I follow Andreessen and a few of the other a16z folks on twitter, and every day they are tweetstorming what appear to be very insightful opinions and predictions on a whole slew of industries. And then I wonder if these guys are actually orders of magnitudes more intelligent than me and others, and have truly valid and well thought-out opinions, or if a good amount of what they say is nothing more than speculative bullshit that's hardly contested due to their reputation and success.
I've got enormous respect for them, too, but I'm beginning to think that the breadth and depth of expertise and foresight they display shouldn't be taken too seriously.
That's pretty much the case for any sort of punditry, particularly on the Internet. It doesn't matter what you say or how good your information is, as long as you say it with confidence. Because everybody else's information is just as bad, anyway, and people remember your predictions that come true, not the ones that don't. Particularly if your predictions are bold and unlikely.
In my experience, people who have done actual, rigorous firsthand research usually keep quiet about it unless they are trying to alter the general public opinion, in which case they'll throw out the minimum amount of information necessary to give credence to their unfounded and self-serving speculation. Why? Because solid, accurate information is very valuable in business, and why give it to your competitors for free?
no doubt andreessen is smarter, both in raw intelligence and financial wisdom, than you or i or the next guy, but the billions of dollars at his command to assist in manifesting his will helps quite a bit.
and so does being at the nexus of the tech industry and seeing the entire ecosystem from the inside-out, "behind the curtain" so to speak. they have a lot of insider information, not the least of which is basically every single pitch that comes across every other VC's desk in town, and the actual financial health of funded companies operating in the marketplace. they all share information, that's why they don't sign NDAs.
I always wonder, assuming a person had all the benefits, the perfect genetics, the perfect upbringing, the perfect luck in industry, how much smarter or better informed, or capable could they be than the average person?
We have the meme that a great programmer is 10x better than a lacking peer. I think that is the absolute maximum upper bound on how much better someone can be, and that is in a limited, specific pursuit.
When it comes to predicting the future shape of society, we're talking about the average of many, many disciplines- not a discrete thing like programming ability. So I really think at best it'd be like a 2x-3x factor of improvement.
And with something as difficult as understanding the future, 2-3x isn't much, because you're multiplying a standard ability of near 0.
No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successfull, which saddens me. I grew up to some very close-minded parents who severely limited my growth, forced me to fulfill their every wish, I couldn't get into a top school, and yet I've always held onto a bit of hope that maybe one day I'll be as great or as brilliant or intelligent as Sam et al. But that hope is quickly vanishing the more and more I read about these individuals' backgrounds. Successful parents (who were likely encouraging, supportive, and open-minded), great schools, achievements at early ages, etc, all seem to be a common thread, and trying to kickstart things again past your formative years seems futile. I don't mean to rant or derail the topic, and apologies if I do.
From this week's "Corner Office" in the NYT, about hiring:
What I’m mainly listening for is: Does this person believe things are happening for them, for a positive reason, regardless of what actually happened? Or do they believe that things are happening to them and against them? Do they hold a grudge against events, or do they believe they were a gift?
I’ll listen for whether they say things like, “I’m so glad that actually happened, because I learned this and this.” Or do they believe that there’s sort of a conspiracy out to harm them? Because if you work for me, you’re either going to think I’m here to help you, regardless of what I do, or you’re going to think I’m here to get you. I really don’t want the latter.
Someone once told me that a smile is the greatest sign of wisdom. While I don't agree with that statement literally for various reasons, the idea behind it has stuck with me.
...it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successful...
The old town drunk died. His two sons, the bank president and the new town drunk were at his funeral. An onlooker, surprised at how different the two sons were, asked each one how he turned out the way he did.
The bank president responded, "With a father like that, how else could I turn out?"
The new town drunk responded, "With a father like that, how else could I turn out?"
You run the risk of making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. An (economically, educationally, etc.) privileged background increases the ODDS of being successful; it is not a REQUIREMENT for success by any measure. If this is getting you down, I suggest you read some stories about people from the other end of the spectrum ending up at the same place. I don't have any links, but perhaps other people here do.
