (it's fine if amazon posts stuff I buy _that I choose to publish_, not if it posts everything). What's your problem with Connect? That other sites can grab data from Facebook if the user opts in to it (I'll concede the partial point in relation to Instant Personalization). Unless you opt in, the best a site can do is toss in an iframe that shows some information pulled from Facebook next to their own content.

Of course there's value in having personal information, but Facebook's model isn't to sell that information, but to use that information to be able to offer a highly targeted advertising model (similar to Google, except the data that Google gets is different in type from the data Facebook gets).

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Always gotta remember to check that 'post anonymously' box when submitting spam...

Re:Brave new world indeed

[Solandri]

At its heart, all Facebook is is a way for users to verify that another user is who they claim to be. If a dozen of my friends create websites and want me (but not the general public) to have access, I don't have to create a dozen logins and passwords. I only need to make one which gives me access to all their sites. Facebook just locks you into their web site to use this "feature".

Open Source Software could've done the same thing with public/private keys. In fact I'm still hopeful it will. My dozen friends could make websites anywhere, and by using public/private keys they could verify that it's really me visiting their site. But PGP keys never took off because the interface was clumsy and the immediate benefit (secure email) wasn't a big enough carrot. Facebook took off because it let people share photos and messages, which apparently was a big enough carrot.

I can't for the life of me understand why people would want to have a company run by a person of dubious character as Zuckerberg in control of such a crucial interface like a universal login for the Internet.

not motivated by money?

[z-j-y]

Dr. Evil isn't motivated by money either, and he wants to change the world too.

Re:not motivated by money?

[swordgeek]

How about Dr. Horrible? Same story--give me infinite power, and I'll make things better.

Re:not motivated by money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not forget Dr. Steel. All he wants to do is build a Utopian Playland for all his loyal toy soldiers.

Re:not motivated by money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Octagonecologyst- TRUMP!

Re:not motivated by money?

[oldhack]

The insolence. Dr. Evil has a principle. The evil principle. Zucker? The kid is merely a money-grubbing troll.

Re:not motivated by money?

[ristonj]

I thought he wanted one meeeeeeeeeeellion dollars? ::puts pinky to cheek::

Re:not motivated by money?

[Rogerborg]

How about Dr. Horrible? Same story--give me infinite power, and I'll make things better.

Infinite power as a poor second choice to Felicia Day. See also: food, oxygen.

Re:not motivated by money?

[maxwell demon]

Well, "Zuckerberg" is German for "mountain of sugar" - very sweet, but not really good for you. Just like facebook.

Re:not motivated by money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chaaaaaarrlieeee, Mark Zuckerberg's a candy mountain!

Re:not motivated by money?

[swordgeek]

Yeah, but the original plan was 'with infinite power comes Felicia Day.' Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well. Pity.

Change HIS world.

[mollog]

As parent points out, he's out to change HIS world. He might have more credibility if he hadn't stole the code, and wasn't compromising user's data, but, hey, he's got the stage so why not try a little spin on the truth.

Re:Change HIS world.

[bbbaldie]

VERY nice statement. I don't usually post huzzahs, but will in this case.

Re:Change HIS world.

[spazdor]

I'm definitely not arguing against this comment's moderation status. -1 troll it is, and -1 troll it should stay.

But it's also kinda insightful.

Re:Change HIS world.

[Macrat]

Actually it is SPAM. Too bad it can't be deleted.

Re:Change HIS world.

[spazdor]

That's what we're thinking about Zuckerberg.
oh no i've said too much

Re:Change HIS world.

[wealthychef]

He's got the kid gloves because in order to get access to the wealthy for an interview or book material from them, you have to kiss their ass.

Come on...

[Kensai7]

...a philosopher?!

Re:Come on...

[Shin-LaC]

I'm not surprised. If I had a million kabillion dollars, I'd hire my own scribe too.

Re:Come on...

[ajlitt]

"Oh, a bullshit artist!"

Re:Come on...

[moore.dustin]

I thought the same thing. Clearly this author has no idea what he is talking about.

Re:Come on...

[e2d2]

As your counsel I advise you to buy velum made from whale penis.

Re:Come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure! Philosophy answers all of the big questions, like "why am I sweating so much?"

What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Just when everyone is thinking "Zuckerberg, what an ass!" we get a book purporting that Zuckerberg is in fact a genius coder and philosopher. And here I thought his philosophy boiled down to "fucking idiots tell me things about themselves that I can sell." When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. It is definitely not time to suck Zuckerberg's cock.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

The next new set of 13 year olds will be looking for something different to their parents/older siblings
geocites-> myspace -> bebo -> facebook -> same again with a different logo and start up capital.

How these companies get valued is just flawed......

This book looks like just the latest PR spun masterbateography

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[girlintraining]

When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

They aren't sociopaths. That would be a medical condition beyond their control; They have a diminished sense of right and wrong. No, what they are is far worse: They deliberately ignore social values and mores for their own profit. And this shouldn't come as a surprise. Amongst the wealthy I have learned they have a common social trait that is decidedly uncommong amongst the working class: The ability to turn charm on and off at a whim. These are people who are nice to you, and mean to the waiter. They are not nice people, and it's something they're socialized to do.

See, the problem goes deeper than you think: A minority of this society trains its children to prey on one another. And those who work their way up from working class to the upper class are shunned for this -- because they are "new money", as in new to the game, not new to wealth.

And you wonder why we worship these kinds of people? Easy: Because we only see what they have, not what they are. They're predators in the purest sense -- exemplifying the exact traits that allowed humans to become the dominant form of life on this planet.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Angst Badger]

When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

Looking over the preceding ten thousand years of human history, I couldn't tell you for sure, but if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

No, the traits that allowed us to become the dominant life form are cooperation, reciprocity, a sense of fairness, and intelligence. The only thing we have going for us as predators is our stamina.

The traits you describe are sociopathic. Sociopathy does not mean you don't know right from wrong. It means you have a diminished sense of empathy and remorse, and you look at people as objects. Sociopaths know right from wrong, which is why they try to hide what they are. They just don't care.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Really? I'd say perhaps in the preceding five thousand years, but before that we had no walled cities, no mass graves, no weapons meant only for killing humans, no organized warfare, and very little heirarchy. Our current violent, hierarchical culture is an aberration brought about by our invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, our settling down, and subsequent inability to move on when drought and famine hit.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[girlintraining]

No, the traits that allowed us to become the dominant life form are cooperation, reciprocity, a sense of fairness, and intelligence. The only thing we have going for us as predators is our stamina.

