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Do Great Things

techcrunch.com

78 pointsdabent31 comments

<rant>

About the author: At Facebook, he was technical lead in charge of Facebook's Pages, Facebook's "Like" button, and was responsible for Facebook Beacon

I guess I am just not seeing "greatness" here.

In the pickup artist world, there is a phrase called "keyboard jockey" used to describe people who love to type ideas and tips about meeting women but in reality, they are just recycling ideas they have read and spend very little time actually talking with women. Keyboard jockeys are not respected and called out on.

I'd argue the tech world is increasingly getting filled with keyboard jockeys - folks who can write and preach seemingly-inspiring shit all day but don't actually eat their own dog food. /rant

Those are pretty cool things to be a tech lead for. While I agree that those projects are not earth-shattering or incredibly innovative[1], Facebook's traffic numbers make everything technically interesting. For example, the Like button is served 3 billion times per day[2]. I'm sure FB has a lot of infrastructure for that kind of load, but knowing that you might have 3 billion daily hits leads to some interesting technical challenges.

[1] Although perhaps somewhat earth-shattering just because hundreds of millions of people use those features.

[2] http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/07/facebook-like-buttons/

Except neither "cool things" nor "technically interesting" have much to do with the author's core message: doing great things and changing the world for the better.

It is especially humorous to see someone who worked on Facebook Beacon deride coupon startups and social games:

I do not doubt that services like social games and coupons bring delight to people’s lives, and I mean no disrespect to the hard work that has made them possible. But in the face of threats to humanity’s future on the one hand and the extraordinary potential of mankind on the other, at some point we must ask: are we capable of more?

Well the author worked at Facebook, so you've got to think he truly believes they were changing the world. His work on the 'like' button was that of a small cog working to achieve that change. And as often as I openly express how I dislike much of what Facebook does, you have to admit it's done a lot of good. Like SOPA/PIPA being dropped; sure the tech community did a lot of the legwork through the blackouts and spreading it through the channels of HN, Reddit, etc, but when those sites went down, all my non-techie friends were all over Facebook discussing it, and getting riled up over SOPA/PIPA.

And that happens ALL THE TIME. Sure, this was one of the most unified and effective examples, but you can't deny that Facebook is a hub not only for socializing, but for political and social awareness. It's been a great force in drawing back the blinds from a whole lot of mystery in the world. I'd argue we're much better off for all the openness and discussion that Facebook has provided.

On another note; screw Timeline.

Any company that gets a few hundred million users is changing the world in some manner. But before the said company gets the few hundred million users, it must get 100 user and then a 1,000. I'd argue facebook at 1,000 users would not pass the author's greatness test. And yet, you can't have hundreds of millions of users before you have 1,000 of them.

These features have often been demonized, here and elsewhere, but perhaps you're missing the positives that they have provided. With an audience of 500 million+ users, features like Pages do not only let a company like Macy's interact with its customers. They let charities do so, as well, at virtually no cost. They let citizens organize, at virtually no cost, against their oppressive leaderships.

The Like button may or may not be a terror of tracking, but it lets people share knowledge faster and further than ever before. It lets you read that thing you never would have if you hadn't friended someone you don't really know that well two years ago. That article that sparked an idea that had lain dormant for months, maybe years, and finally came together.

You may not think Pages and the Like button have a “great capacity to change the world” (his definition of greatness in this article), but I hope you can see how he may think that is the case. Indeed, how many people may think so.

The same arguments that you make for Pages could be made for the so-called coupon startups and gaming startups he seems to deride:

Hypocritical much?

I think a lot of people who can't "create" greatness can still inspire it -- especially when you've got a high profile like him. Regardless of what's he's done, I'd rather he write something like that an inspire a couple people than do nothing. Who's to say that's not greatness in itself?

I also agree with what he's saying in general, so maybe I'm a bit biased.

I also agree with what he's saying in general, so maybe I'm a bit biased.

What he is saying is that he wishes his startup didn't have such a hard time retaining tech talent from going and doing their own start-up. It's amazing how we see the same evil bitching from these founders deceptively repackaged as something more noble.

Yeah it's tough to keep them working for you on your plantation when they have their own 40 acres and a mule.

