After disappearing from the internet for the past few years for my post-college all-consuming job, upon emerging I used Facebook to reconnect and figure out everything that I’d missed (who knew non-traders have their own form of colocation except they call it peering?). I put up my new website and integrated it with Facebook, which turned out to be awesome because everyone can share and comment on posts using their Facebook identities.
During my years invisible to the internet, I considered myself elevated above those who were on Facebook hours a day (I have never owned a television and went years without internet in my Chicago apartments because
1) I was too lazy to get it installed and rationalized the diminishing returns of getting it installed because I would be moving to a new apartment in x days anyway (I moved every year). I use this rationale to get out of many annoying tasks, but incidentally used the same rationale to persuade (other) people to do tasks ASAP. Weird, huh?
2) I was always at work and hooked into the internet anyway, but not browsing for anything unrelated to work obviously. During my no-tv no-internet lifestyle, I mainly read my kindle constantly and used my phone for email, but it was a really old phone so I couldn’t download most apps onto it.
3) My computer was really old so I couldn’t download most things (like Chrome) onto it and my trader workstation had spoiled me for any inferior setup: I needed my ergonomic keyboard, my wireless ergonomic mouse, and eventually my gamer keypad controller. Interfacing with a flat laptop keyboard became intolerably suboptimal).
During those post-college work years, I viewed Facebook as a time sink and smugly considered myself superior for using it rarely, but now I think it’s a tool that makes it easy to connect with your friends, to share information and form groups. A lot of the tech innovations are like ways to waste time, but some of them also fundamentally have real value and we shouldn’t be afraid to admit that, which is part of why I started trying twitter etc.
When I got back to the world, I asked my friends to tell me everything I’d missed on the internet, and it turns out some stuff had happened without me noticing- for example, social games. I tried my first ipad/iphone social game DrawSomething at Yinmeng’s recommendation and played it a lot for 2 weeks before getting tired of the same words while moving on to sketch club as an outlet for my drawing needs instead.
After visiting Zynga I decided I did need to check out what this whole Facebook app thing was about considering it’s a bazillion dollar industry (this is the same reason if it’s ever revealed I’ve looked at porn or done anything otherwise questionable- purely for research and educational purposes), so in addition to testing some games I read The Facebook Effect, the contents of which are the topic of the rest of the post. Apparently while I was invisible online, Zuck was off executing on his vision of Facebook as a platform, an ambition that impresses me because he had this idea back in the day when few companies had that vision.
Although it’s possible that hindsight and the human instinct for narrative spins lucky randomness into deliberate strategic decisions, Zuck certainly talks and acts like a visionary, confident leader. He says, “We can make the world a more open place… Let’s build something that has lasting cultural value and try to take over the world.” Repeatedly refusing to sell the company, first for tens of millions, later for billions and tens of billions, Zuck comes off as passionate about the project, really believing his ideology, not caring about money, and thinking extremely long term.
Unlike some “serial entrepreneurs” whose goals are to create a company with the intent of getting acquired, Zuckerberg, an idealist (one anecdote that shocked me was that Zuck was found crying during a dinner with VC’s because he felt so guilty about considering their superior offer after giving his word to another VC- when was the last time you cried out of guilt? When was the last time anyone cried out of guilt regarding a business decision? Did he react like this because he was so young, such a crybaby, or such a dreamer? I think it’s got to be because he’s so idealistic, which is sort of unbelievable but somehow to me the most believable possibility), really does not want to sell and took time to conceive of a principled business philosophy and worldview. For example, he said he “wanted outside apps to help keep Facebook honest by forcing it to make its own remaining applications good enough to compete successfully.” Welcoming competition seems like a really big picture, long term, global-optima seeking view that I don’t hear many other CEOs talk about. Is it a necessary cognitive bias for a successful leader to be sure he’s working on something fundamentally good and world changing, or is a strong ideology what makes a leader successful in the first place?
Zuck also expressed insights into the tech industry and its interplay with human psychology. He says [Facebook] is about people; Google is about data; Facebook is “a technology company. Myspace is a media company.” Insisting Facebook is a utility, “Zuckerberg… realized that Facebook wasn’t a tool for keeping track of news made somewhere else. It was a tool for making news.” Young men are always the revolutionaries- I’m very curious to see what happens as time passes and Facebook has even more success.