Well, if you learn about successfull people through Hollywood you would have the exactly opposite bias, that all successfull people came from a tough childhood.
Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood. And you have none in your list. It might be enlightening to do a demographic study of industry executives and their lobbyists in Washington. And then report back with your findings. =D
For the person who thinks "money" is a shallow, why would "celebrity" be any "more fulfilling"? This is like comparig the health of two kinds of junk food.
Interestingly, this leads to the heart of the analysis. Which is probability of success, control of success factors, and second best outcomes, given success doesn't happen. If you consider those more "rational" metrics (agnostic of money/fame), how would they compare?
Second best outcomes (or even median outcomes) cuts to the heart of the matter. C list executives still get good money. C list actors not so much, and not even fame.
50 Cent is my #1 role model since he has achieved success despite adversity (Both of his parents were dead by the time he was 8 & he grew up in a rough neighborhood).
I experienced a lot of the same stuff growing up. Now that you have a clear understanding of your situation, you can change things, if you want. There's a statute of limitations for blaming parents for things. It's up to you, now. Break the chain.
"Break the chain"
Yes, the parents should have supported OP emotionally more than they did. So, you break the chain because otherwise you will end up just like your parents, and you don't really like those guys, so you end up not really liking yourself and then you are even less likely to succeed in whatever area you want to succeed in.
I suggest you start looking for people you can identify with better who met some standard of success you admire. Madonna is a collage drop out. So is Bill Gates. Altough Gates came from money, Madonna came from a middle class background. There are plenty of people out there who came from "nothing."
I was one of the top 3 students of my high school graduating class -- STAR student, national merit scholarship winner, state alternate for the governor's honor's program, inducted into Mu Alpha Theta in 11th grade (the earliest you can be), etc. I walked away from all that, gave up my scholarship, dropped out of college, did the homemaker thing for a long time. The odds are super high I would have died young had I not made the choices I made. I think I have a bright future but not all of us are best served by big success at an early age.
A) I was seriously abused as a kid and was quite suicidal for years.
B) I have a deadly congenital condition which was not diagnosed until my mid thirties. Being a homemaker allowed me to take care of myself enough to not die in spite of not having a diagnosis.
Had I pursued a career, most likely I either would have committed suicide at a young age or died mysteriously of my undiagnosed disorder.
I think there's an element of bias here. A successful person with unhelpful parents isn't going to go around complaining about how unhelpful her parents were.
There are a lot of successful people with poor/tough/gritty childhoods if you dig a little deeper.
I'm always fascinated how it's necessary to preface one's point by first saying something like this:
"No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and"
Fascinating in what way? The guy is smart, successful, and he deserves what he's achieved. That he's found the opportunities he's capitalized on isn't his fault.
Because you said "No disrespect to Sam in any way" trying to head off (I speculate) people's immediate negative reaction in interpreting to quickly what you said as in some way being disrespectful.
As if someone that is held in high respect by the group (or PG) can't ever be questioned as deserving of something by someone else.
As far as this "I've always held onto a bit of hope that maybe one day I'll be as great or as brilliant or intelligent as Sam" have you ever met Sam? Are are you merely going with what others on HN seem to think about him?
I've taken issue for example with some of the things he says in his essays as being simplistic and overly general. One example might be his categorization of business based on his relatively short and very narrow experience in the business world.
If it helps any, there are loads of very successful people that you'll never hear about who grew up very poor or modest and have very much "made it". Not being a public figure is not the same as not being successful.
The very first multi-multi-millionaire I ever met grew up desperately poor. Quit high school in 9th or 10th grade. Tried to become a boxer to escape crushing poverty but didn't have the right build for it. Ended up in construction where he learned to become an electrician.
He started a small contracting company doing electrical work on new construction and now has three generations of his family and a few hundred employees working for him.