No, that's what allow us to survive as a species. A small minority of individuals hold most of the wealth in the world, and that wealth tends to transfer to direct relatives. This is not an accident.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Kell Bengal]

Once upon a time, such people were shunned by the tribe and starved to death. Today, we have built infrastructures that enable these people to survive and thrive. In return, they ruin us.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[192939495969798999]

No one who wants to change the world refers to their potential user base as "dumb F***'s", there is no situation in which it's ok to do that, or that any rational person wouldn't think that this would come back one day. Couple this with the stolen code issues, privacy issues, etc. and Zuckerberg clearly belongs to the group of people operating their lives outside of the world of logic.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Yeah, Machiavelli was a philosopher, too.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Yvanhoe]

At least they didn't say that he wants to IMPROVE the world. Just change it. I mean, Bill Gates changed the world as well. As did Sauron.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Sociopathy does not mean you don't know right from wrong. It means you have a diminished sense of empathy and remorse, and you look at people as objects. Sociopaths know right from wrong, which is why they try to hide what they are. They just don't care.

That goes double for people like Zuckerburg.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

When they stop getting rich.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[drewhk]

.. and poor people reproduce more than wealthy. So what?

Also, I see that many of us underestimate cooperation. If pure selfishness would be the true way, then there would be no multicellular species -- like us. The fact that we have an imprinted idea of "justice" and we are disturbed by acts of sociopathy shows how deeply imprinted is social behavior.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time, such people were shunned by the tribe and starved to death. Today, we have built infrastructures that enable these people to survive and thrive. In return, they ruin us.

No! No! They are the tribe!

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

OH COME ON! What did Sauron do to you?

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. A violent culture requires violent people. You say that "our invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, our settling down, and subsequent inability to move on when drought and famine hit" -caused- our current violent, hierarchical culture??? These cultural advancements enabled our violent, hierarchical predispositions to manifest themselves more fully.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[cowscows]

There's plenty of instances of hierarchical structure and intra-species violence in nature, it's not just limited to modern humans. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect that even before agriculture humans competed for resources.

The biggest change that we started seeing 5000 years ago was that technology started to increase the scale of those conflicts.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[phantomfive]

Amongst the wealthy I have learned they have a common social trait that is decidedly uncommong amongst the working class: The ability to turn charm on and off at a whim.

Uh....this isn't a trait that comes from being rich, it's a trait that comes from meeting lots of different people. It's the exact same difference you will find between city people and country people. The more people you manage to meet, the better you get at it. It has nothing to do with being rich, poor, or anything else, except as those correlate with your ability to meet and socialize with more people.

If you want to see this point enshrined in a musical, watch State Fair, where they show the poor country bumpkin completely unaware of what's happening when he meets sophisticated city folk.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[girlintraining]

The fact that we have an imprinted idea of "justice" and we are disturbed by acts of sociopathy shows how deeply imprinted is social behavior.

And a small minority has always existed that manipulates that sense of justice and cooperation for its own ends. A lot of us labor under the illusion that we're equal, but we aren't, we can't be. Humans organize into hierarchial models, with most working and some directing (and profiting?) off of that work. We are cooperative in that most of us are followers, but for that to work some of us must be leaders. This playing of roles is something any individual human being can do, but few actualize that potential. And there are some groups of people that have learned to not only actualize that potential, but train others in how to occupy the leadership positions. And they don't make many babies -- because there isn't much room for competition amongst that class.

I'm sorry to reduce human behavior to such a depressing and simple model, but you can't deny thousands of years of human evolution, which show that in almost every society wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of people.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[japonicus]

Once upon a time, such people were shunned by the tribe and starved to death. Today, we have built infrastructures that enable these people to survive and thrive. In return, they ruin us.

Not really. Then, as now, the failures starved while the more sophisticated victors lead the tribe. Nowadays the psychopaths fill jails and run multinational corps.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[drewhk]

"I'm sorry to reduce human behavior to such a depressing and simple model, but you can't deny thousands of years of human evolution, which show that in almost every society wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of people."

And you deny hundred thousands of years of human evolution, when this was not true.

Also, proving my point, we have a trained eye for injustice and we tendentiously overreact any cheating in society while we do not recognize the unsurmountable amount of evidence of everyday cooperation.

Even the most psychopathic ones of us cooperate. Even using money is cooperation. In fact it is completely impossible to live in a human society without huge amount of cooperation.

Your opinion is formed by this strange sampling bias that makes us more aware about cheating.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and poor people reproduce more than wealthy. So what?

Also, I see that many of us underestimate cooperation. If pure selfishness would be the true way, then there would be no multicellular species -- like us. The fact that we have an imprinted idea of "justice" and we are disturbed by acts of sociopathy shows how deeply imprinted is social behavior.

Prisoner's dilemma. If everyone's an asshole, everyone's dead. But if only a few people are assholes, the assholes win.

Ergo, it's probably safe to conclude evolution favors a gene pool where there's a small percentage of assholes.

Like Zuckerberg

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[HiThere]

Yes, and humans were violent on a small-scale long before agriculture. But it was on a small scale. Scale makes a big difference.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

For most of our time on this planet, we have not had hierarchical societies. They are a recent invention, only appearing in the last five thousand years or so.

We have natural leaders, and natural followers, and there are more natural followers than leaders, of course. You say, there must be leaders for society to work, but you do realize that followers are even more crucial, right? Lacking leaders, followers will just do what their parents did, and most of the time this works. Lacking followers, leaders are less than useless, as their focus is not on day to day survival. The leader without followers gets eaten by a lion as he contemplates some far off goal.

And genetically speaking, we are not speaking of classes or castes but genetic variations. Get too many leadership genes and you end up screwed up with OCD or other mental illnesses. Leaders don't breed true, and followers can birth leaders. There is no 'top spot' that leaders are in competition for, leaders are not 'better' than their followers, just different.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[hibiki_r]

It just happens that, in a world where most individuals cooperate, the sociopaths win, while in a world where most people are sociopaths, those that cooperate lose a little bit less that those that don't.

Game theory FTW

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

He actually was a philosopher. Read his Discorsi on how to structure a democratic society. The man wasn't evil, he was a realist.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

OH COME ON! What did Sauron do to you?

Dude said he would scour my village. I thought he meant clean my village. I was wrong.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

We have two modes of behavior, the feast mode and the famine mode. Due to our incredible success at exploiting the resources in our environment, our default mode should be feast mode. But famine mode was locked in culturally the first time we experienced large scale warfare and starvation, which could only have happened after we developed agriculture gained the surplus, structured society, and lack of mobility that comes from it.

I know this contradicts some people's dearly held belief that we a re a violent species, but truth should always win out over dogma, especially selfish and self serving dogma.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Of course we competed for resources, but only when they were scarce. Which was rare, given our proven success at exploiting natural resources. If resources are relatively abundant, but there are localized scarcities, then developing cooperative trading strategies is more effective.

Look at many isolated rain forest tribes. They have no hierarchy, no rigidly defined sex roles, and no competitive games. Look at the Bonobos, the pygmy chimps. Non hierarchical. If you look at nature, you will see far more examples of cooperation than competition. See any multi celled organism for an example.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Sauron??? - What are you Middle Earth's Godwin?

