Comment by jsavimbi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsavimbi | Hacker News Reader

> I obviously needed to find someone technical to build the website, whether a freelancer or a cofounder.

Two jokers drop out of Goldman Sachs after a very short employment stint and hire some kid to build them a Facebook-based link-sharing game that targets emerging artists who have no money on the most garish website I've seen in quite some time and all he gets credited with is Lead Engineer. Not even Mr. Lead Engineer.

If non of the above doesn't embarrass you from turning down below-market deals with non-technical, inexperienced dreamers than nothing will. You need to recognize that your skill set is a finite commodity and the more time you spend on loser projects like these, the less in-demand you become. On the other hand, everyone knows that you'll do almost anything for cheap and you'll end up as the "coder dude" while the co-founders debate the merits of shitty internet-generated logotypes and branding as they plan their trips to SXSW.

tl;dr: Facebook-based link-sharing games are loser projects you need to avoid.

You have basically speculated the intentions of three people, the relationships they have with one another, and the outcome of their company all from this one line. Pretty impressive. It sounds like you've watched The Social Network one too many times. Constructive criticism would be of much more value.

Further, it seems you are completely ignorant to the contributions that skilled businesspeople can make to a startup, and instead you've opted to succumbing to the played-out stereotype of all finance guys preying on the young, nubile, innocent programmer who just wants to build things and do good for the world.

> 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?

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+.

haters gonna hate

> you are completely ignorant to the contributions that skilled businesspeople can make to a startup

In this case, can you please list the contributions that you think were made by the non-technical, strategic members of this team, and why you think they should share in 80% to 90% of the company vs. the 10% to 20% that our esteemed colleague who actually built the feature did?

And I call it a feature because a one-page that tracks your likes and posts them to your timeline making very basic use of Facebook's API is a feature, not a startup and it certainly isn't a going business concern that may turn a profit large enough to grow beyond its current MVP.

Bandpage.com very well may be a product, but what we have here is a very basic implementation of the API and nothing else aside from a horribly-conceived design. I won't even mention the uselessness of the so-called awards or even ask what prompted the use of Disqus for a Facebook app. I guess those were all consuming business decisions that took a year to hash out.

tl;dr: Exactly what value did the layperson add to this thing?

> tl;dr: Exactly what value did the layperson add to this thing?

They made it happen. The site would simply not exist were it not for the dream/passion/drive/whim/fantasy of the OP. In a more deserving context, the following story could be referenced :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus

That said, I'm not going to defend the merits of the site itself. It looks awful, adds seemingly no value and isn't something I would think of actually using.

However, we should not trivialize the act of bringing ideas to fruition. That's what it's all about, after all.

Until you learn one day that...

Goldman guy meets up buddies working M&A, figures a way to flip his stupid-co to Big Corp for millions.

This stuff happens every single day. Those crazy M&A deals you see of crappy startups? They are not typically done by nerd_programmer_dude.

I am all for extreme precaution when picking cofounders, especially nontech ones, but it also helps to know what the best non-tech cofounders are able to achieve.

Pretty much the most rash conclusion ever based off not much information. Why would a freelancer potentially getting paid to build something be wasting time with a project, even if the idea isn't solid? Not every coder out there is going to be hacking away creating the next Facebook or Twitter; some people like building skills, relationships, and getting paid while doing so.

I must disagree - not with the analysis but with the concept "you should avoid working for crazy assholes who demand blood while paying you peanuts". Now, I'm not going to say that living this life will make you happy, but you shouldn't think of it as "being exploited" you should think of it as "getting some other guys to pay for your education".

Technical skills in particular are in very high demand right now, higher even than six months ago, and they were astronomically high then. But it takes years to develop those skills, and taking uncomfortable, difficult work and living through it without visiting the psych ward (yeah, that's the hard part) is a notch on your belt.

tl;dr Life is a learning process, you can even learn from loser projects.

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