While “The Social Network” dwells on interpersonal dramas, The Facebook Effect doesn’t really talk about that, instead explaining some of the conditions and strategy surrounding Facebook’s success:
-“Facebook’s ultimate success owes a lot to the fact that it began at college. That’s where people’s social networks are densest and where they generally socialize more vigorously than at any other time in their lives.”
-“The Harvard connection makes a product less suspect.”
-Immediate popularity because “Harvard students are preternaturally status-conscious.”
-They were able to roll out iteratively and incrementally bc each college was its own network, allowing them to wait to make sure they had enough servers etc before rolling out to another school and taking on more users, thus assisting in avoiding getting Friendster-ed.
-They employed a peer pressure “surround strategy:” “if another social network had begun to take root…. thefacebook would open not only there but at as many other campuses as possible in the immediate vicinity.”
-To ensure demand, “When the number on the waiting list passed 20 percent of so of the student body, thefacebook would turn that school on.”
Because this book was published in 2010- forever ago in internet years, it doesn’t include some of the more recent developments, and a lot of questions remain to be answered. While “a trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising,” I want to learn more about how Facebook will revolutionize advertising beyond engagement ads. The tagline is that Adwords “fulfill demand,” whereas Facebook “generates demand,” so will the people who generate the demand (the other users) get incorporated into and paid by the model in a new way? What developments have occurred since 2010 that the book doesn’t cover?
Another question arises on accessing content. As more and more content becomes user generated with privacy settings, how will Google access, search, and distribute this information? Will Google integrate with Facebook and show different search results depending on which friends’ content is accessible? (Also, how can Facebook help resurrect Microsoft from obsolescence? I don’t dare short Microsoft while Facebook is on its team.)
Much of the author’s info comes from interviews, as evidenced by his erroneously calling a drug “Provisual” instead of “Provigil”- a mistake that would most likely occur from confusing the spoken word (Don’t ask how I know about Provigil, a drug I would not recommend to anyone since you still feel sleepy- you just can’t fall asleep, so it’s worse than useless for keeping your brain functional for higher order tasks). All of the remarks were positive about Facebook, so the book may be somewhat biased.
Nevertheless, you leave the work feeling impressed by the success of the company, acknowledging that it has already changed society and social interaction, and wondering what will happen next. Will Facebook’s currency take over? Will Facebook be the new basis for society and government? It also raises philosophical questions, like do you think it’s true that “a more transparent world create a better-governed world and a fairer world?”
Zuck says, “You have one identity… the days of you having a different image for your work friends or coworkers … are probably coming to an end.” While Facebook does allow you to only share info with people you friend, etc, Facebook does push transparency as a core value. Should transparency be a value? Is openness really optimal? Do people only have one identity? Demand for Linked-in would suggest people want to have multiple identities, but is that an outdated cultural idea, along with privacy? Will the single profile enter our collective consciousness and cause us to view work as just another attribute of our unified identities?
The internet is changing human relationships, intelligence, society, government, culture, and Facebook is determined to be a driver of that change. On the internet, we are all created equal (more so than offline at least), and if the most popular website Facebook has taken over the internet, then are we all citizens of Facebook? Has Facebook already allowed us to unify as a species and become truly global and we (I?) just haven’t realized it yet? Facebook started as a model of real life social relationships, and quickly evolved into a real world where social relationships are created and lived. I cannot wait for this Facebook IPO!
Re: Zuck saying "we can make the world a more open place" um if that's the goal, then why does FB own my data and obfuscate what they do with it and how they manage it through an arcane privacy policy? Why is it so hard to export ALL my data (whereas GOOG has a dedicated team that focuses on making all data from all apps exportable). Why aren't they making the data accessible to google? It's clearly not about altruism; it's about competition and owning the eyeballs and user data. The 'open' graph and opening the platform to 3rd party apps wasn't a selfless move welcoming competition. It was a smart business decision. Just as AMZN saw what could be possible with making S3/EC2 the platform for things like dropbox and web services, and AAPL saw that it could make the iphone a platform for apps, FB saw that there was more money in opening up the platform to 3rd party developers. It simply raises the wall of the walled garden that is enacted around your product. Makes it even harder for users to leave your domain. FB believes the future of search is asking your social network instead of the page ranked entire internet. Which has the advantages of being less noisy, but also introduces filter bubble. Both approaches have challenges ahead.
MSFT is obsolete. They're already dead for all intensive purposes. The future will be fought over by AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and FB.