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Read up on the dictator game and the public goods game. When cooperators are allowed to punish non-cooperation, sociopaths lose. Punishing free riders is part of being cooperative. Game theory FTW, again!

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[drewhk]

This is much more complex than that. Game theory is too simplistic to give answers.

Some problems with game theory
  - Nash equilibria are not evolutionally stable
  - They are also exponential to calculate
  - Evolutionally Stable Strategies may not exist
  - They are also exponential to calculate
  - Evolutionally Stable Strategies could be solved only for very simplistic scenarios
  - Evolutionary game theory (currently) deals with simplistic, pairwise, independent games
  - Correlated equilibria are polynomially computable and more realistic (it also nicely explains many cooperation phenomenon) -- but still far from reality

Altruism and cooperation are great miracles of nature that we do not understand fully. Just take your time and dedicate a day to observe all the cooperation that you can find.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't sociopaths.

snip

They're predators in the purest sense

Huh?

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

But is it because people wanting to make a buck are evil, or just that our current culture encourages these traits, thus making it nessisary to be just as ruthless to compete?

The thing is, we've lost our moral way. The world morals has been completely twisted into a set of Judeo-Christian suspersticions and rules, rather than care for our fellow humanity. In a society which had honor and honesty held in high regard, it would be much harder for people such as that to make money. Quite simply, stop supporting the sociopaths and laugh as they go out of business. Support companies with good ethics, and they will thrive. In a capitalist society, you get what you deserve. If people don't accept corruption, it will be much less profitable.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, let's go all the way. Hitler drastically changed the world.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, this may be the most baseless psuedo-scientific post I have ever read. Congrats!

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

You could attempt to show evidence that I am wrong, assuming you have any. My post is based on solid psychological theory and experiment. What is your opinion based on?

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Scrameustache]

When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

They aren't sociopaths. That would be a medical condition beyond their control; They have a diminished sense of right and wrong. No, what they are is far worse: They deliberately ignore social values and mores for their own profit.

There isn't a stable definition of sociopath, but you're describing one as far as I can see.

And this shouldn't come as a surprise. Amongst the wealthy I have learned they have a common social trait that is decidedly uncommong amongst the working class: The ability to turn charm on and off at a whim. These are people who are nice to you, and mean to the waiter. They are not nice people, and it's something they're socialized to do.

Again, mean people who have learned to pretend to be nice: sociopaths!

See, the problem goes deeper than you think: A minority of this society trains its children to prey on one another.

Very sociopathic indeed.

They're predators in the purest sense -- exemplifying the exact traits that allowed humans to become the dominant form of life on this planet.

No: They're parasites, infecting the social organism and saping it from within.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Scrameustache]

you can't deny thousands of years of human evolutionwhich show that in almost every society wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of people.

Give me a sharp guillotine and I'll try.
I'll have some of that cake, too.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Really? I'd say perhaps in the preceding five thousand years, but before that we had no walled cities, no mass graves, no weapons meant only for killing humans, no organized warfare, and very little heirarchy. Our current violent, hierarchical culture is an aberration brought about by our invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, our settling down, and subsequent inability to move on when drought and famine hit.

The ignorance displayed in this comment has in fact reduced the intelligence of everyone on slashdot. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[girlintraining]

What is your opinion based on?

I could claim my post is also based on solid psychological theory and experiment, but I'd be lying. Then again, your post lacks any citations, so we're even. In truth, we're both posting based on our life experiences and passing knowledge of the sciences -- the difference is, I'm admitting it.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[drewhk]

"And there are some groups of people that have learned to not only actualize that potential, but train others in how to occupy the leadership positions."

Again, you must not believe what you see. Sociologists recognized long ago, that we tend to downplay the effect of randomness and luck.

Small children say after seeing a child being unlucky that he or she is a bad person. Lucky children are recognized as "good".

The modern globalized world is able to produce lots of self-reinforcing bubbles. Many people gain their wealth by luck. After you have wealth, it is much easier to stay on top. Therefore, among the wealthy the lucky ones are overrepresented.

But our nature is denial about randomness, and we tend to associate talent, cunning and intelligence with success. This is very similar to how we tend to believe that we are able to control our destiny, or nations control their destiny. In fact it is almost impossible to weed out randomness from signal (in the short term of course).

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Prove it. There should be some evidence to the contrary out there, for you to be so certain.

Re:What a conveniently timed puff piece

[spun]

Okay, perhaps I should have given reference to the theory I was describing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_Briggs_Type_Indicator

As for the genetics part, that's just paraphrasing an amalgam of modern research, call it original research on my part if you like, or start reading Scientific American's new Mind magazine.

Zuckerberg: Changing the world...in his interest

[Anonymous Coward]

We already knew he wanted to change the world. A word in which everyone lives in glass houses and any privacy at all is a luxury reserved for himself and himself only.

I may have believed this when he first started out

[Pojut]

but if their advertising practices are any indication, they are in it for the money. I'm pretty happy with many of the security changes they made a couple of weeks ago after the furor over privacy reached the boiling point, but to claim they have benevolent intentions is ignorance at best.

I'm the CEO bitch

[xx_chris]

Sorry, but this just stinks of a payola article.

see Craigslist

[lapsed]

For an example of what happens when people forgo money.

Re:see Craigslist

[Anonymous Coward]

He's already sold out, yahoo owns a fair portion of it now.

Re:see Craigslist

[eln]

They can't afford decent website designers?

Re:see Craigslist

[Hijacked Public]

I'd argue that they better understand how to focus on content than most anyone else.

They lack decent search but I can't think of much else that would make Craigslist better rather than just whizzier.

Re:see Craigslist

[Bysshe]

Add wikipedia and wikileaks to that list. Cock Suckerburg isn't in this to save the world, make it better or anything of the kind. He's in it to conquer society and screw anyone who gets in his way.

Real philanthropy is done by those who don't want the fame, money, or power.

Re:see Craigslist

[istartedi]

They can't afford decent website designers?

They don't have so much money to throw around that they maintain a staff of monkeys who add "features" that increase the rendering time by an order of magnitude, break compatability on half the browsers, and do nothing to enhance the underlying content.

Re:see Craigslist

[Hatta]

What's wrong with the search? I enter a search term and I get a reverse chronological list of every posting that contains my search term, and nothing else. Google can't even guarantee me that my search terms (even if quoted and prepended with a '+') are going to be present in the results it returns (or even the copy in their cache?!).

Re:see Craigslist

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and the reason Google can't guarantee that is because their search is better. There are many IR techniques which improve "accuracy" but could lead to that result, such as stemming. The majority of the time you search for "swims" you're also interested in results containing "swim" and "swimming." Search has many trade-offs and this is one of them. There is a hell of a lot more involved in evaluating a modern search engine than asking: "are my exact query terms present?"

Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[sycodon]

1. Creating cool programs
2. Get girls
3. Make money
4. Get more girls

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[bsDaemon]

This might be the first and last time I ever see "get girls" be directly the next step after writing code. Seems to be a bit of a non-sequitor.

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[sycodon]

I didn't mean to imply any kind of casual relationship between to.

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[Macrat]

This might be the first and last time I ever see "get girls" be directly the next step after writing code. Seems to be a bit of a non-sequitor.

You're right. He can't actually pay for the hookers until after he gets paid for the code.

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't mean to imply any kind of casual relationship between to.

I thought 'casual relationship' is exactly what you meant by 'get girls'.

Also, bsD, that was my first thought, too. Tragic.

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

what's that you're saying? god damn. I have to make my explosion effects bigger to attract the girls. They love that shit!

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[painandgreed]

1. Creating cool programs
2. Get girls
3. Make money
4. Get more girls

Funny, those are the same things motivating me at 42, except "Creating cool programs" has slipped to #3.

Re:Things Motivating a 26 year old programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is, he wrote a cool program that gets the photos and personal information about millions of girls around the world and managed to make money.

His brand of truth

[HermMunster]

I just don't trust the guy. Sleaze-ball comes to mind.

I can't get into his method of profit--selling our private info to others.

I'm careful about my private information. I'm sure others aren't so well versed on what to disclose to Facebook. I like the site, seriously, as it has let met get in touch with so many friends and family

Re:His brand of truth

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

Let me guess. you're a capitalist (dare I guess american?) in your 30-40's, and you currently own two cars.

I can see why you don't trust him.

Re:His brand of truth

[Anonymous Coward]

>I can't get into his method of profit--selling our private info to others.

Because the users are stupid.

Re:His brand of truth

[nycguy]

I just don't trust the guy. Sleaze-ball comes to mind.

And if you're a Facebook user, sleaze-ball comes behind.

Re:His brand of truth

[dnahelicase]

I just don't trust the guy.

Don't trust the man behind facebook? I'm sorry, but when I read that I started laughing so hard my boss thought I wasn't working

Zuckerburg: Tell me everything about you and I'll sell it to advertisers

Person on the street: What's in it for me?

Zuckerburg: I'll let you see information about people you already know for free!

Person on the strees: Free!?!?! I'm in!

Just Interviews?

[CheshireCatCO]

So is the book based solely on interviews? Because interviewing the subject himself with no other sources will nearly always give you a favorable picture of the subject. We all craft our own favorable narratives, consciously or not, and that's even more so what we share with the world.

The Time article doesn't really delve into the other research that Mr. Kirkpatrick might have done, so it's very difficult to judge the quality of the book.

Re:Just Interviews?

[theMAGE]

Oh, no! He also bought some private information from Facebook.

So what does he want?

[Daetrin]

"Kirkpatrick reaches the conclusion that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg"

If that's really true (which i'm certainly willing entertain doubts about) does he want to reduce privacy because he really believes that's what best for everyone? Or if he's not in it for money is he in it for power? Does he just like knowing everything about everyone, and making a profit off of that knowledge is a side game to him? I'm really not sure which of those would be worse. The first case is a lot less despicable, but it's also a lot more threatening if you think that a certain amount of privacy is a good thing.

Re:So what does he want?

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

He's in it to change what people think of as private.

he has no interest in removing privacy from people, instead he rather want's people to understand that you don't need privacy to be comfortable with your life.

there are MANY of us that have
1) no secrets
2) very little to no privacy
3) all the interest in the world to share our experience with the most people we can in our lives
and we sure are perfectly happy about it.

Re:So what does he want?

[Daetrin]

there are MANY of us that have
1) no secrets
2) very little to no privacy
3) all the interest in the world to share our experience with the most people we can in our lives and we sure are perfectly happy about it.

Seriously? No secrets at all, and almost no privacy? Okay, why don't you share your SSN with us? Or how about your home address and the date of your next vacation? And do you have a girlfriend? (You're posting on slashdot, odds are that you're male.) Why don't you post some nude photos of her for our enjoyment? And can i have her phone number?

You must be okay with all that, right? And there are "MANY" more people like that? And this isn't a strawman argument, if you don't agree with that then what you said above isn't true, and we're just debating _how_ _much_ privacy we need, not if we need it at all.

On a more serious note, if there _are_ "MANY" people who already feel that way, why do we need his help to understand that we don't need privacy?

Furthermore, if "he has no interest in removing privacy from people," then why does he keep removing our privacy? And then only letting us (somewhat) restore it after the fact?

Or is this supposed to be a case where if he does it to us but can convince us that we really wanted it all along after the fact, then it's not a bad thing? "No" doesn't mean "no," it just means we haven't been enlightened yet? If you try that approach with most things in real life you would probably end up facing criminal charges pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, he is!

[swordgeek]

Zuckerberg is clearly doing what he does in order to change the world. I can't imagine how that would even be a question.

However, his image of the future seems a bit dystopian in my mind. Bring the consumers together, lead the dumb ones to the slaughter, and then force-herd the stubborn ones down the same path. Everything is marketing, everything is sales. Social interaction cannot exist, if not for the sake of making a profit. "There is no privacy" - unless you're one of the powerful elite.

By all appearances, he's trying to increase the class spread, and turn the entire world into marketing. O brave new world, that has such people in't!

Re:Oh yeah, he is!

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

What the hell are you talking about?

"Everything is marketing, everything is sales"

where did you get that from? did you even read the book? (by a comment like that, I assume not.)

he's trying to DECREASE the class spread. he's trying to get people to open up. to get people to WANT to go spend time at their bosses's place, to allow employees to report their superiors in a open way, to level the playing field, to help people that are more skilled to make it known that they truthfully ARE good at something, to allow better access to skills,

the list can go on and on for hours. unfortunately the guy's closer to communist than any we've seen in a long time. (and some of us love him for it.)

Re:Oh yeah, he is!

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no privacy" - unless you're one of the powerful elite.

 
... or don't use facebook.

Re:Oh yeah, he is!

[swordgeek]

I got that from his actions, which have been consistent and coherent (and almost exactly at odds to what he claims).

Facebook makes money. How does facebook make money? By selling information to advertisers. By encouraging people to open up about their likes, dislikes, skills, and so forth--to advertisers. By getting people to play games which have 'purchased rewards', which can be bought with cash or by accepting...more advertising (Zynga, I'm looking at you!) Worse, facebook keeps changing what information is private, giving advertisers more access to customers who don't want to give it away.

Privacy is "...the vector around which Facebook operates." So said Zuckerberg a few years ago. Then a few months ago, he said that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public. That was the same speech in which he declared "the age of privacy is over."

Zuckerberg, this Paris Hilton of the web...

