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Comment by jsavimbi | Hacker News Reader

> Facebook-based link-sharing games are loser projects you need to avoid.

Can I be any more clearer and constructive to a young developer looking to break into the industry?

Okay, maybe I should've added that if you need the money, feel free to do the work but don't go putting your name on it and make sure get paid up front.

I'm not speculating on what intentions the two non-technical people on the team have as when I see one year's worth of work from lightbulb to launch manifested in that weekend project of a poorly conceived website, I already know they have no clue what the next step is and therefore it's a waste of time to even think about it. It's a couple of dudes trying to find unsigned talent through clicks measurements on Facebook.

Didn't see that movie. Was it any good?

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Facebook-based link-sharing games are loser projects you need to avoid.

Mark Zuckerberg had a professor at Harvard who tried hard to convince Zuck to stop wasting time on this stupid facebook idea and get more serious about his degree.

Your advice to the developer sounds similar to the advice given to Zuck by his professor.

That's probably good advice. A startup is a bit like gambling and recommending that a student finish their studies rather than bet it all at the casino is solid advice.

Zuckerberg made a rash decision and got lucky. there were many similar sites at the time and anyone claiming to know which, if any, would become the big social site isn't being very honset.

Good advice? Unsure. Safe advice? Yes.

I keep hearing the "got lucky" argument when describing Facebook and Zuck. All it shows is ignorance. If you study Facebook, you can seriously find very explicit product and culture decisions at each stage of its growth. These have little to do with luck.

I'd argue Zuck experiences the same share of luck as an average person does. It's what he has made out of his luck.

For example, a big evidence cited with the "luck" argument is how Zuck just happens to run into Sean Parker who introduces him to Peter Thiel. But the role of "luck" is over-stated: there are hundreds of people who run into Sean Parker. A handful of them even get introduced to Peter Thiel. But getting introduced or funded by Sean Parker/Thiel is not a ticket to a billion dollar company. There is much more to it having little to do with luck.

Luck is not getting kicked out of Harvard with your original idea that involves stealing a whole bunch of photos off a Harvard server: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook.

You can also find very serious and explicit product and cultural decisions in all of Facebook competitors, and indeed in all startups. Everyone thinks they have the next billion dollar company, but the majority do not.

All you are doing is looking in hindsight and using Facebook's profits as justification for Zuckerberg's decisions or to credit him with something other than luck.

You are defining intelligence, intuition, or brilliance based on success. No wonder your observations support your view, it's impossible not to.

As for staying in school, there are two very good reasons for it. 1) Learning is the only way to actually not be ignorant and university is still one of the best environments to learn. 2) Every smart investor hedges their bets. Every investor recognizes risk and that startups are risky and that most don't succeed. Founders are not some sort of exception. Thus, finishing school is hedging your bets. It's good advice.

I'm sure you deeply want to believe that luck has little to do with it. It's a nice feel good story. But you don't have a convincing argument. Everyone recognizes that various types of skills are important, but nobody has ever put forth a magic formula that will guarantee a successful business. Until that happens, we cannot claim that luck has nothing to do with it.

Until that happens, we cannot claim that luck has nothing to do with it.

I never claimed that. This argument's always been about "how much", not whether.

I believe luck has a small part; you seem to argue that it has a huge part. I argue that in light of all the explicit decisions that facebook made, the role of luck is smaller than you appear to suggest.

You state that other facebook competitors also took explicit decisions. Merely taking explicit decisions does not provide results. You also have to make the right decisions and execute in the right way.

You are correct, I believe the risk of dropping out to do a startup is large enough as to be considered reckless.

We can argue about Facebook all day, as many have before, but even that in itself lends support to the notion that it was mostly luck. We cannot agree on and point to any specific idea, or combination of ideas, that lead to Facebook's success over others. More, we cannot show that Zuckerberg actually held any such idea as the basis for his actions. Targeting schools? Convenience. Targeting social? A common idea at the time. Using php? Convenience and a common choice at the time. Not all successes are due to some sort of genius. Many are just unexpected and happy results.

> I believe the risk of dropping out to do a startup is large enough as to be considered reckless.

Ridiculous. If it doesn't work out, you go back to school. Getting back in won't be hard. Just be sure you haven't spent yourself too far into debt.

The professor was giving a generally good advice for average people. (though of course I do not consider anyone going to Harvard to be average)But the professor is also ignorant of what is going on with the internet (trend) and never saw what Zuckerberg was seeing. But Mark was also lucky because part of the success of Facebook is the continued screwing up of MySpace. I remember Sean Parker saying that Facebook would never have succeeded if MySpace corrected all the little issues they had with users because they already have the network. Network is difficult to break, no matter how good your features are and how much money you have, just look at Google+.

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