Also, I'm not defending GOOG, they have their own privacy policy issues too. And I respect Zuck/FB for tremendous execution. I just take issue with your belief that it comes from an altruistic desire to do good for the world. That may be a secondary reason at best, but they want to make money and compete with the above corps. As JP Morgan once said, every man has 2 reasons for doing something: a good reason, and the real reason.
Re: provigil, it's interesting, different people have different results (as is the case with most drugs that act on the central nervous system). Some people are quite happy with it (and true narcoleptics often find it effective). It seems like it's one of the unspoken rules that many startups, VC, etc. in the valley take it pretty regularly to maintain insane schedules. Not sure how sustainable that is, but of course it was originally designed and found quite effective for fighter pilots on long missions.
I think you're right- they should make it easy to export data if they really believe Mark's goal. Probably the other people who run it view the data (correctly) as their edge that they can sell to advertisers, not sure why not allowing the user to download their own data would mess anything up, although maybe it's so entwined with others' data that it could be messy from a privacy perspective?
Before reading this book I had no reason any of these companies cared about doing good- companies probably cannot care about doing good, only individuals can care. I'm not sure if Mark actually believes this or if people begin to get caught up in their own spins after a while. His main trait that impressed me was the long term view- he repeatedly refused to sell/monetize because he had a pure vision that facebook should be fun and clean. People offered him a lot of money to show various kinds of ads and he kept saying no. Whether he did this because he thought it'd ultimately lead to more money and user base or because he had some purist view of his product is unknowable. Based on his decisions so far, what do you think is likely to happen with the privacy stuff and the data they own- how could they use it for evil and how could they use it for good?
Totally agree on "The future will be fought over by AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and FB." I own all those stocks except FB and I can't wait to get some FB stock! I'm scared to short MSFT. Companies can operate in zombie mode for a really long time, plus it's possible that at some point they randomly have a revival- they did come up with an interesting panorama app and who knows- what if they merge w FB or something? FB uses Bing, after all.
Yeah, I believe that one critically important theme of the future of big data is the immense value of unique and curated data. People will pay for it and you can build lots of things on top of it. That goes for everything from financial/market data to social graphs to who's shopping at best buy and what if anything they bought, etc. GOOG not having access to the growing body of unique data inside FB's garden scares them (and rightly so). Hence the G+ push.
Beware the hindsight bias on the long view. People now call Andrew Mason an idiot for not selling Groupon when he could. If things had turned out differently for Groupon, we would be admiring him in the same way for holding out. That being said, I do admire the long view in entrepreneurs and do believe it's a good sign that they are committed, personally invested, and personally believe in what they are doing.
The evil vs. good question is interesting. I think technology in general can be used for evil or for good (like really any human invention). To the degree that they are adding value to some (most?) of the user experiences (OMG, how did you KNOW I needed a new vacuum cleaner? how delightful!) some people may see helpfulness where others see intrusion. I think in part it will be driven by what we as people want. Do we want our friends to help us figure out what song to listen to next? Do we want to trust and confide in our friends for *some* decisions? (it's interesting to think about what kinds of questions you'd be fine asking your social network in public vs. the more 'embarrassing' goog searches that most people want to keep anonymous). Or as you said, are we headed towards a convergence of public/private/multiple identities. I think there's also some sort of unacknowledged debit/credit spread fee structure going on with FB transactions too. (bear with me, just thought of this analogy but I'm going with it). As in, users 'freely' share the social information in return for 'free' info about others, etc. But you are actually paying to post the social information liquidity in explicit terms (bc FB can monetize it in multiple ways) and implicit terms (subjective utility of lost privacy). But then credits always accrue on the FB side…
I can't take all the credit for the big4 – that was a cover wired magazine article not too long ago. Speaking of FB using bing, that article also made me realize more the game theory that is going on between those corps. Like AAPL using YHOO search as default on iPhone as of one iOS release, just to screw with GOOG. FB hates GOOG so of course they are happy to partner with MSFT in the short term to help balance the power struggle. Basically the wired point was that sometimes these companies get into competitors lines of business just to distract them and force them to divert resources to fight it off and sometimes it's a real legitimate push into the space. And sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
Yeah I didn't say short MSFT, but it sounds like we can agree on no postion 🙂 I'm not so sure about buying into FB at a $100B valuation…But you may prove me wrong =)
Nancy Hua: you can download your data on https://www.facebook.com/settings (link on the bottom says'Download a copy of your Facebook data.')