[broknstrngz]

He was lacking a chihuahua, so TPTB created David Kirkpatrick.

Re:Zuckerberg, this Paris Hilton of the web...

[HBI]

I wonder if he'll shoot himself.

Puritan Ethic

[QuincyDurant]

Zuckerman's wealth is a divine sign of election and sanctification. Me, I must be hellbound.

Pffft.

[src1138]

I recall reading an article a few months ago where MZ openly admitted to casting ethics to the wind and diving into whatever advertising scheme he could to generate capital in the early years of FB with no regard for privacy or transparency. No, I don't care enough to find the link and reference it.

There is no question of selling out - MZ had a clearance sale on business ethics years ago.

Re:Pffft.

[eln]

You're thinking of the wrong scumbag. Mark Pinkus, CEO of Zynga (FarmVille and other annoying Facebook games) said that.

Re:Pffft.

[src1138]

Thanks for the correction. So many scumbags, only so much money to grub.

It's an authorized version

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of money people invested in Facebook, and they want to enhance their bottom line
with it. Hence the authorized book about how wonderful he is. Except he isn't. I don't
care why he does what he does. What he does is awful. And didn't sell out? Is the guy
kidding? He refuses to relinquish control. That's not the same thing.

26

[lymond01]

While many great things have been accomplished by the relatively young (there's a firm line between "young" and "adult" at 35 in case you're not aware...similar to Chef's "17" philosophy, in fact), they were entirely by accident.

Re:26

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

why for one second does the guys age have anything to do with what he's capable of?

The 'authorized' biography

[Trufagus]

I think we can expect to see much, much more of this, as Facebook tries to change their CEO's image.

Apparently there is an unflattering movie coming out in the Fall and I assume they want to get ahead of that.

Re:The 'authorized' biography

[GrumblyStuff]

I propose that like Tony "I want my life back" Hayward, we give Mark a catchy phrase in his name.

Mark "Dumb fucks trust me" Zuckerberg sounds kinda nice.

MOD PARENT TROLL.

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT TROLL.

Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

It was my understanding that Zuckerberg was a thief at his very core. Always an opportunist looking to earn off of things he doesn't have any right to possess. This included the photos that started Harvard's Facebook, much of the original code and concept, and continues to this day with examples like the email accounts used to connect to Facebook and their password information. I think this understanding of him is probably accurate.

That being said, wouldn't being a thief preclude the label of 'philosopher'? Isn't the harm caused by theft and the social implications of a world where theft is permissible one of the earliest, simplest hurdles that a 'thinker' must cross to become noteworthy? I'm not up on the stuff, but I'm not aware of any ethos that includes 'rutheless slimeball' as a virtuous-knower of wise things.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Ayn Rand or her philosophy then?

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[rwv]

That being said, wouldn't being a thief preclude the label of 'philosopher'?

I think Zuckerberg is a scumbag, as well. But I'm going to attempt to play Devil's Advocate. People associate the character Robin Hood, who is a common thief, as a great hero. Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. More generally, the effect Robin Hood has is that the poor gain more than they lose from his actions. Thus, we can conclude that the assertion that thievery and philosophy are mutually exclusive is false.

Now we examine Zuckerberg to see if his thieving brings a net benefit to the poor. Certainly, no money changes hands (for the vast majority of Facebook users), so it's hard to assess this financially. The question becomes, I think, whether "losing privacy" causes meaningful contacts to be established. Or does having your information out there leave you in the same place you'd be if you hadn't turned over your privacy?

I suspect that for most users there is minimal net benefit for being on Facebook, but for others there's a significant benefit. Somebody, please chime in if you've ever established a meaningful relationship due to Facebook existing.

I hope this side-thought doesn't ruin the otherwise productive Zuckerberg bashing that's going on. Thanks.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

It is an interesting thought, however I don't think you can hold Robin Hood up as an example of a thief. He certainly had more in common with a rebel or freedom fighter than the more normal uses of the word.

I suppose the parallel you're trying to draw is that MZ's crimes could be being committed in the name of the greater good. But I'm not seeing it.

The proper parallel would be Robin Hood robbing from the rich, violating the rich, and letting the poor live in his palace for free - so long as they tell him all their secrets. In other words it goes beyond re-appropriation and into personal benefit.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

Nope not really, only peripherally.

Was she a thief?

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[rwv]

I think the parallel is that because of Zuckerberg's actions, poor people are able to reconnect with slightly less poor people who they used to go to high school with and derive some pleasure from that relationship that makes it worth it. Or, alternatively, that somebody ends up meeting a person who later becomes their husband or wife because of Zuckerberg's social network. I'm willing to allow that giving up a few bits of personal privacy would be a small price to pay for finding a loving partner.

That said, I still think Zuckerberg is a scumbag. And certainly Zuckerberg isn't seeking to provide any direct benefit to the "poor" the way Robin Hood did. But even if the end result is a pleasant side-effect of the main goal of being a self-righteous asshole, isn't that still a good thing?

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[misexistentialist]

Philosophers can certainly be assholes. You're more likely to be a "good person" if you just accept the rules and don't think.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

Not really, no, because (if for no other reason) he didn't genuinely do anything that wasn't already being done by others. Sure we'd all still be on MySpace or whatever, but those poor would still be connected in this 'new' way.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

Sure, sure, but what about out-and-out theft?

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[rwv]

Okay, you win the point. Zuckerberg is a thief and not a philosopher. Like I said... I was playing Devil's Advocate, so I'm not particularly bent out of shape for losing.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[maxwell demon]

If his philosophy includes the claim that property is bad, and that everyone should be entitled to take anything he wants, then being a thief doesn't contradict being a philosopher. However, that philosopher might find out about the problems of his philosophy very soon if people start to apply it to his property. :-)

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[BobMcD]

Yes, basically.

I'm implying that a philosopher has thought things through and has made a convincing argument that other people refer to as a philosophy.

Otherwise other labels would more aptly apply.

Re:Is there such a thing as a Philosopher-thief?

[misexistentialist]

Nietzsche wouldn't say stealing was wrong, though for anything to be "right" it would have to have some sort of strange and exalted purpose. Capitalism, if you can call it a philosophy, certainly values selfishness to the point of theft, and even argues that doing so benefits society.

The problem is this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have read every single one of these comments and it seems everyone has a pretty good bead on Zuckerberg. The problem is people who have a problem with it still patronize his company. If you don't like what they do, you need to show them by not using the site. It's the same with Wal-Mart, Microsoft and others. People are just too lazy to stick with a boycott.

Zuckerberg knows history is written by the winners, not the losers. As long as people continue to make him a winner, he will be putting out trash like this bio. Plain and simple.

So, for the sake of the world, have the constitution to STICK WITH a boycott, otherwise learn to be happy getting zucked in the A.

Peace and Love!

...or a naive new world.

[LongearedBat]

He recognizes the incredible value of having personal information on the majority of people connected to the internet, and he wants to capitalize on that.

