Comment by markbnj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by markbnj | Hacker News Reader

I kind of feel like the author is referring to Zuckerberg's famous comment about young people being smarter. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was suitably shocking and stupid so it's a candidate anyway. The thing I like about Rachel's take on this is that she gets right to the key thing: regardless of what field you're in, or how you spend your time, the vast majority of us are going to be neither horrible failures nor amazing successes. We're far more likely to just be ordinary human beings, who probably need to earn a living and have something useful to do every day. Fwiw I'm 58 and a working site reliability engineer and developer. I don't really live paycheck to paycheck, but neither can I just quit working and go instagramming about the globe. I'm fortunate to work for a very diverse company that values everyone for what they can contribute, but I am also cognizant of the people who will look at me and wonder why the greybeard never "made it." Those people probably won't "make it" either, and anyway, nobody seems to wonder why the old Italian guy in the town next to us still gets up every day and fixes shoes.

Zuckerberg said this to attendees at the Y Combinator Startup School event at Stanford in late March, 2007 [1]

"I want to stress the importance of being young and technical," he stated, adding that successful start-ups should only employ young people with technical expertise. (Zuckerberg also apparently missed the class on employment and discrimination law.)

"Young people are just smarter," he said, with a straight face, according to VentureBeat. "Why are most chess masters under 30?" he asked. "I don't know...Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family."

Chess masters do commonly mention noticing a decline in what might be called their raw processing power as early as their late 20's, but most results peak in their mid '30's [2] and some peak in their '40's. (And should spending your time playing chess be a marker for intelligence?)

But wisdom is in part knowing what is worth working on (such as should you spend your time playing chess), and that is generally accepted to increase with experience. For example, the average age of entrepreneurs at the time they founded their companies is 42. [3]

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/say-what-young-people-are-just-sma...

[2] https://theconversation.com/anand-vs-carlsen-the-age-effect-...

[3] https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...

EDIT: Fixed year of quote reference.

That was 2007.

EDIT: parent comment edited it from 2017 to 2007. That makes a lot more sense

Yeesh, in 2017? Zuckerberg was really young when he get vaulted into power and fame, so I've always been a little more sympathetic than most to his various foot-in-mouth moments[1], particularly in the past. But Jesus, 2017 was _last year_: how is he such a slow study at this?

[1] I should not that I have some pretty severe disagreements with my understanding of his worldview and ethics, but I'm speaking strictly of gaffes here.

Zuckerberg is who he is--the same guy who, in college, called his fellow students "dumb f---s" for trusting him with their data.

People want to excuse that as youth, but he wasn't an 8 year-old; he was an adult, with many of his morals formed. A statement like that is not indicative of immaturity, but insight into character--the way he views himself and other people--and it also reveals a willingness to use dishonesty to take advantage of people for his own gain.

In fact, his entire business model is built on the same "dumb f---s for trusting him" attitude. He has repeatedly monetized the violation of that trust and continues to do so. It's mind-boggling that people continue to allow him to get away with it.

This "gaffe" is not evidence of him being a "slow study", but borne of the same attitude he displayed in college and on many occasions since--one of superiority and condescension to other individuals and groups.

Yes, I agree, which is why I mentioned that I have disagreements with his ethics in general. What I refer to as his gaffes is how bad he seems to be at _hiding_ this from people. Though the fact that it was in 2007 instead of 2017 sort of bolsters my point, as it would be hard to imagine him saying something like this today.

I hear you and not disagreeing. Just adding that there is a lot of hand-wringing over Zuckerberg, his intentions, etc, but it can all be simplified when people recognize--as you have--that he's just not a good human being. In fact, if you really analyze his behavior and how he's wielded his power, there are clear lines of sociopathy that emerge.

So, when I look at it through that lens, whether he's gotten better at avoiding gaffes and all the other analyses just obscure the point that really matters: he's an immensely powerful person with tremendous reach who utterly lacks a moral foundation.