So, Racy He got to you on that car ride, eh?
Also, from someone who works in a semi-old fashioned style business environment, I see a lot more of Microsoft making money (OS, word, outlook, etc.) than anyone else. I assume that isn't an ideal long term situation, but there is a ton of money in selling to businesses, rather than people, and Microsoft is still dominating that.
Also, there are still plenty of people who only use facebook to a limited extent (I basically read statuses, and occasionally look up birthdays, and I guess comment here). I tend to sign in to things with google (or a unique username/password), and I don't really use FB apps. Not sure how common that is, but I wouldn't say facebook dominates the internet.
Do you guys use google plus? Does that have hope of gaining ground? Is it any way less or more evil than Facebook ?
Jmn: I shouldn't be talking up my intention bc I don't want you bidding it up while I'm trying to buy! Or maybe I actually intend to short it so you moving money around is all part of my grand plan…
@ray did you write up that function just now as a result of this dialogue? Admit it!
Nancy Hua yes. 3 hours to conceive of, build, test, and deploy a feature to all our servers 🙂
Tony Falk I don't play FB games or click on the ads but it's a big part of my social interaction and thus life. I think its future is just beginning unless Google + somehow catches on.
MSFT seems to be in the past in a lot of ways- how can charging for software (and for search??) be sustainable in a world where all this stuff is free?
https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=116481065103985 This functionality has been around for over a year, I believe…
Ray C. He Don't pretend- the book said people make live changes to the site all the time
I don't really use google plus, but I used to use the social aspects of Google Reader all the time (and I'm mad they took them away, but basically just stopped using social media to share stuff online, rather than move to G+ or facebook or linkedin or whatever).
As for the microsoft this, what do you mean where everything is free? I doubt they'll win in search (which can be add supported), but in terms of selling software, like word and outlook, in addition to the windows operating system, I think having a secure (business don't think open source stuff is secure) and ad free (which is how things are free, when you say that, I think) is a workable business model. Ad supported enterprise software doesn't make sense, especially for people in big business (my time is apparently worth more than $300 an hour, and I'm at the low end of PE/Venture/high-tech/etc. business people in most of what I do).
Not that I'm pro-microsoft (we represent Apple and Google, so cognitive dissonance requires that I think poorly of them to stay employed), but I wouldn't say they're outdated or likely to fade. Plus, they're diversified far more than the others (except maybe Google, which I think at this point owns or is trying to buy every company).
Tony Falk The only MSFT thing I use is excel, and at some point the Google Spreadsheet stuff will probably dominate that as well. I already use google docs for everything else. It's true that a behemoth has the ability to enter a lot of markets cheaply- I saw MSFT had copied the apple store- so maybe they will add some value.
I didn't know you guys repped these big tech companies. How come you don't know about term sheets etc for my angel investments then!
But lots of businesses use Word (and really don't trust "Free", plus if you're doing complicated word processing, word really is better, at least for now). And of course, they almost all use the microsoft OS. Microsoft also sells phones and the XBox, and probably tons of other stuff (like you said, they can enter lots of markets cheaply), and owns a ton of patents/copyrights.
And we don't do terms sheets or whatever (corporate stuff) for big tech companies, just IP work. We do corporate work (although I mostly don't), but it is for mostly non-tech companies (lots of PE/VC firms, hedge funds, healthcare companies, colleges and universities, and I'm sure lots more I don't know about).
Tony Falk What are developments in patent law? Do you read Mark Cuban's blog? He and some other bloggers have been talking about that topic a lot but I can't tell if anything's actually happening or if they're just complaining.
Almost everyone I know is off windows. Change is slower in corporations. I actually like windows OS on avg. But how can nonfree compete w free? I guess I do use iphones instead of android even though iphone and its apps are probably more expensive, but I think that's an ascetic/brand thing. Does MSFT have a strong brand? I feel like their brand is not too good (those Bing commercials confuse me) whereas Apple is like a status symbol (I especially noticed this in Asia).
What developments do you mean? There was a recent patent reform bill that passes last fall, but my guess would be someone like Cuban would be talking about patent thickets and trolls (making it hard to do stuff without potentially getting sued). I'm probably too inside to comment on larger trends without going into minutiae.
Everyone you know in their personal lives, right? But businesses are more concerned with stability/safety. And the free/price difference is less of a big deal if you're confidant that price MS charges for its software (which is way less than they make for a few hours of my billed time, at least in big law firms) will result in improved productivity. I think they dohave a strong brand for OS/productivity software (what is any other companies excel called?).