Either a brave new world (to trust giving out so much personal information), or a naive new world (to trust giving out so much personal information).

He loses either way

[BBandCMKRNL]

As a greedy CEO, I'd expect him to act the way FB is trashing user's privacy. As a coder I'd expect him to be more careful about privacy and the security of the code that goes into production.

"money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg"

[metamatic]

It's easy to say that you're not primarily motivated by money once you're already a billionaire several times over.

Hell, give me a mere couple of million and I'd show you what it's like to not be motivated by money...

Gotta point out the good

[bbbaldie]

I've hooked up with a number of individuals from my past, and it's been an overall positive experience for me. Yes, Zuckerberg is an annoying a-hole, but Facebook is beneficial to me.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Bing Tsher E]

The interesting individuals from my past are by definition the kind of people who wouldn't be on Facebook. Now, if I wanted to 'link up' with that portion of people from my past who are the fucktards, yes, Facebook would be excellent. However, I chose to move forward in life, not spin my wheels in muck.

Facebook is almost entirely the wrong place to be.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[bbbaldie]

Jeez, pal, sorry to hear that your Cheerios were piss-flavored this morning...

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Michael Kristopeit]

i've also hooked up with a number of individuals from my past using the internet... generally using email. it still works, you know.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[icebraining]

Steven K. Roberts has a Facebook and Twitter.

Now, if you find a guy who in the eighties built a bike with an embedded computer, a packet data communication system for email via ham radio, a 20 watt solar panel, a speech synthesizer that could be triggered by security sensors or remote radio command, and then traveled 16 000 miles across the US typing with a binary (eight keys) keyboard his journal as "not interesting", I pity you.

http://hackaday.com/2009/09/18/vintage-video-computing-across-america/

(Yes, this is a far fetched example - I just find him awe-inspiring)

Re:Gotta point out the good

[insertwackynamehere]

Don't you understand that you are projecting? If everyone you hated in high school or whatever is on Facebook and everyone who was too cool for school who you like aren't on Facebook, then Facebook serves no purpose to you. But you aren't separating your life from the lives of others; specifically a generation where everyone is on Facebook. Stop judging people who use it just because the social butterfly football player cheerleader vapid cunts or whatever you hate are still trying to connect with each other and you and your friends who were always living on the edge with apathetic social interaction are still Facebook free.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[insertwackynamehere]

Let me ask you a question. How old are you? I don't mean this as an insult, but I think that for older generations, (not elderly, but just GenX, some of GenY even and up) were right before the curve. Email isn't as popular today because it's easier to look up someones real name on Facebook then keep track of email addresses. I remember how happy Sconex made me because in 8th grade we would pass around papers with email addresses on them for the class and of course thats just clunky and annoying because emails scrawled on paper all like xxAngel5--Oxx or whatever just blur together and you don't know who is who (Sconex was a high school oriented Facebook-like site that collapsed recently that me and my friends used before Facebook became really big during my Senior Year of HS..2006/07). AIM screennames were the other big one. Even Xanga names for a bit.

When AIM, Myspace and Xanga and LJ came out, it changed the way middle schoolers and high schoolers could talk online, making email seem a bit clunkier because it was either not live chatting or too peer to peer (even with multiple To fields or CC). When Sconex, and later Facebook came out it was the end of cryptic screenname based webchat because now people had real pages in their name up. Some people (like me) knew how to create web pages but not many. These personal webpages don't even lend themselves to easy aggregation anyway.

Meanwhile, email is still used by older generations because that's the method of communication that was settled upon and older people are less likely to change their ways. This is fine because it works for them. But the creation of all of these sites and the social networking idea really work with the idea of free flowing information; it's just that the false sense of security and the idea that some information shouldn't be free flowing that really sets people on edge. This is easily remedied; only put information online that doesn't matter if it gets out. One day, hopefully, a court decision will cement user privacy specifically in the sense of social networks and then things that are semi-private (like phone numbers) will be able to put online for friends only without any realistic worry. Things like SSNs will obviously never be smart to put on Facebook in any context.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Michael Kristopeit]

in order to get a facebook account, you must have an email account... given that, facebook can not be more relevant than email.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[treeves]

Bad argument. In order to drive a car I have to fill out a form to get a driver's license. Do I think or care about much less use that form ever again once I have my license? (why do I always use a car example!?)

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Michael Kristopeit]

talk to the cop about not having your papers the first time you get pulled over.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[FuckingNickName]

Sir,

You are clearly too young. The '80s (tailing off into early '90s) was full of casual hardware geeks, and real touchy-feely magazines to support those geeks' interests. The building of computers to control random devices was all the rage, and a kid from school wouldn't stop telling me about his speech-controlled curtains, light switches, etc. Who didn't build a makeshift keyboard controlled by tapping fingers/thumb together on a glove, so you could type anywhere?

To reiterate, Twitter/Facebook is for people who TALK LOUDLY ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING THEY DO. And those who aren't paying attention might even be fooled into thinking these people are unique. See also Apple.

Packet radio was a greater bureaucratic mare in the UK, mind, and I wasn't licensed until years after I stopped taking a proper interest(!).

Re:Gotta point out the good

[icebraining]

Yeah, but did that kid quit his job to travel thousands of miles on a bike?

Re:Gotta point out the good

[treeves]

I wasn't talking about the driver's license, I was talking about the form I filled out at the DMV and never see again. It's entirely possible for a person to treat an e-mail account exactly the same way. One use only: for signing up on social websites.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Michael Kristopeit]

what form are you talking about? the one that required you to bring in other forms of ID? did you throw those out too?

YOU NEED EMAIL TO USE FACEBOOK.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Bing Tsher E]

For goodness sakes. And YOU accuse me of projecting....

It's really a shame that so many people took that one Freshman Psychology course and came out with a lot of big words to wield around like a four year old holding a 3 foot long 2x4.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[treeves]

All caps means yelling. Yelling is worse when you're wrong.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Michael Kristopeit]

... that is how wrong you are.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[insertwackynamehere]

I don't know shit about psychology. I just felt it was worth pointing out that your opinion contributed nothing and does not reflect the views of everyone although it was conveyed in a way that exuded superiority and righteousness.

Re:Gotta point out the good

[Procasinator]

Bigs words? You're funny. The largest word he used is "specifically".

Freshmen high school would be able to understand that.

I had to check my calendar

[dreamchaser]

I had to check my calendar when I saw this submission. I *knew* it wasn't April 1st but still...I mean REALLY? Is this supposed to be taken seriously?

Facebook endangers your job

[improfane]

That's a really cool idea; just make all your family join your site or better yet, register them without your permission. It could read IMAP to fetch their emails and place them into it as if they were actually logged in.