As an aside, he has substantial real estate holdings, raises race horses for a hobby (actually he lets his wife do that), lives on a beautiful 50 acre estate with multiple guest houses and a private car collection spread across half a dozen large garages that's got to be seen to be believed and has vacation homes in the places you'd expect people to have vacation homes. He has a skybox at the local football team stadium etc. He's toyed with getting a 100' yacht, but doesn't much like boats.
He's also completely unknown and if you were to meet him you'd think he was a retired ex-boxer construction worker -- real blue collar stuff. Dresses in work clothes most of the time and talks with a bit of the slang that was common when he was young. A google search for his name brings up nothing. His sons and grandkids are all similarly down to earth and work for what they earn and not a one of them would be known outside of the circle they work in. His sons are all at least double digit millionaires, even though they've split the company 3 ways between them.
Another family I know, immigrated from Korea, the father opened a small deli (one of those NYC style by-the-pound places) and his sons all grew up in the family business. The oldest son cottoned onto the family business and grew it, moved it to a better location. He supports his father in a very comfortable retirement, lives in a multi-million dollar 6000 sq ft home in a city next to apartment buildings (so you can guess what the property value might be), his two younger brothers all work at the family business and all live in very comfortable homes. He also has a pretty decent real estate portfolio and is planning on opening up at least 3 other delis in the next 5 years and perhaps building up a brand and franchising them out. They aren't "mega" rich, but they're top 1% in the U.S.
One more.
My father-in-law grew up an orphan at the end of the Korean War. Didn't even finish his 6th grade education. He managed to get ahold of some property and some investment money and flipped it and made some money. Repeat a few years, with more expertise, and he made a tidy fortune for himself. He single handedly supported himself, his wife, 5 kids (all through college), his brother and his similarly sized family...without going into too long a story, he vacations half the year out of his retirement and spends the other half playing Golf...in Korea. He also lives in a multi-million dollar, custom architected showpiece house near Seoul. He's also not findable on Google.
I've since met dozens of other very successful people like this, yachts, vacation homes, private castles, private islands. Not a one of them would be known outside of their immediate circle. Many of them self-made, not from old-money, didn't go to top-tier schools (if they went) and are otherwise successful by any reasonable definition of the word.
Don't confuse "publicly well known" with successful.
Also I've done similar research to the GrandParent commenter on the internet and there is a lot more to it than just having open parents. A lot of orphans or adopted children are also spectacularly successful. Imagine having to live the fact that your biological parents "abandoned" you or something along those lines. Here are some of those people.
1. Steve Jobs
2. Jeff Bezos (you could argue that he had a relatively healthy upbringing, went to Princeton, etc).
3. Roman Abramovich (probably not most upstanding example).
Other (financially) successful people that grew up poor:
4. Howard Schultz (Starbucks): "Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families. And for some reason, I don’t know why or how, I wanted to climb over that fence and achieve something beyond what people were saying was possible. I may have a suit and tie on now but I know where I’m from and I know what it’s like."
5. Oprah Winfrey (grew up relatively poor, had a harsh upbringing, I think she was assaulted when she was younger?)
6. Luxury goods mogul Francois Pinault quit high school in 1974 after being bullied for being poor.
There are also a ton of people that are excellent in their fields (academics / science / NGO founders) who are successful by a different metric (not wealth).
I think the key determinant is to keep trying, keep learning and persevere through stuff life throws at you. It can be difficult in the moment but you need to objectively keep asking yourself what you can do everyday / regularly to achieve what you want 1 year from now, 5 years from now, or generally in the long term.
Also, in the worst case scenario if you are relatively healthy you should be able to get yourself to live a modestly comfortable life and be a successful husband/wife, mother/father, member of community, contributing member of society, etc.
If you're significantly rich, the thing is you don't want to become publicly known. It's a pain in the ass and delivers almost no benefit to you unless you have some plan for what to do with your newfound fame.
Even is this is the case, if you plan on having kids you can certainly do your best to give them the best start (bootstrapping them) so they can have the same advantages.
Everything you are saying about the parents and the upbringing is true. We always need to put anyone's success in context. It's easy to compare myself and feel less accomplished when just looking superficially at someone's success. When I dig deeper into their history and life circumstances the comparison gets muddier and muddier until it really doesn't make sense.
