Writing style is important when trying to persuade. But for the discerning reader looking for facts, content is what counts.
The top post shifts the focus from a blogger's (Greenspan's) account of his dealings with Mark Zuckerberg to "founders guilt".
And this comment is now addressed to the relative merits of Facebook.
The discussion moved from discussing Greenspan's account to discussing founder's guilt and the merits of social networking. How does this happen?
Those topics are not the point of Greenspan's post.
It's a simple tale of how one founder treated someone else, from whom he took advice and ideas.
It's a tale that's familiar (perhaps painfully familiar to some), because we've heard others tell it before as it also happened to them.
Keep changing the subject. Or trying to justify how Zuckerberg treated people by looking at the end result (which no one denies was due in part to great luck).
By all means do what Zuckerberg did and build something big. But don't screw other people over the way he did, call users "dumb fucks" and disregard their privacy as a trivial matter because you think that's a prerequisite to success. It isn't.
(except I think it's quite possible for someone to do what's been done with Facebook without also being morally bankrupt)
But is the rest of the comment an overstatement?
Also, you forgot to mention great marketing. In the IM's I believe both of them at one point agree that great visionary ideas, no matter how well they are executed, (alas) do not market themselves.
I was not trying to bait you into a trap by mentioning gambling. I only wish to point out that the choice to take a term from the gambling industry (one that profits from an addiction?) might be interesting. It might be suggestive. Or it might be pure coincidence. But it's an interesting choice.
You have mentioned "the data" a few times. May we have a source?
The stock price is an indication of Zynga's popularity with Wall Street. It has no bearing necessarily on what corporalagumbo is saying. And I never suggested it did. I mentioned it because it's one thing a casual observer (e.g. me) might follow, along with their disclosures to the SEC.
Yes, fads have a certain lifetime. There is a long list of fad websites that shows this.
I think the comparisons to SpaceX and Tesla are strange in terms of what those companies are _producing_ vis-a-vis a social networking website, but that's just me. If you see them as comparable base on what's being produced, carry on.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
Let's assume the term whale is the same one that is used in casinos.
Do you believe that gambling is not an addiction?
I will defer to your knowledge on the history of online gaming. I'm not a gamer.
However I'm not sure you are doing much to advance the idea that Zynga is not making its money from capitalizing on addictive behavior that rises to the level of being unhealthy. Is that what you are saying?
That seems to be what the other commenter is arguing: the business relies on cultivating an (unhealthy) addiction. It seems like a simple notion. Can you prove him wrong?
What I do know is Zynga is not the type of company I would want to work for nor invest in. And their stock price is reflective of my concerns.
Or... maybe he just needed some traffic to his website.
It seems everyone who had anything remotely to do with Facebook's origins has tried to cash in.
This bothers wantrapreneurs because it highlights just how much luck plays a role in a story like Facebook's. They want to believe that one founder or a few co-founders succeed based on some factor(s) under their control (hardwork, skill, etc.)
Greenspan is just another one of those people who was involved and is trying to cash in.
If anyone needs to "get over it", it's people who just can't accept that huge fads like Facebook are unpredictable and uncontrollable, and that when faced with the possibility of huge sums of "money for nothing" it brings out the worst in people all seeking a share of the bounty.
The web is a lottery.
Time to re-read the recent speech from Princeton's graduation ceremony by the author of Liar's Poker.
Dude, you are cracking me up. And I know you're not joking either. Thanks for bringing some life to an emotionally bereft forum.
You are familiar with this term they have for the big spenders on Zynga? "Whales". What kind of person calls someone with an addiction a "whale"? Maybe some people are just too immature to be taking payments from users.
Oh, it's all good. We're making people happy.
No one is arguing for a "goody two shoes, save the world" standard that all web startups must meet. We're simply observing that certain "founders" obviously have no soul. And worshipping a sociopath like Zuckerberg is not a pleasant signal. We can do better.
But I didn't conflate. I specifically said I was not comparing the two. It is simply an example that fits within his definition: it brings wealth to a large number of people.
You are bringing in other definitions of capitalism. I'm only commenting on his definition.
I'm not taking a jab at capitalism. I'm taking a jab at a sloppy definition.
One implication is that people making arguments do not necessarily have to believe in them. And that anyone with adequate rhetorical skills can make any argument, even one that is not consistent with what they truly believe.
Example: Readers might believe some rambling gibberish about there being no need for any startup founder to have a conscience, and they might attribute it to the poster's own beliefs (it's ok not to have a conscience), when truthfully the poster might believe otherwise (he does not really believe in screwing people over, to the point of having no friends or a lifelong reputation as a con artist) and might just be advancing an idea that would benefit his business: the more social networking startups and the more money flowing into them, the better for those who take a cut.
The other implication is that you have to first understand a position in order to argue it effectively. The claim here is that one commenter does not actually comprehend the other commenter's position. And an easy way to show this is to ask each commenter to argue for the other's position, instead of against it.
Neither Tesla nor SpaceX rely on millions of fickle web users handing over their personal information and regularly signing in to a website to look at photos and status updates. Nor can they be easily replicated by a competitor who is not a jackass.
The top post shifts the focus from a blogger's (Greenspan's) account of his dealings with Mark Zuckerberg to "founders guilt".
And this comment is now addressed to the relative merits of Facebook.
The discussion moved from discussing Greenspan's account to discussing founder's guilt and the merits of social networking. How does this happen?
Those topics are not the point of Greenspan's post.
It's a simple tale of how one founder treated someone else, from whom he took advice and ideas.
It's a tale that's familiar (perhaps painfully familiar to some), because we've heard others tell it before as it also happened to them.
Keep changing the subject. Or trying to justify how Zuckerberg treated people by looking at the end result (which no one denies was due in part to great luck).
By all means do what Zuckerberg did and build something big. But don't screw other people over the way he did, call users "dumb fucks" and disregard their privacy as a trivial matter because you think that's a prerequisite to success. It isn't.