Also, do say why or why not and if you think the movie "the social network" played a part in the attention MZ got from the folks at TIME?
I have no real input on who should have won it but I would rather see Mark eating pot noodles in a skanky apartment somewhere.
You may call this mis-placed jealousy on my part, I call it an undeserved win for a spotty teen. I doubt he has any real input in Facebook, rather it's run by the people who know what they are doing. Serious amounts of delegation.
I have real respect for companies like Google. The guys there worked hard to get where they are and have some real brains. I read their paper which they published at Stanford on page rank, incredible stuff. They built their own db and servers. That's real talent. He made a website and got some people going to it. Suppose I could say the same for YouTube and eBay but I really don't think Mark deserves even 1% of what he has achieved.
An idea w/o execution is worth $2, and great execution on a semi-foolish idea often results in a hit! Also, no idea is original; it’s all iteration on what exists already - like the saying goes: if you want to make apple pie from scratch, you'd first have to invent the universe. ;)
I think what you're suggesting is totally true about Google dudes having brains, but Zuckster has brains too, he tapped into the human psyche, like myspace, orkut, hi5, friendster etc couldn't. Apples to apples you read a PhD thesis (guessing) and are comparing that to a u-grad.
And finally, you cannot discredit him for not working hard (enough), that actually makes him smarter not dumber. ;)
I am not really saying he is not that clever, don't get me wrong, I bet he has far more credentials than I ever will. What I am saying is, he doesn't deserve what he has. As you can see, I look at Google and appreciate their position and how they got there, I just don't get it with Mark.
The question really was, do I think he should have been made "Person of the year", the simple answer is no, I do not.
I like your objective comments though and can totally see where you are coming from.
You see, the award itself is not worthless, because the real value in it is making the general population aware of yourself.
"Any time spent debating whether Assange should have won it could just be spent actually helping the Wikileaks movement."
Arguments of this form are always silly. I don't dedicate all of my free-time to any one task, nor do I have any desire to do so. I lose nothing by taking 2 minutes out of my day (2 minutes that would have otherwise been spent picking my nose or staring at the wall) to complain about Assange not getting this award.
Also, the argument is not silly. You absolutely lose something by taking 2 minutes of the 34,790,000 minutes or so you have. You lose 2 minutes. The better use of those 2 minutes in support of Wikileaks would be looking for a new leak or more realistically, circulating information that they've recently leaked.
Similarly, the nobel peace price was worthless long before it was awarded to Obama, precisely because it was being awarded to people that had not earned it.
Also, I don’t think it has to do with greatest number of people impacted, rather the avg impact multiplied by the number of folks affected. Wikileaks impact on say 30 million people * how much the average impacted individual’s life has changed > Zuck’s impact on 600 million people * the very marginal change in the life of average user. I also wonder if this change need be 'real' or 'perceived'.