>Zuckerberg is who he is--the same guy who, in college, called his fellow students "dumb f---s" for trusting him with their data.

I don't really get why people constantly bring this up. First of all he's not wrong - anyone with a FB account (including myself) is an idiot for trusting them, and second of all, it's not even really that insensitive. I mean, could most people here really claim to have never said anything as bad as that in college?

It's notable for several reasons.

> First of all he's not wrong - anyone with a FB account (including myself) is an idiot for trusting them

First of all, many intelligent people got FB accounts in the early days because they didn't know / understand the privacy implications. Eg, some of them surely were college students who went on to become neurosurgeons, astronomers, doctors, etc. They acted on a reasonable heuristic - "this web site looks legit, people I know are using it, there appear to be social benefits, and I live in a country where rule of law is generally enforced, so it's probably safe enough." So they were not dumb categorically, even if their decision in this case turned out to be (arguably) dumb.

Second, for you to call the users idiots for trusting FB is one thing. For Zuckerberg to call them idiots for trusting him is different. A scammer probably thinks of his victims as idiots, whereas their friends think of them as regular people who got tricked. The quote sounds like he meant "because of course I'm going to abuse that trust."

And in context (according to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg), that appears to be exactly what he meant, treating users' information as his own possession.

> Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard > Zuck: Just ask > 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 f---s

So this quote is brought up not because it shows his insightful analysis of the fact that generally speaking, people should not trust online services, but because it seems to show his own intent, from the beginning, to take advantage of FB users and blame them for trusting him in the first place.

Fixed year of reference.

Chess is something computers do better than humans anyway. Is that really a useful metric?

From a point of view, I might even agree with Zuck's asinine statement. When I was in my 20's, I had no idea how many things I truly did not know. So, in my limited "fresh out of college" way, I was pushing maximum intelligence. As the years have flown by, I've learned just how vast many fields are. Introspectively, I've learned that I'm not the brightest mind in any given room. As a matter of fact, I've just barely scratched the surface. Many, as they get older, realize this harsh reality. For me, I was probably very smart... and completely ignorant. In tech, this is inflated as we seem to rediscover old paradigms every few years, yet we look at those that may have lived through an earlier "discovery" as "irrelevant geezers". Many of could never dream to achieve the level of things that Alan Kay has forgotten, but we sure will treat his contemporaries as worthless. Zuck will get there some day. And I doubt history will remember his as a great visionary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

pre cise ly

> I've learned that I'm not the brightest mind in any given room

I find it scarier when I am the brightest mind in a room, at least on a specific topic. I understand everyone has different backgrounds and experiences, and given the chance to share, many people can make contributions, even sometimes from people you may not expect at first blush.

There are other times though when, not so much through hubris but sort of... delayed understanding(?) - I end up realizing I am the brightest/smartest in a room (at least for the topics at hand). Sometimes you're expected to lead - false modesty won't do anyone much good there. Sometimes you're expected to lead and someone else ends up thinking they're the smartest one, and become a pain to deal with. Looking back I realize I've been that person, and wonder if I could have done anything differently (honestly don't know - lots of factors at play there).

The day I noticed my tenure was longer than the median Google engineer was horrifying. "You mean half of these people know less than I do how this stuff works?"

Given that this is something Zuckerberg said 12 years ago, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he doesn't think that way anymore. (The benefits of experience!)

Given the wisdom of experience he doesn’t announce that anymore.

Or, you know, being 12 years older and realizing he hasn't turned into a stodgy old man who refuses to use anything but Fortran.

Not relevant to the original discussion or your point, but I've heard Fortran is still in use and pretty performant (and readable) for what it's being used.

Yes, between legacy software (powering expensive and irreplaceable legacy hardware), and a userbase that doesn't care so much about learning the fancy newer tools as long as they can do their experiments, I think it's still standard in many parts of physics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com