Apple is a status symbol because it is focused on private consumption, where people are showing off products, which doesn't really apply to enterprise software.
Tony Falk I think he's talking about the thickets and trolls. I started watching Shark Tank (great show! I only like it when Cuban is on though. He likes to speak in funny sweeping metaphors and he's from my high school!) and patents are always a topic there.
Yeah Excel is way ahead- that's still what I use. Is that stuff where they make most of their $? They better keep innovating faster than GOOG etc if they want to keep dominating
I think a case can be made that MSFT still delivers desktop value for enterprises (desktop MSFT workstations are probably not disappearing overnight). But the argument can no longer be made that they deliver increasing value in the enterprise space. Who do you know that is adopting a Windows Server, SQL Server, or Sharepoint back end? The only piece that an argument can be made for is Exchange server, which is still the dominant email platform and probably will be for some time (which I also use for my personal email). All of the serious transactional database backends that power the web are on linux/unix. And remember that MSFT historically made much more on enterprise software than consumer. I think at one point at least Office was the biggest revenue generator (but from enterprise sales). So yeah, they're entrenched to some degree, but I'm seeing at best an argument for a dividend paying stock, but not a growth stock. Real innovation will likely happen elsewhere (although they are spending a lot of money on the research dept – it's interesting to think about what money can and cannot buy you in research and what we're missing from the pure research focused labs of the last century).
Heh, I like Cuban's shark tank show too. But if you read his stuff on HFT, it's clear he doesn't know much outside of his core domain.
John Mark Nickels To be fair, a dividend paying stock is not "dead, for all intensive (sic) purposes." And I think its difficult to say if they're going to continue to innovate, given their secrecy. Its hardly fair to say that all the sell is enterprise software too (I don't know what the value of the xBox is, but my guess would be huge), without mentioning that Apple basically only sell hardware (which right now has a cult following, but isn't necessarily a great suggestion of future innovation), and Facebook basically is entirely the one site. Right now it may look like they're not making the same mistakes as MySpace, AOL, whatever, but they're pretty un-diversified for such a large valuation company, no? I should mention, I don't really know anything about financial stuff, but it seems that there might be some issues with the reasoning about which tech companies are going to excel.
John Mark Nickels Yeah Cuban hates HFT- he's significantly more educated and intelligent and influential than any random person, so if he hates HFT what hope is there for the rest of the population? He has a confident, dogmatic, abstract way of talking- I wonder if his thoughts are also like that.
Nancy Hua yeah, that's a good point. I have more evolving thoughts on HFT too, but that's as far as I want to go on this public forum with that. I'll save it for next time I see you!
Re: Zuck saying "we can make the world a more open place" um if that's the goal, then why does FB own my data and obfuscate what they do with it and how they manage it through an arcane privacy policy? Why is it so hard to export ALL my data (whereas GOOG has a dedicated team that focuses on making all data from all apps exportable). Why aren't they making the data accessible to google? It's clearly not about altruism; it's about competition and owning the eyeballs and user data. The 'open' graph and opening the platform to 3rd party apps wasn't a selfless move welcoming competition. It was a smart business decision. Just as AMZN saw what could be possible with making S3/EC2 the platform for things like dropbox and web services, and AAPL saw that it could make the iphone a platform for apps, FB saw that there was more money in opening up the platform to 3rd party developers. It simply raises the wall of the walled garden that is enacted around your product. Makes it even harder for users to leave your domain. FB believes the future of search is asking your social network instead of the page ranked entire internet. Which has the advantages of being less noisy, but also introduces filter bubble. Both approaches have challenges ahead.
MSFT is obsolete. They're already dead for all intensive purposes. The future will be fought over by AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and FB.
Also, I'm not defending GOOG, they have their own privacy policy issues too. And I respect Zuck/FB for tremendous execution. I just take issue with your belief that it comes from an altruistic desire to do good for the world. That may be a secondary reason at best, but they want to make money and compete with the above corps. As JP Morgan once said, every man has 2 reasons for doing something: a good reason, and the real reason.
Re: provigil, it's interesting, different people have different results (as is the case with most drugs that act on the central nervous system). Some people are quite happy with it (and true narcoleptics often find it effective). It seems like it's one of the unspoken rules that many startups, VC, etc. in the valley take it pretty regularly to maintain insane schedules. Not sure how sustainable that is, but of course it was originally designed and found quite effective for fighter pilots on long missions.
