Funny, I read this and found myself intrigued and wanting to know more about what makes Mark Zuckerberg tick. Having witnessed Facebook's rise, reading Accidental Billionaires, hearing about the various lawsuits, seeing the instant messages, waiting in anticipation for the Sorkin movie, and now learning that Mark is a Classics nut... well, this guy is nothing if not interesting. It's a shame the article didn't dig a little deeper. On that note, does anyone recommend David Kirkpatrick's book The Facebook Effect for a credible portrait of the story behind Facebook?
The Facebook Effect is about the product and company Facebook, as opposed to Zuckerberg, per se. In tone, it more closely resembles business non-fiction, or long-form journalism, than the celebrity biopic style of The Accidental Billionaires, on which the film is based. So it's less fun as beach reading, but in my opinion more accurate, and probably of more use to somebody in the business.
Kirkpatrick had unprecedented access to much of the early team, including people who were no longer with Facebook. He does come off as slightly star-struck at times, and not just at Mark Zuckerberg, so keep your salt-shaker handy.
Disclaimer: I work at Facebook, and am proud to call Zuck a friend.
Thanks kmavm. I love a good business page-turner (think 'Den of Thieves' and 'Barbarians at the Gate' as classics in this category)... but also appreciate books I can learn from so I can apply those lessons to my own business. Sounds like I might get something out of The Facebook Effect.
Great point. There is a lot of fear mongering in our society and this is only perpetuated by the media which focuses mostly on bad news rather than good news.
I guess the 'female founder' thing is a hook to, um, hook us all into reading the article (including me, since I'm female and a startup co-founder), Actually, writing an article about Y Combinator is another obvious hook for this crowd. But, ultimately, I wish the article didn't mention the female thing. Lose that and suddenly this is a great article for anyone wanting to apply to YC, as well as conveying general principles for startups in general. Focusing on being female does not help female entrepreneurs get/maintain credibility - it draws attention to their gender rather than their substance as entrepreneurs.
Thanks for posting this. I've heard about this study but never knew the details. I definitely think self-control/the ability to delay gratification is one of the keys to success in any challenging endeavor, whether it's elite sports or building a company. You have to have the ability to keep going when it really hurts rather than opt for the easier, more immediately gratifying path of giving up.
Australia and New Zealand are not on the list but I suspect they'd come down in the bottom right quadrant. If you took the U.S. off the chart I would certainly suggest a causal relationship. In very general terms: the wealthier the society, the more educated and independent-minded the people, and the less likely to embrace religion.
I wonder how the chart would look if you separated out all the U.S. states. I'm not from the U.S. so I'm not sure about this, but I wonder if there are distinct differences between where the various U.S. states would fall on the chart. In other words, is the correlation between the wealth of a given state and its religiosity?
I agree. There are a lot of small business, marketing, tech, etc forums around but HN is a cut above. From what I can see (and admittedly I'm new), the quality of discussion is way above the average. So let's hear your questions :)
A lot of it has nothing to do with your practical ability to quit your job and start a company, or with the genuine risks involved (which often turn out to be very low... What's the worst that can happen? Your startup fails and you have to get a job?). A lot - perhaps most - of it has to do with your confidence in yourself. Or to put it another way your ability to push fear of failure (and ultimately fear of what others think) out of the way. To that end, I recommend immersing yourself in true stories of people who (a) have overcome fear, (b) have not let fear stand in their way or (c) don't seem to have fear. Two books that come to mind are The 50th Law (about hip hop artist 50 cent) by Robert Greene and How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis (don't worry it's NOT a self-help book but the autobiography of one of Britain's richest men).
The 50 cent one is interesting. I've always been completely fascinated by the attitude of a lot of people that do well in Hip Hop - because it does seem to be pure raw determination to succeed in a lot of cases.
I highly, highly recommend it. The basic thesis is that fearlessness is, if not the key, then one of the keys to 50 cent's success. The reference to '50th law' is also a nod to Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power.
Excellent, thank you! Your original reply was a good insight too. I'm a pretty analytical guy, so they idea of mindset and soft skills coming into play has always been a bit of a blindspot.
Always assumed you could always build X to solve Y, etc etc.
Scribd should be upfront with both authors and readers about this tactic. It's very disappointing, and makes me wonder about how various other services are using content that is uploaded/distributed to them on the basis that users can access it for free.