Regardless of whether there's an ulterior motive for him writing the piece, I think it's still a good reminder for everyone.

Take the who and the why out of the equation here and you're left with a pretty sobering point - there are bigger problems to solve than figuring out how to make people pay for nonsense in flash games on Facebook (no disrespect to Zynga'ers).

Take the who and the why out of the equation

I actually disagree. Imagine someone saying "you suck as a human if you are working on _______". This piece is basically a softer version of that statement. Immediately, it makes you ask: who the heck are you to be saying this and what have you done?

And that's fine - I'm not affirming or denying that he's done anything meaningful. That's why I'm saying you should try to look at his statement by filtering out who is saying it, what they've done, and what their ulterior motive might be.

Does anyone disagree that there are bigger problems to be solved than are currently being tackled by many startups? Not that most startups can tackle the daunting task of solving some of these problems themselves (at least, not without some serious IP and capital), but it's useful for a bit of perspective. Are we really solving some fundamental problem in the world by perfecting daily deals? No - it's silly to argue otherwise.

"Are we really solving some fundemental problem by letting college kids at elite universities poke each other?" --your line of argument applied to facebook in its early days

And? Do you see me touting Facebook as the company that will save the world?

You stated that you agreed with the message in the post, which included:

But the 100th engineer at Facebook had a greater positive impact on the world

Ok, allow me to clarify my position: I agree with notion that there are more important problems to work on than many we see startups pursuing.

If you had to pick a primary point being conveyed by the column, would you pick A) there are many important problems that startups could be working on or B) the 100th Facebook engineer made a more meaningful impact on the world than some popular startup founders? I chose option A.

Regardless, you seem content to argue with me because I choose to acknowledge his point. I don't care who he is, what he's worked on, or what other credentials he has - I agree with his core message, that we should choose to work on bigger ideas that change the world, not meaningless ones.

As an aside, I do think it can be necessary to go with smaller ideas in order to cash out and pursue greater ones. Case in point: Elon Musk; while PayPal wasn't necessarily a small thing, it pales in comparison to his current endeavors, which I believe will have a long-lasting impact on the world.

Fair, but just like the twitter dude who founded banksimple, it's a hell of a lot easier for them to say, "Hey, you guys should be focused on making the world a better place instead of making bank" after, well, having made their own money. He/bank simple dude aren't choosing between having lots of disposable income and working on a startup that matters, whatever his definition of matter may be.

   Yet I fear that our industry is squandering its opportunity and its talent. In
   companies large and small, great minds are devoting their lives to endeavors that,
   even if wildly successful, fail to do great things.

That quote is a little hard to stomach from someone who presumably will never again worry about making rent or paying for a college education for a child, etc. The rise of the lean startup -- what Ries, Blank, and even people like patio11 talk about -- is much more likely to do very well for the founders than being an employee at a change the world company. So I kind of feel like the employees / potential employees are being sold a line of crap by people who want them to make decisions contrary to their own financial interests.

That's a fair point. Mine was simply to point out that there was an idea that resonated with me, regardless of whether that point is muddled by hypocrisy.

Importantly, facebook itself didn't launch to "do great things", quite the opposite.

Totally agreed. This is a bunch of rhetoric coming from someone who has no business telling other startups that what they're doing isn't important enough. Every word in that post is written with a hint of "At Asana we're doing amazing world-changing things, and your shitty startup isn't". And guess what, Asana isn't doing anything important either. Asana is adding social networking features to a chat app for business right in the middle of a Social Network bubble.

The reality is unless you're curing cancer, building a space station or cold fusion reactor, chances are you aren't doing anything all that significant in the long term history of mankind.

Mr. Rosenstein can come down off his high horse now.

When I first read this piece, I was shaking my head "yes!"... Then I read what Asana actually DOES... <sigh>

So I re-read it, and my takeaway was "Hey googlers, come work for us, you'll have a bigger impact".

I was reminded of the awful quote I heard recently: "The best minds of my generation are being wasted trying to figure out how to get people to click on ads".

I had forgotten about that quote, so I dug up the article:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/why-this-tech-...

Good call.

Solving the talent dilution is as simple as paying the talent a ridiculous salary, and/or giving the talent work they enjoy.

