Inside the DNA of the Facebook Mafia | Hacker News Reader

Inside the DNA of the Facebook Mafia

techcrunch.com

118 pointsbpeters16 comments

> But unlike companies like Google and Amazon who rigorously hired based on college degrees, GPAs and standardized test scores, Facebook and the companies that have spun out of it have hewed toward sheer, raw, hacker-like genius.

One of the best articles I've read by Sarah Lacy (I wish she would write more big picture stuff like this) and it's on TechCrunch! It would be a very interesting visualization to build a Silicon Valley family tree from Fairchild Semiconductor to HP to Xerox PARC to present day. Maybe that is one of the reasons Silicon Valley can't be duplicated - and is one of the most unique business locations on the planet - everyone is virtual cousins or 2nd cousins with everyone else. All in the (extended) family.

There is no doubt that Sarah Lacy is the best writer on the TechCrunch staff. This was an awesome piece which in the old days would have been a magazine cover or a New Yorker Article.

her 2nd book was recently published, I started reading it today and so far its pretty good

Instead, many of these companies take a cue from the way Facebook rolled out with a deliberate controlled pacing that allowed it to scale as it went from just Harvard, to include Ivy League schools, high schools, work places, and eventually the world.

Did Facebook really have controlled pacing or did the product actually just start out as a niche product and grow? I thought the latter. The difference being did Zuck actually have even a blurry plan of its growth?

It's likely Zuckerberg had some vision very early on of just how big it could become (and the value of a real identity - not a false identity [1])

According to Robert Scoble, the controlled pacing is still going on:

"Here’s the phases of Facebook:

Phase 1. Harvard only.

Phase 2. Harvard+Colleges only.

Phase 3. Harvard+Colleges+Geeks only.

Phase 4. All those above+All People (in the social graph).

Phase 5. All those above+People and businesses in the social graph.

Phase 6. All those above+People, businesses, and well-known objects in the social graph.

Phase 7. All people, businesses, objects in the social graph."

http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/21/why-facebook-has-never-list...

[1] http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html

Scoble missed a bunch of steps. According to my recollection (FaceBook member since Sept 2004), it was:

Phase 1: Harvard only.

Phase 2: Ivy-league only.

Phase 3: Top schools only

Phase 4: Top schools and their alums only.

Phase 5: All colleges

Phase 6: All colleges + high schools

Phase 7: Everyone

Phase 8: Everyone + app makers

Phase 9 (not sure on the timing of this, I forget if "I Support X" pages came out before or after the platform): Everyone + app makers + political causes

Phase 10: Everyone + political causes - app makers except Zynga.

Phase 11: Everyone + political causes + businesses + Zynga

Phase 12?: Everyone + everything?

Great article. Should be required reading for people trying to understand the Valley boys club. I particularly like how just like the original mafia, all the groups she discusses are all male!

Yup. One of the gems from Sara Lacy and one of the reasons worth spending time on tc. Most of the non-valley/non-startup folks don't get the connected(whole story) of the ecosystem - it is great to see someone connecting the dots.

It's funny that the comments are about the quality of the writing and not the content of the article.

Agreed. This article is an exception that proves a rule that a lot of tech writing is lacking something.

Maybe it's volume over substance (ironically discussed in this article: low quality views vs. engaged users)

"Maybe it's volume over substance"

Shhhhh... Don't tell Google!

>Most companies put an implicit value on size for the sake of size, and doing any cheap viral game in the book to get there, even if it means a low percentage of users ever engage with your app or return to your site again.

These "Mafioso" Startups are playing the right game. Leverage slow growth and focus on maximizing value per consumer, rather than maximizing the number of consumers.

A good point made in the article, that could have been overlooked.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this article. I expected it to be another "Facebook clubs baby seals" article (which is what I've learned to expect from techcrunch), but it was a great insight into Silicon Valley culture.

I didn't know about this:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke/

Asana vs 37 Signals?

Alright, Techcrunch is sometimes journalism.

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