Facebook CEO Accused of Securities Fraud 247
Precision noted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 26 last week, and gets to celebrate by being accused of securities fraud. This goes back to the old Facebook legend that Zuckerberg stole code from other Harvard students.
Re:He's getting what he's due. (Score:3, Interesting)
People. You don't have to use a dash when writing "god". That is used when writing god's name on paper, because you aren't technically supposed to physically destroy god's name.
It is irrelevant when written on a computer.
Re:Remember, folks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Remember, folks (Score:3, Interesting)
The key word there is the "allegedly." And no, there is absolutely no truth to the allegation. The Winklevosses are upset about how the settlement turned out for them and they're rattling the cage to see if any more money will fall out. They're being dunned by their lawyers for non-payment of legal fees.
Re:Hating facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
born with an innate sense of fairness.
More on this: The Moral Life of Babies [nytimes.com].
Re:Remember, folks (Score:4, Interesting)
no. 26yr old = not enough experience in the world.
It's why he's know as a raging ass to many that deal with him. he's outright cocky and it will bite him in the butt.
Honestly, after reading the accidental billionaires book http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20maslin.html [nytimes.com]
I am certain that I would not want to have ever had to deal with the man. Every account of him makes him feel "slimey" and sets off all my red flags.
Re:Hating facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
Except they quickly beat out Myspace and Friendster; two services that were also free, somewhat popular and relatively equal in basic features. Facebook had an angle (college kids) and they exploited that extremely well, and followed it up by tacking on more mass market features (open apps that led to mafia wars and all the rest).
Lucky? Yes, but then do you think Henry Ford got along on his luck alone?
Re:Hating facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Modern games theory experiments have shown that people will accept harm to themselves in order to punish unfairness and reward reciprocity. We are not selfish actors, we are social beings. Only when everyone around them is acting unfairly, and they have no opportunity to punish unfairness, will most people act selfishly.
Re:Hating facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking from experience working with kids, while I'm not entirely sure about babies, you can be darn sure that 10-year-old kids will call you out if they think you're playing favorites. If you set a rule, it had better be the same rule for everybody, or they will walk all over you trying to get special treatment. The good news is that if you are playing fairly by everybody, these same kids will actually hold each other to the same rules. And that basic sense doesn't go away in adolescence - I've watched 15-year-old boys enforce my rules for me because they were convinced that the rules were reasonable and fair.
So whether it's innate, or learned at a very young age, both parent and GP are right on the money.
there once was a time (Score:4, Interesting)
when friendster looked like it was going to take over the internet
there once was a time when myspace looked larger than google
and, in a few short years, someone will say something about facebook, probably as a joke, and someone else will say "facebook? what's that?"
the realm of social networking is true to what it is: an endless party, hosted by one rich kid whose parents are on vacation after another, no one claiming the right to say they are truly in control for very long, forever
what i envision is a permanent progression, every 5-10 years, a new friendster/myspace/facebook taking over the mantle of darling of the ball, and then rudely discarded and abandoned, in endless succession, forever
Re:Hating facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually didn't mind sharing some things as much when it was only for college students. Then they opened up the floodgates and in my opinion it's been going downhill ever since. Not to mention the contents of your Facebook profile could prevent you from being hired for a job.
What business a company has prying into your personal life when deciding whether to hire you I don't know but Facebook did nothing to stop it.
what about michael dell? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell [wikipedia.org]
sure his company has acted douchey, but i don't think the guy can be called a douche. its been a long time since he founded dell in his dorm, and no one has any real dirt on the fellow. sure he's not a saint, but again, not a douche
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak [wikipedia.org]
wozniak is pretty much the anti-douche. the woz is pure awesomeness. even steve jobs: yeah, your average apple cultist is pretty much the definition of upper middle class douchebag, but steve jobs himself seems like just a cold hard terse shrewd businessman, not a douchebag
to expand the realm outside technology and money, you can point to george clooney: not a douche, for every lindsay lohan, clearly a douchebag, literally and figuratively
there are many other examples of nondouchey massive successes at a young age
additionally, the corollary of your argument, that poverty and suffering somehow make you strong of character, is obviously wrong, because there are plenty of broke douchebags out there
no, the truth is, zuckerberg is, and always would have been, a douchebag, whether facebook happened or not. i'm certain you can find me an example of some nice guy who was destroyed by fame/ money, or some asshole who was redeemed by financial hardship, but for the most part, once a douchebag, always a douchebag, regardless of fame and fortune
i think its a pleasant myth people tell themselves (out of self-righteousness, a form of douchebaggery) that fame and fortune is somehow linked with moral terpitude or character pestilence. but its simply not true
Re:Hating facebook (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll tell you why I value my privacy...
My ex-girlfriend is on Facebook. She's a lot more open about commenting and sharing pictures and (in my mind) personal information. This other girl I was flirting with is on Facebook. I dated her sister for a while. My wife is on Facebook. Some of my friends are lesbians. Some of their friends are very, very gay. Hey, you know, the last thing I care about is some other man's sexual preferences, but to some of my other friends, gayness is a mortal sin. I like anime, BtVS, prepper/survival shows, Heather Graham, new age mysticism (though most of the practitioners are kooks), competition long rifle and practical shooting, and armchair environmentalism.
I'm not ashamed of any of these interests. I'm not ashamed of my friends. I'm not ashamed of my ongoing devotion to Heather Graham. But as you said, no one needs to be burdened with any of this *personal* information. The day I started seeing ads for Aqua Girl and Tea Party conventions while browsing for electronics was the day I decided that Facebook knew too much about me.
Re:Hating facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Facebook is changing social norms, including privacy norms,
I don't see much of facebook changing any social norms; people seem to share more or less what they've always done. Facebook is just a whole lot more promiscuous about who they decide you should be social with, and over what time periods they do it.
The lack of easy granularity and difficulty of controlling information spread mainly means many tend to spew things ranging from the banal and inane that most their friends don't give a crap about to the too personal that they would rather not know. Things that have a time and a place, things that were appropriate under some circumstances but not others merge into something somewhat akin to a garbage heap of human interaction.
For example I try to keep a tight hold on my personal information but I can't exactly tell you why I care so much. I just innately think it could come back and bite me.
Well, that's what you use your half-dozen facebook accounts for; as the site doesn't lend itself to appropriate social separation, do it yourself. Where do you think facebooks inflated numbers of accounts come from...
Also it seems a little unseemly to burden others with oversharing.
Indeed it is. Even if it might not come back and bite you in a bad way, it can certainly put sand in the social machinery and make relations with people you can't avoid associating with, such as relatives and co-workers, more difficult.
Re:oh, so avant garde (Score:5, Interesting)
We are not a predatorial, combative species. We're more like the Bonobos (pygmy chimps) than chimps. They screw each other silly at the drop of a hat to smooth over social tensions. The traits you describe are a consequence of developing agriculture and a surplus, and then experiencing famine. Instead of moving on to more fertile grounds, we stayed until the surplus was exhausted, then used our newly developed societal organization to wage war on our neighbors. This resulted in a whole generation of brain damaged children (starvation does that) being raised by a whole generation of PTSD damaged (war does that) adults. Our selfish side was locked in culturally.
This is why you don't see walled cities before a certain point in history. No weapons exclusive to killing other humans as opposed to hunting, either. No mass graves, not until the time period when the Sahara dried up.
Science has shown that your view of human nature is fundamentally incorrect. Please see my post above yours for citations. It is human nature to be more concerned about fairness and reciprocity than self interest. But the opposite view excuses all sorts of unfair and non-reciprocal behaviors, and so it is still immensely popular with a certain set of privileged people, despite the evidence against it.