IMHO you must be comfortable with your job if you use Facebook freely - at home or especially so at work. I do not think it's safe in a modern world to use social networks. It exposes information you probably should not reveal, especially amaking vindicative people more dangerous.

I wrote a indepth list of reasons not to use facebook here before: Why I Don't Use Facebook

I use StatusNet when I can be bothered to microblog about something although it is only accessible to me. If I want to talk to someone I phone them. If you believe in privacy, install Freenet if you have CPU to burn and I2P otherwise.

Cheers

Re:Facebook endangers your job

[improfane]

Woops, sorry about all the mistakes.

I meant this link: Why I don't use Facebook. I was going to link to that actual link, as well about general privacy.

If you don't take privacy into your own hands, don't expect web browsers to. Especially given that they are owned by either businesses who love marketing, Google, Apple, Microsoft. Don't expect governments to protect you.

I filed a TRUST complaint with Facebook. I urge you to do the same. Not that they will do anything though unless they reach a criticial mass. It shocks me so many people have endorsed the seal.

Facebook TRUSTe

Re:Facebook endangers your job

[Bing Tsher E]

Looking back at your list of privacy things: why would I install a whole fricking plugin to block referrers. You can do that in about:config with a single toggled setting.

Re:Facebook endangers your job

[DoomHaven]

This is not a bookmark.

Immaterial

[ismism]

Doesn't matter to me, any more. I've opted out of FB, altogether. "I've opted out of FB" (all together)

Re:Immaterial

[Webcommando]

I've opted out of FB, altogether. "I've opted out of FB" (all together)

Another person who uses that Airplane movie reference in a constructive way.

Whenever someone in family says "altogether", everyone--children, teenagers, and adults--repeat the phrase immediately preceding it. Ahh, good times ... and often strange stares at restaurants.

Re:Immaterial

[Anonymous Coward]

I am gratified that someone got that. ;-)

Damit!

[Anonymous Coward]

to = two

Wow! Pick your own moderation day!! Lemme Try this

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 Insightful

mmhmm

[Anonymous Coward]

hes a jew. nuff said.

Re:mmhmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Jews suck.

Again....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

Jesus people. Look at what you've become.

for the first time in history, there exists a man who's interested in changing the world for the democratic better.

and what do we as the tech community say?

"Fuck him, he's just trying to get rich"

if you stop, take your heads out of your asses, get to know the damn kid, and then stand back and take a look at what a horrible bunch of money driven cynical sociopaths you have all become, maybe you'll see that SOME OF US DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY! but rather need to make enough to try to help others.

Re:Again....

[BobMcD]

I can't tell if you're serious, or just not very funny.

for the first time in history, there exists a man who's interested in changing the world for the democratic better.

Fail. And I use that term sparingly. I'm not going to bother with examples, as this is just batshit insane.

get to know the damn kid

Like YOU know the 'damn kid'? Perhaps you've seen something the rest of us have not with your personal friendship with Zuckerberg. If so you should share. If not, well, look at the preponderance of evidence and draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile leave us free to do likewise.

maybe you'll see that SOME OF US DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY! but rather need to make enough to try to help others

This could well be but we're talking about Mark Zuckerberg here. Not Ghandi. Stay on topic, please.

Re:Again....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

This couldn't be more on topic.

Give me an example. please. name me one person who wanted to make the world a better place, and gave less of a fuck about money.

you'd be surprised how hard they are to find. (the emphasis IS off in the first line you quoted, I can see how it may be misread. it would have been better worded: "for the first time in history, there exists a man who's interested in changing the world for the democratic better THAT MIGHT HAVE A CHANCE TO REALLY DO IT.) Mark's one of the most open people you'll ever meet. send the guy an e-mail sometime, be a human being to the man, and go figure: he'll be a human back to you. (unless you are just being a money driven dick to him.)

stop thinking with your wallet for a second, and start thinking like a human being. there ARE other human beings in the world. there are even those of us who understand that he doesn't want to "get rich"

people that spend lifetimes gathering money and value, only to die, and find out that none of it could have saved them. then sit and regret having not given that guy from your youth asking for change a hand, or a kind word.

Re:Again....

[BobMcD]

Give me an example. please. name me one person who wanted to make the world a better place, and gave less of a fuck about money.

Buddha. Gandhi. Mother Theresa.

That's three. Google yourself some more. All of these people were successful, too. Moreso than Zuckerberg.

stop thinking with your wallet for a second, and start thinking like a human being.

Capitalist pigs and all that aside, I'm thinking with my brain. People get painted by their behaviors. MZ doesn't even admit to his crimes, let alone begin to atone for them, and you want to anoint him a saint. He has yet to do one decent thing for humanity, as far as I have seen.

You're attributing to a single slimeball the entirety of the internet's value while simultaneously blathering on about the limits of materialism.

In short you're not having a conversation, so have a nice day!

Re:Again....

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been plenty of people more interested in helping others than getting rich, many of them making an actual impact (Gandi being one as GP mentioned). The reason people have doubts that Zuckerberg is one of those people is because of all the other stuff he's said and done.

Re:Again....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

to be completely fair, Gandi's a pretty good example of somebody along the same lines.

but he was rather limited in the scope of the work he could accomplish. (I admit, I have no idea what the guy was like, he was long dead when I was born.)

the key point you're missing, is that the majority of the good gandi did for the world, came after he died. where as mark's in a position to make global changes a reality, and make the world a better place, in his current lifetime.

Re:Again....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

all of which were people that did the majority of their work and goodwill after their death.

it's funny that you'd mention gandhi. hoping that you know SOMETHING about his teachings after using him shamelessly in a post, would you answer any question asked of you in complete and honest truth?

now, if you had a website of all the personal details of your life, would you mind if somebody indexed it and built a profile describing who you are?

it's the same thing. except that one most people don't really mind, the other people get shy about.

Re:Again....

[Anonymous Coward]

(Score:-1, Jew)

Re:Again....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

and it's funny that you only mention religious people. people that felt that the world could only ever be united and peaceful when they live under a god.

strangely, that bears NO resemblance to what mark's trying to do.

Re:Again....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're point is still valid and I agree with it, but Mother Theresa was a monster.

Re:Again....

[veg_all]

Mother Theresa who took 1.4m stolen dollars from Charles Keating? Mother Theresa gave a hell of a fuck about money, mainly by fetishizing the suffering of those without it....

Read up.

Otherwise I agree.

What are you smoking?

[assertation]

that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg, 'a coder more than a CEO, a philosopher more than a businessman, a 26-year-old who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world.'

What was the author smoking when he wrote this?

Not out for the money? "avoided selling out"? What about the phrase "monetizing information" that so often comes up in Facebook's conversations?

What the interview with the 19 year old Zuckerberg who called his users "stupid" for making their information available to him? Yes, he was 19, but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.

What about Facebook making defaults public, when it is obvious private would be preferred and doing so without notice?