I think you're right- they should make it easy to export data if they really believe Mark's goal. Probably the other people who run it view the data (correctly) as their edge that they can sell to advertisers, not sure why not allowing the user to download their own data would mess anything up, although maybe it's so entwined with others' data that it could be messy from a privacy perspective?
Before reading this book I had no reason any of these companies cared about doing good- companies probably cannot care about doing good, only individuals can care. I'm not sure if Mark actually believes this or if people begin to get caught up in their own spins after a while. His main trait that impressed me was the long term view- he repeatedly refused to sell/monetize because he had a pure vision that facebook should be fun and clean. People offered him a lot of money to show various kinds of ads and he kept saying no. Whether he did this because he thought it'd ultimately lead to more money and user base or because he had some purist view of his product is unknowable. Based on his decisions so far, what do you think is likely to happen with the privacy stuff and the data they own- how could they use it for evil and how could they use it for good?
Totally agree on "The future will be fought over by AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and FB." I own all those stocks except FB and I can't wait to get some FB stock! I'm scared to short MSFT. Companies can operate in zombie mode for a really long time, plus it's possible that at some point they randomly have a revival- they did come up with an interesting panorama app and who knows- what if they merge w FB or something? FB uses Bing, after all.
Yeah, I believe that one critically important theme of the future of big data is the immense value of unique and curated data. People will pay for it and you can build lots of things on top of it. That goes for everything from financial/market data to social graphs to who's shopping at best buy and what if anything they bought, etc. GOOG not having access to the growing body of unique data inside FB's garden scares them (and rightly so). Hence the G+ push.
Beware the hindsight bias on the long view. People now call Andrew Mason an idiot for not selling Groupon when he could. If things had turned out differently for Groupon, we would be admiring him in the same way for holding out. That being said, I do admire the long view in entrepreneurs and do believe it's a good sign that they are committed, personally invested, and personally believe in what they are doing.
The evil vs. good question is interesting. I think technology in general can be used for evil or for good (like really any human invention). To the degree that they are adding value to some (most?) of the user experiences (OMG, how did you KNOW I needed a new vacuum cleaner? how delightful!) some people may see helpfulness where others see intrusion. I think in part it will be driven by what we as people want. Do we want our friends to help us figure out what song to listen to next? Do we want to trust and confide in our friends for *some* decisions? (it's interesting to think about what kinds of questions you'd be fine asking your social network in public vs. the more 'embarrassing' goog searches that most people want to keep anonymous). Or as you said, are we headed towards a convergence of public/private/multiple identities. I think there's also some sort of unacknowledged debit/credit spread fee structure going on with FB transactions too. (bear with me, just thought of this analogy but I'm going with it). As in, users 'freely' share the social information in return for 'free' info about others, etc. But you are actually paying to post the social information liquidity in explicit terms (bc FB can monetize it in multiple ways) and implicit terms (subjective utility of lost privacy). But then credits always accrue on the FB side…
I can't take all the credit for the big4 – that was a cover wired magazine article not too long ago. Speaking of FB using bing, that article also made me realize more the game theory that is going on between those corps. Like AAPL using YHOO search as default on iPhone as of one iOS release, just to screw with GOOG. FB hates GOOG so of course they are happy to partner with MSFT in the short term to help balance the power struggle. Basically the wired point was that sometimes these companies get into competitors lines of business just to distract them and force them to divert resources to fight it off and sometimes it's a real legitimate push into the space. And sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
Yeah I didn't say short MSFT, but it sounds like we can agree on no postion 🙂 I'm not so sure about buying into FB at a $100B valuation…But you may prove me wrong =)
Nancy Hua: you can download your data on https://www.facebook.com/settings (link on the bottom says'Download a copy of your Facebook data.')
So, Racy He got to you on that car ride, eh?
Also, from someone who works in a semi-old fashioned style business environment, I see a lot more of Microsoft making money (OS, word, outlook, etc.) than anyone else. I assume that isn't an ideal long term situation, but there is a ton of money in selling to businesses, rather than people, and Microsoft is still dominating that.
Also, there are still plenty of people who only use facebook to a limited extent (I basically read statuses, and occasionally look up birthdays, and I guess comment here). I tend to sign in to things with google (or a unique username/password), and I don't really use FB apps. Not sure how common that is, but I wouldn't say facebook dominates the internet.
