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Comment by egwynn | Hacker News Reader

Have we really gotten to the point where Walt Mossberg is considered "some dude" on a technology news website?

Having worked in tech my whole life and been a frequent visitor of the site, I have never heard of him.

Regardless, this is still fair criticism. This would be like seeing in the scrolling banner of "Breaking News" on CNN "<Insert Well Known Person in their field> quits job at <Insert large company>"

Belongs in maybe the entertainment or business section, maybe, section, but wouldn't classify it as "tech news"

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Having thought about it a little more, I can see a valid case when said person in question, considered monumental enough, leaves a platform, business or field and is reported as news. I guess it's more of a reflection of how little HN'ers (including myself) think of Facebook in the grand scheme of things. It's just a website. What's next, we report that he or she has left Flickr or Reddit? That's kind of what I think GP and myself were getting at. Now if this person was the founder of Facebook, or instrumental in the success of the platform, and then decides to leave, I think absolutely it would be tech news.

Your comment surprises me.

Walt had a pretty impressive group of friends:

https://www.slashgear.com/walt-mossberg-steve-jobs-and-bill-...

Yeah.. if you haven't seen any of those interviews ^, I'd give them a watch. They're still pretty relevant.

I am not saying that to belittle the man in any sort of way, or diminish his accomplishments, I am just simply saying it shouldn't be surprising that people haven't heard of some other people, despite how famous others think he or she might be. Pretty sure there is an XKCD for this. I have my categories of people where I would react the same way ("What do you mean you have never heard of Carl Sassenrath!?" as an example).

That's hilarious, I have definitely heard of Walt Mossberg but I have never heard of Carl Sassenrath

;) He is the father of multitasking! Definitely an important figure in computing history -- he created the Amiga Computer operating system kernel and also was a pivotal figure in HP's early successes as well. I think he works at Roku now.

Also a reminder how crazy young the field of computer science is -- important figures are still as young as 62! Kind of cool in a way. I hope to get to meet him in person.

That's a fair point. In my world, Walt's name is as recognizable as Bjarne Stroustrup - one is for techies, the other is for the rest of the population.

EDIT: Right after posting this, I realized my world was ambiguous - "my world" is simply the people I interact with and the information that flows between us - not making a qualitative judgement.

I have not heard of any of the dudes on any of the comments in this thread. Neither Carl Sassenrath nor Walt Mossberg nor Bjarne Stroustrup. Now I am concerned.

I don't care who his friends are. I don't find people interesting because of the company they keep or track their career because they interviewed someone. Galafinakis isn't worth fawning over because he mock-interviewed Obama. Baskets wasn't interesting either.

Any guy quitting facebook (who can sign up again for free in a heartbeat, it's zero risk) is an event, granted. Might as well talk about the time someone quit selling on eBay or had a video removed by Youtube or went to Ohio. It doesn't mean anything until you sensationalize it. This indicates that it is not news, but raw sensationalism.

Having worked in tech my whole life and been a frequent visitor of the site, I have never heard of him.

I suppose one could spend an entire tech career having never heard the name Doanald Knuth, but I wouldn’t wear that as a badge of honor.

Mossberg is hardly on the level of Knuth, but it does cause me to wonder if the cave you must live in is damp enough to cause problems with computing gear.

Don't see why it's necessary to condescend people this way, the fact is some people just don't care about people enough to remember their names. Have you heard of Ian Gibbons?

Um. Yes? What has this guy done in the past 5 years? All the linked commenters saying how great his work is posted 10 year old videos of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Maybe the better question is, is Walt Mossberg still relevant to the technology scene?

To be fair, hacker news is a special kind of technology website. A place where many know a lot more about technology than walt mossberg. He wrote for the masses ( actually the business people - WSJ ), not for "hackers". For most us, he is just some dude. For the masses, he is the technology guy. But ultimately, he was a journalist, not a technology guru.

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