Is that lack of respect for other people consistent with a "philosopher" who wants to change the world for the better?

Re:What are you smoking?

[bipbop]

It's pretty obvious this award-winning journalist hasn't "avoided selling out".

Re:What are you smoking?

[Attaturk]

Quite.

Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. This was followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners...On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million...In November 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook...In August 2008, BusinessWeek reported that private sales by employees, as well as purchases by venture capital firms, had and were being done at share prices that put the company's total valuation at between $3.75 billion and $5 billion

So an individual that has sold large amounts of equity in his private business to outfits like PayPal, Microsoft, Accel and Li Ka-shing (hey now that's a good name for a bulti-billionaire) etc. has not sold out?

We must have a very different understanding of the expression.

I'm not even mentioning the questionable privacy policies, ethics and activities of the company itself - everybody else seems to have that very well covered already. ;)

Re:What are you smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the interview with the 19 year old Zuckerberg who called his users "stupid" for making their information available to him? Yes, he was 19, but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.

But they ARE stupid for providing personal information.

Slashdot readers should even recognize the hypocrisy at work here. Every day there are dozens of posts calling non-geek users "stupid," "moronic," "incapable of thought," and that they "must be forcefully educated." No one ever attempts to rebut these posts, so when you now attempt to do so, I will ignore it.

Hell, I'd bet you were even one of these people. Probably half of Slashdot posters have called users "stupid" at one point. It's basically the nerd proving ritual around here.

Re:What are you smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.

Confidential conversations? I got the impression he didn't believe in personal privacy from the way he runs Facebook, or maybe he too is a "dumb fuck" for trusting other people with personal information. ;)

Teleological anthropocentric BS

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

No, the traits that allowed us to become the dominant life form are cooperation, reciprocity, a sense of fairness, and intelligence.

There is no objective sense in which Homo sapiens can be said to be the "dominant life form." It's a value judgement. Don't try to pass it as a fact.

Re:Teleological anthropocentric BS

[spun]

You do realize I was responding to someone else's claim that we are the dominant life form, right? As that point was not relevant to the discussion at hand, I did not seek to correct the statement. So why are you correcting me, and not girlintraining?

Some pages need it though

[improfane]

I had no idea there was a configuration option for that.

What my plugin seems to do is make every page I visit look like the first page I visited, by supplying the referrer itself. Some websites do break when they use a referrer to force you to come from a certain page, it seems easier to just click the Referrer icon. (Which also lets me block referrer by host, although the information is probably already leaked to be honest.)

Although I may consider the configuration option as no doubt it uses less resources...

The Economist's review of the same book

[JimBobJoe]

The Economist's review doesn't necessarily answer your question, but I would say it's more informative overall.

has super-user access to full profiles

[peter303]

Of all the hot girls in FB. Who could complain?

So don't use it?

[JynXed]

I don't get why facebook privacy is blown up and discussed as much as it is. It's a private service. If you discover a service doesn't meet your expectations for whatever reason, discontinue using it.

It's a private service, not government supplied. If you do not agree with it's terms of service, then by all means DON'T USE IT! If you didn't bother to read the terms and signed up anyway because everyone else is, then you live with the consequences.

You really don't have to be on facebook... If enough of a consumer base disagree with the practices, a competitor will emerge and users can be divided amongst the various social network websites.

That being said, I do believe that Facebook has to have a reasonable method of informing it's membership to changes of terms of service... but I believe in most cases this has been done. It's just this particular user base (wahhh privacy wahhh) ignored the change and kept using it while whining about it, or didn't bother to keep themselves informed.

That's right, read this:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Stay clear of failbook.

Re:I may have believed this when he first started

[phantomfive]

He never said he had benevolent intentions, he said he wanted to change the world. He dreams of being atop a world changing company, just as Bill Gates, J P Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and the railroad barons of old all have done. He wants to be the great. He wants to be respected. He sees 'changing the world' as a means to that end, but no moreso than being rich.

Re:I may have believed this when he first started

[Pojut]

True...I guess this is indicitive of the difference between myself and him, then. I hear change the world, and I think of positive things that benefit all mankind. He hears change the world, and he thinks of leaving the world a different place than it was before he showed up, good or bad. ::shrug::

Envision the kind of world we'd have

[Anonymous Coward]

And we thought Big Mother and Brother Russia were bad... just wait for Uncle Zuckerberg!!

For better or worse?

[Technomancer]

Did he say how he wants to change the world?
If for better, I'd say he is not doing too well.

Not a "coder"

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg is one of those high-fiving, fist pumping bro's that never went to lecture and turned in copied work for every assignment. He is not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination; that Facebook was stolen from real programmers only bolsters this point.

I say this because the first few computer science courses always have people exactly like that who change majors to Business or Sports Medicine or Communication as soon as they realize programming is difficult and requires having a brain that isn't addled by alcohol and weed.

He is a fratboy idiot who wants to get rich by exploiting everyone around him, because he's too stupid to have any good ideas himself. Don't call him a "coder".

Surprise?

[Masterofpsi]

So he's a narcissist, just like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Not much of a surprise, really.

Re:Surprise?

[maxwell demon]

So he's a narcissist

You mean, he likes narcissus?

Re:I may have believed this when he first started

[thoughtsatthemoment]

In hindsight, We can say Bill Gates really wanted a PC running Windows on everyone's desktop. It's not really a bad intention.

huh? It exists, called OpenId

[BitterAndDrunk]

OpenId is what you're looking for I believe. . . I think that's FB's implementation as well. (probably way wrong there though)

No. Next question?

[Weezul]

Jobs is a psychopath that wanted to change the world, even got his wish, kinda. Among sane people, I'm not sure the Google guys were exactly trying to change the world, although they're willing to take up the mantle when absolutely necessary. Bill Gates wasn't trying to change anything either, but age eventually showed how he had little choice. Zuckerberg? change? don't make me laugh!

The philantropist

[lstl]

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks. IM after Mark "The Philantropist" launched The Facebook

pet rock web development

[Anonymous Coward]

#facebook #zuckerberg #gods #falseprophets #death #eternity #love #sex #heaven #fear #freedom ON ZUCKERBERG: http://tinyurl.com/2wxgaeq

yeah, yeah, yeah, this might just be self-promotion...

pet rock web development

[nicolasmiller]

#facebook #zuckerberg #gods #falseprophets #death #eternity #love #sex #heaven #fear #freedom ON ZUCKERBERG: http://tinyurl.com/2wxgaeq

Re:I may have believed this when he first started

[afxgrin]

Uuh he didn't say a damn thing. The article depends on what David Kirkpatrick says, and all the article says is "Zuckerberg wants to change the world!" and "He's not in it for the money!".

The article is just a plug for the book, that's it.

Zuckerberg is a cunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg is a cunt

Simple answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kirkpatrick wrote it for Zuckerberg.