New Caption to your picture: Nancy delivers praise to theFacebook.com, using her praise fist.
New Caption to your picture: Nancy delivers praise to theFacebook.com, using her praise fist.
You know, because of twitter and stuff, your blog posts show up like, 4 times in facebook (but thankfully only once in Google Reader, where I consume my internet).
Do you guys use google plus? Does that have hope of gaining ground? Is it any way less or more evil than Facebook ?
Jmn: I shouldn't be talking up my intention bc I don't want you bidding it up while I'm trying to buy! Or maybe I actually intend to short it so you moving money around is all part of my grand plan…
@ray did you write up that function just now as a result of this dialogue? Admit it!
Nancy Hua yes. 3 hours to conceive of, build, test, and deploy a feature to all our servers 🙂
Tony Falk I don't play FB games or click on the ads but it's a big part of my social interaction and thus life. I think its future is just beginning unless Google + somehow catches on.
MSFT seems to be in the past in a lot of ways- how can charging for software (and for search??) be sustainable in a world where all this stuff is free?
https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=116481065103985 This functionality has been around for over a year, I believe…
Ray C. He Don't pretend- the book said people make live changes to the site all the time
I don't really use google plus, but I used to use the social aspects of Google Reader all the time (and I'm mad they took them away, but basically just stopped using social media to share stuff online, rather than move to G+ or facebook or linkedin or whatever).
As for the microsoft this, what do you mean where everything is free? I doubt they'll win in search (which can be add supported), but in terms of selling software, like word and outlook, in addition to the windows operating system, I think having a secure (business don't think open source stuff is secure) and ad free (which is how things are free, when you say that, I think) is a workable business model. Ad supported enterprise software doesn't make sense, especially for people in big business (my time is apparently worth more than $300 an hour, and I'm at the low end of PE/Venture/high-tech/etc. business people in most of what I do).
Not that I'm pro-microsoft (we represent Apple and Google, so cognitive dissonance requires that I think poorly of them to stay employed), but I wouldn't say they're outdated or likely to fade. Plus, they're diversified far more than the others (except maybe Google, which I think at this point owns or is trying to buy every company).
Tony Falk The only MSFT thing I use is excel, and at some point the Google Spreadsheet stuff will probably dominate that as well. I already use google docs for everything else. It's true that a behemoth has the ability to enter a lot of markets cheaply- I saw MSFT had copied the apple store- so maybe they will add some value.
I didn't know you guys repped these big tech companies. How come you don't know about term sheets etc for my angel investments then!
But lots of businesses use Word (and really don't trust "Free", plus if you're doing complicated word processing, word really is better, at least for now). And of course, they almost all use the microsoft OS. Microsoft also sells phones and the XBox, and probably tons of other stuff (like you said, they can enter lots of markets cheaply), and owns a ton of patents/copyrights.
And we don't do terms sheets or whatever (corporate stuff) for big tech companies, just IP work. We do corporate work (although I mostly don't), but it is for mostly non-tech companies (lots of PE/VC firms, hedge funds, healthcare companies, colleges and universities, and I'm sure lots more I don't know about).
Tony Falk What are developments in patent law? Do you read Mark Cuban's blog? He and some other bloggers have been talking about that topic a lot but I can't tell if anything's actually happening or if they're just complaining.
Almost everyone I know is off windows. Change is slower in corporations. I actually like windows OS on avg. But how can nonfree compete w free? I guess I do use iphones instead of android even though iphone and its apps are probably more expensive, but I think that's an ascetic/brand thing. Does MSFT have a strong brand? I feel like their brand is not too good (those Bing commercials confuse me) whereas Apple is like a status symbol (I especially noticed this in Asia).
What developments do you mean? There was a recent patent reform bill that passes last fall, but my guess would be someone like Cuban would be talking about patent thickets and trolls (making it hard to do stuff without potentially getting sued). I'm probably too inside to comment on larger trends without going into minutiae.
Everyone you know in their personal lives, right? But businesses are more concerned with stability/safety. And the free/price difference is less of a big deal if you're confidant that price MS charges for its software (which is way less than they make for a few hours of my billed time, at least in big law firms) will result in improved productivity. I think they dohave a strong brand for OS/productivity software (what is any other companies excel called?).
Apple is a status symbol because it is focused on private consumption, where people are showing off products, which doesn't really apply to enterprise software.