Getting by in the US is incredibly easy for a programmer, especially young ones that live off virtually nothing. I can freelance for a week and live a month without a problem. I don't really need more money.

Unfortunately, my work options are usually narrowed down to these: 1. Freelance a little on things I'm not wildly interested in, but save enough money to spend the majority of time working on something I actually like.

2. Spend all my work time on things I'm not wildly interested in and have some more money, but nothing ridiculous.

Maybe I'm weird but given the choice, I'm going with #1 every time.

However, there are two circumstances where I might end up working for someone else: 1. Give me ridiculous compensation 2. Let me work on something I want to work on

Paying a ridiculous salary is easy in a lot of cases, but nobody ever does that (and honestly, I don't know why).

The better option, IMO, is just letting people work on what they want to work on. I don't understand why companies are so awful at describing the positions they have available. If you have positions that are appealing to work on, I'm sure you can find people to do it. If not, whip out the checkbook, or expect poor quality talent.

Having interviewed with Asana for the Product Engineering role, I could say I still have no idea what I would have been building had I gotten the job. This made it impossible for me to be excited, I was running purely off the fact that "product" was in the title. Luckily, they had #1 (private chefs and a normal work day sold me), but I imagine they want people excited about the work too.

Tell me what you're doing, let me understand how I can help, that will make me more excited.

Oh for goodness sakes. I'm sick of this woe-is-me, I-wasn't-around-for-the-90s, entrepreneurship is killing Silicon Valley bs.

It is hard for Facebook to get an engineer. It is hard for Google to get an engineer. It is not particularly hard for a reasonably funded startup to get an engineer.

I have a startup in San Francisco. When I post job opening, I get 50+ applications. When I email my network, I pick up even more. Because I'm picky, it probably takes 100 resumés before I find someone I'm looking for. However, there are plenty of people out there that, with six months of training, could easily meet your needs. Unfortunately as a small startup, I can't really afford that. Facebook can. They choose not to.

Further, I would like to point out the difference between doing Big Things and doing Great Things. I was the Chief Architect of Napster. I did Big Things. Were they Great Things? Probably not. Is the Facebook Like button or Facebook Pages a Great Thing? Almost certainly not.

These posts are nothing short of slimy and the authors should be called out for their scumbag moment. I am tempted to call them outright scumbags but I'll give them the benefit of doubt for now.

Personally, I have no problem if they believe that more of their talent should stick around and not do startups of their own. But if that is your position, just state it. Don't wrap it around a seemingly noble message like "do great" when in fact your real message is "fuck I hate these programmers who just wanna do their own thing and not work for me."

If you're interested in changing the world, it's worth considering the path of "make lots of money, then spend it on something good". Check out http://80000hours.org/ and Jaan Tallinn's talk about how to make an impact, http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2011/10/jaan-...

Translation: My start-up is having a really hard time retaining tech talent and keeping them from doing their own start-up.

It's amazing how we see the same evil bitching from these founders deceptively repackaged as something more noble. First from Sean Parker, now this guy.

When I initially read that article, it really rubbed off on me the wrong way. But then I read all the comments on it and seeing friends and others comment/repost it on FB as well and they were all positive comments fully agreeing with the author. I thought maybe I just didn't get it or something.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that feels the way I do about the article. It seems too much preaching and there's a sense of elitism in the post. It seems hypocritical that the author left Facebook (where by some standards he was doing great things and making a huge impact), to co-found his startup, Asana. Like others in the comments here, I agree that if this message came from someone else, doing something different (i.e. someone doing research in curing cancer) it would mean a lot more. Nothing wrong with Asana, and I think it's a good product, but it's not doing great things in the world and changing it amazingly for the better.

A wake-up-message that gets published every few years. Here's the last one:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10045321-36.html

Still relevant, though.

For most people, our options in life are: 1) Being stuck in a dead-end, soul-crushing day job 2) Being able to have freedom to do your own gig.

When those are your options, getting that freedom is your first priority. You don't worry about whether you're going to benefit the world in a positive way. You worry about that later.

I would argue you can't even focus in any meaningful way on great things when the thought of being chained to a corporate job for 40+ years is on your mind.

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