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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Moral of the story: Do one thing and do it better than everyone.

His guess at why Facebook won could easily be wrong.

Yeah, I suspect that the "users weren't sophisticated enough" is bullshit.

I just wonder who the first hundred or so users of Facebook were, must be amazing to hop onto a site (and a story) like that so early, and to have seen it expand the way it did.

Just look for the users with the first 100 Facebook UIDs... e.g. Mark Zuckerberg has UID=4.

My user ID on the houseSYSTEM Facebook was 1; Mark's was 1,234. On Mark's Facebook mine was/is 82, and his was/is 4. I've commented on the experience of being involved and "amazing" is one of many adjectives one could use. It's striking how few people want to hear what I have to say, anyhow.

Are you really working on FaceCash? It sounds like a parody.

Yes, and it's not. Did you look at the site?

Yes I did and it looks great! Are you seeing good adoption? Who are your early users? Any plans of coming to the UK?

(Sorry I realise my earlier comment sounds silly.)

Your comment struck me as prescient. I founded a "flash in the pan" social startup game that eventually went nowhere. But despite the end results, it was quite an interesting ride and there are some fascinating stories to tell. Unfortunately, only a couple people I know have cared to hear them. Most of my 300 or so Facebook friends don't even know what a startup is, let alone why they should want to hear stories about one.

Obviously my experience is probably not nearly as interesting as yours, but I understand your sentiment. The vast majority of people simply don't seem relate to much that falls beyond their own preconceived worldviews. Anything beyond that horizon is foreign to them to the point of being meaningless.

I think it's more that when faced with a) a site where the stuff you want is surrounded by other things to wade through, and b) a site that contains only things you want, people prefer the latter.

If not wrong, it's really simplistic (probably for the sake of this news piece). I just finished listening to the Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. It is a really good account of Facebook's history. It shows just how uncertain things were in the beginning. There were loads of little decisions along the way which made Facebook what it is.

Zuckerberg, no doubt, turned out to be a visionary. But even he wasn't sure Facebook would last long, so he was hedging his bets with Wirehog.

Before Facebook, he was already experimenting with random hacks. When he saw Facebook absolutely exploded as soon as he put it out, he doubled down on it. Wouldn't any hacker do that?

I think Facebook's success lies in Zuck's ability to rally top people around him and to keep them focused on one vision, even when he's not clear what that vision is. Just "something big" seems to work until you figure out what it is.

This news story probably doesn't do justice to Ting's story, but did he really give up without even a hard fight? Who said becoming a billionaire was easy?

Edit: The coolest thing about listening to the book for me was that I found an old school friend of mine was a key early hire at Facebook. I hadn't spoken to her in years, but it was so cool to connect with her again. Of course, via Facebook.

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