Tony Falk I think he's talking about the thickets and trolls. I started watching Shark Tank (great show! I only like it when Cuban is on though. He likes to speak in funny sweeping metaphors and he's from my high school!) and patents are always a topic there.
Yeah Excel is way ahead- that's still what I use. Is that stuff where they make most of their $? They better keep innovating faster than GOOG etc if they want to keep dominating
I think a case can be made that MSFT still delivers desktop value for enterprises (desktop MSFT workstations are probably not disappearing overnight). But the argument can no longer be made that they deliver increasing value in the enterprise space. Who do you know that is adopting a Windows Server, SQL Server, or Sharepoint back end? The only piece that an argument can be made for is Exchange server, which is still the dominant email platform and probably will be for some time (which I also use for my personal email). All of the serious transactional database backends that power the web are on linux/unix. And remember that MSFT historically made much more on enterprise software than consumer. I think at one point at least Office was the biggest revenue generator (but from enterprise sales). So yeah, they're entrenched to some degree, but I'm seeing at best an argument for a dividend paying stock, but not a growth stock. Real innovation will likely happen elsewhere (although they are spending a lot of money on the research dept – it's interesting to think about what money can and cannot buy you in research and what we're missing from the pure research focused labs of the last century).
Heh, I like Cuban's shark tank show too. But if you read his stuff on HFT, it's clear he doesn't know much outside of his core domain.
John Mark Nickels To be fair, a dividend paying stock is not "dead, for all intensive (sic) purposes." And I think its difficult to say if they're going to continue to innovate, given their secrecy. Its hardly fair to say that all the sell is enterprise software too (I don't know what the value of the xBox is, but my guess would be huge), without mentioning that Apple basically only sell hardware (which right now has a cult following, but isn't necessarily a great suggestion of future innovation), and Facebook basically is entirely the one site. Right now it may look like they're not making the same mistakes as MySpace, AOL, whatever, but they're pretty un-diversified for such a large valuation company, no? I should mention, I don't really know anything about financial stuff, but it seems that there might be some issues with the reasoning about which tech companies are going to excel.
John Mark Nickels Yeah Cuban hates HFT- he's significantly more educated and intelligent and influential than any random person, so if he hates HFT what hope is there for the rest of the population? He has a confident, dogmatic, abstract way of talking- I wonder if his thoughts are also like that.
Nancy Hua yeah, that's a good point. I have more evolving thoughts on HFT too, but that's as far as I want to go on this public forum with that. I'll save it for next time I see you!
Re: Zuck saying “we can make the world a more open place” um if that’s the goal, then why does FB own my data and obfuscate what they do with it and how they manage it through an arcane privacy policy? Why is it so hard to export ALL my data (whereas GOOG has a dedicated team that focuses on making all data from all apps exportable). Why aren’t they making the data accessible to google? It’s clearly not about altruism; it’s about competition and owning the eyeballs and user data. The ‘open’ graph and opening the platform to 3rd party apps wasn’t a selfless move welcoming competition. It was a smart business decision. Just as AMZN saw what could be possible with making S3/EC2 the platform for things like dropbox and web services, and AAPL saw that it could make the iphone a platform for apps, FB saw that there was more money in opening up the platform to 3rd party developers. It simply raises the wall of the walled garden that is enacted around your product. Makes it even harder for users to leave your domain. FB believes the future of search is asking your social network instead of the page ranked entire internet. Which has the advantages of being less noisy, but also introduces filter bubble. Both approaches have challenges ahead.
MSFT is obsolete. They’re already dead for all intensive purposes. The future will be fought over by AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and FB.
Also, I’m not defending GOOG, they have their own privacy policy issues too. And I respect Zuck/FB for tremendous execution. I just take issue with your belief that it comes from an altruistic desire to do good for the world. That may be a secondary reason at best, but they want to make money and compete with the above corps. As JP Morgan once said, every man has 2 reasons for doing something: a good reason, and the real reason.
Re: provigil, it’s interesting, different people have different results (as is the case with most drugs that act on the central nervous system). Some people are quite happy with it (and true narcoleptics often find it effective). It seems like it’s one of the unspoken rules that many startups, VC, etc. in the valley take it pretty regularly to maintain insane schedules. Not sure how sustainable that is, but of course it was originally designed and found quite effective for fighter pilots on long missions.
New Caption to your picture: Nancy delivers praise to theFacebook.com, using her praise fist.