<story><title>NASDAQ:FB</title><url>http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AFB</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>&amp;#62; The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.&lt;p&gt;The top voted comment actually is an excerpt from a book by a man that I respect a whole lot more than I respect Mark Zuckerberg. For one he seemed a genuinely nice and modest human being. He also influenced the lives of countless people by being creative rather than by selling off their private details to the highest bidder. I really like that top voted comment, instead of gushing admiration for a pile of virtual money it causes you to reflect and think.&lt;p&gt;Making a lot of money does not automatically equate accomplishment.&lt;p&gt;Contrast this with the SpaceX announcement on the homepage at the moment. If Elon Musk succeeds, which I certainly hope for then &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; will be an accomplishment. Even if SpaceX fails it will still be a huge and daring move. Compared to giving humanity a new window on access to space photo sharing seems a little underwhelming.&lt;p&gt;If you can&apos;t understand anyone who actually wishes them ill then please consider that we do not all have the same goals and we do not all have the same vision of what the internet could be like. As a creator, as an business person and a hacker I would happily see facebook replaced by a company or an entity that gave us 80% of the functionality with our joint privacy in tact. That would be progress.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is just AOL re-invented for the new millenium.</text></item><item><author>ramanujan</author><text>This is Hacker News. The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.&lt;p&gt;Every hacker, every entrepreneur, every creator should derive inspiration and uplift from Facebook&apos;s story. It&apos;s a rare bright day in the middle of the worst economic environment since the 1930s. It doesn&apos;t matter whether the company will grow into a $100B valuation. It does matter that it was started in February 2004, by a single guy with a computer, and has affected the lives of billions of people and created billions of dollars in wealth.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the markets won&apos;t be kind to them. Maybe they won&apos;t grow into the $100B valuation. But outside of those who are direct competitors, I can&apos;t understand anyone who actually wishes them ill. As a creator, as an entrepreneur, as a hacker, if you tear down Facebook you&apos;re just tearing down yourself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>38f0ia</author><text>Facebook is the new AOL.&lt;p&gt;Exactly.&lt;p&gt;And the worst part of it is there is a kid acting as CEO calling himself a &quot;hacker&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Hackers do not turn websites into corporations.  Imagine if all ISP&apos;s were turned into &quot;AOL&apos;s&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Facebook did not connect billions of people.  They were already connected.  All they needed to do was share their contact details.  And the facility for that already existed in thousands of other websites.&lt;p&gt;People chose one website, Facebook.  That&apos;s a good thing.  And the credit should go to people for encouraging each other to all sign up at one website.&lt;p&gt;But alas it is the website of a sociopath who took people&apos;s contact details (calling them &quot;dumb fucks&quot; for giving him their info), the way a spammer collects email addresses, or a cybercriminal collects credit card numbers, and then sold the information for financial gain (your info is worth maybe .85 to a few bucks at most in this market).  He&apos;s creating the next generation of mailbox stuffed full of junk direct marketing.&lt;p&gt;If Mark Zuckerberg is your hero you need think more carefully about what he has done and re-examine your principles.</text></comment>
<story><title>NASDAQ:FB</title><url>http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AFB</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>&amp;#62; The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.&lt;p&gt;The top voted comment actually is an excerpt from a book by a man that I respect a whole lot more than I respect Mark Zuckerberg. For one he seemed a genuinely nice and modest human being. He also influenced the lives of countless people by being creative rather than by selling off their private details to the highest bidder. I really like that top voted comment, instead of gushing admiration for a pile of virtual money it causes you to reflect and think.&lt;p&gt;Making a lot of money does not automatically equate accomplishment.&lt;p&gt;Contrast this with the SpaceX announcement on the homepage at the moment. If Elon Musk succeeds, which I certainly hope for then &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; will be an accomplishment. Even if SpaceX fails it will still be a huge and daring move. Compared to giving humanity a new window on access to space photo sharing seems a little underwhelming.&lt;p&gt;If you can&apos;t understand anyone who actually wishes them ill then please consider that we do not all have the same goals and we do not all have the same vision of what the internet could be like. As a creator, as an business person and a hacker I would happily see facebook replaced by a company or an entity that gave us 80% of the functionality with our joint privacy in tact. That would be progress.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is just AOL re-invented for the new millenium.</text></item><item><author>ramanujan</author><text>This is Hacker News. The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.&lt;p&gt;Every hacker, every entrepreneur, every creator should derive inspiration and uplift from Facebook&apos;s story. It&apos;s a rare bright day in the middle of the worst economic environment since the 1930s. It doesn&apos;t matter whether the company will grow into a $100B valuation. It does matter that it was started in February 2004, by a single guy with a computer, and has affected the lives of billions of people and created billions of dollars in wealth.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the markets won&apos;t be kind to them. Maybe they won&apos;t grow into the $100B valuation. But outside of those who are direct competitors, I can&apos;t understand anyone who actually wishes them ill. As a creator, as an entrepreneur, as a hacker, if you tear down Facebook you&apos;re just tearing down yourself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>staunch</author><text>It must be thoughtlessness. You can&apos;t honestly look at Facebook&apos;s contribution to the Arab Spring (and similar social justice causes) or the millions of people it has reconnected (long-lost family/friends) and think that SpaceX has any chance of creating comparable positive impact at any point in the near future.&lt;p&gt;I like SpaceX too. It&apos;s every geek&apos;s childhood fantasy. It&apos;s a great thing. Elon is the real Tony Stark. But the reality is that &lt;i&gt;far more&lt;/i&gt; humans benefit from relatively mundane advances in things like cell phones and social networking than rockets.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is connecting humanity together in a way that&apos;s never been possible before. Improving the lives of billions of people in a meaningful way is an undeniably Big Fucking Deal.</text></comment>