Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Ice Cream has no bones.
...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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Dr. Evil isn't motivated by money either, and he wants to change the world too.
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.
Best regards.
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?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
Living With a Nerd
Sorry, but this just stinks of a payola article.
For an example of what happens when people forgo money.
I'm not surprised. If I had a million kabillion dollars, I'd hire my own scribe too.
1. Creating cool programs
2. Get girls
3. Make money
4. Get more girls
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
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.
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!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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.
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.
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...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
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?
The Economist's review doesn't necessarily answer your question, but I would say it's more informative overall.