Comments on: Welcome to Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg! Use Your Google Search DNA, Pretty Please.

By: Mac Beach

Mac Beach — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:58:01 +0000

Founders of new companies always say they want to surround themselves with smart people, but in many cases I think they seek to avoid people smarter than themselves, looking instead for technological kiss-ups. That’s the sense I had of Microsoft’s early years, before it got so big that Gates didn’t know most of the employees. Zuckerberg strikes me as the same sort of guy.

People with inferiority complexes should never be allowed to run companies.

By: donnyj

donnyj — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:26:45 +0000

alan’s comment is interesting.

Is it just me, or are other people observing that ego seems to be playing a significant role in a number of fb solutions and decisions?

By: alan wilensky

alan wilensky — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:24:36 +0000

oops. 2006. I always knew facebook was from the future.

By: alan wilensky

alan wilensky — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:21:35 +0000

Several of the machine learning and search engineers that I worked with at a famous telecom R&D lab interviewed at Facebook, and made suggestions about re-thinking their data architecture for better search and discovery – they were rebuffed with great prejudice. They were insulted, these PhDs, by young whips that give you know the topic of your article.

This was in late 3006, when it would have been somewhat easier to make cutovers – now, such an effort will entail political and engineering compromises of Herculean proportions.

The ego…