But.. here is a big but. So what. We don't choose our parents, we don't choose where we are born and we certainly don't choose our innate capabilities.
But we do choose how we live our life and what goals we want to accomplish. I've settled for myself that the chance of me becoming a billionaire or having a net worth of millions is unlikely due to my life circumstances and the things you've described. But the chance of me building a sustainable company that can make me financially independent and give me autonomy is doable. Not easy. Not impossible but in the realm of doable. I'll take doable and work on that. So, I agree with your sentiments but its dangerous as it can become toxic and stop us from doing the best we can, given what we have.
Past performance may not be indicative of future results, now more than ever. I hope that heartens you in some way.
"Upbringing" is a very difficult to isolate variable. It could mean your parents, family, friends and lots of other important environmental features of your life at different stages. In underclass/poverty related efforts it is often considered to be the most important factor. IE, if you are unemployed or working at McDonnalds and your have an uncle who makes good money installing showers and a friend training doing well in IT relocation, you are much more likely to find a path to the middles class than if your friends and family don't give you relatable example of something equivalent. It's very important and the effect is complex. Norms get transferred around the diner table or at the bar. Opportunities get handed. Advice gets given. Ideas seem realistic or actionable depending on the availability of advice and the norms you have been absorbing. I doubt the mechanics of it all can be clearly measured and understood quantitatively but there is lots of evidence that the effects are real and are why we see major economic differences between communities.
What is different today is the internet and that's a big thing. Many of our meaningful, impactful interactions are remote and you can be deliberate about your influences. Ina a sense, this isn't new. There were people who for whom books or paintings by dead people were the most formative influences. But today, those interactions are far more nuanced, warm, immediate and accessible.
Think of it this way: 20 years ago, where would you have gone to discuss your upbringing? Who's opinion would you have access to?
There's always the possibility for second acts, even moreso in this world where the rate of technological innovation and change is speeding up. But you vastly increase your odds of this by moving to a locale where you have the best odds of serendipity, namely Silicon Valley/SF or NYC. Without going into personal detail, I can guarantee this from experience.
I can't say I completely know where you're coming from, but I can certainly try to imagine. I'm only in my 20s and I look at people younger than me do much more incredible things which get me down.
What changes is that, I hope that knowing all of this (everything you've mentioned included), I can help others not make the same mistakes as me or make them at a faster pace. I think doing that would make my life be worth something more having helped propel truly brilliant people further in their lives. Hell, one of those people might just cure cancer.
I tend to believe that the desire to be great is what drives successful people. A person's upbringing can often result in their desire to be great but it is not always the active ingredient. There are many people in the world who have had amazing upbringings and more opportunities than anyone else just to end up doing nothing significant in their life. Don't sell yourself short, be great.
It might be difficult to become as successful as those people you were reading about, however, it wouldn't be beyond you to become somewhat successful, so that your kids will have successful parents and have a chance of achieving more success than you.
A family's wealth can take more than one generation to build.
Yes, actually. His parents were a Harvard alumnus and a mother who was both gifted and accomplished in Anthropology (with a wide network) and the people who raised him from age 10, his grandparents, were hardly "middle class" in the one-breadwinner-midwestern-auto-worker sense of the word. They were at minimum on the affluent side of middle-class.
So, Obama's childhood is not even close to being typical. He started with a leg-up that only got better as time went along. About the only true obstacle in his way has been his race--which is decidedly a huge one to have overcome, especially in America, where racism is still deeply embedded in our society in a number of ways, and was much much worse during his formative years. But his economic and family environment put him way, way ahead of even the typical American's.
How many thousands of people had a Harvard alumnus for a father and gifted and accomplished woman for a mother? How many of those thousands became president?
Your second question is entirely irrelevant in the context of this discussion. "Become President" is just not a reasonable minimum measure of "success."
>> "trying to kickstart things again past your formative years seems futile"
The point is almost none of these successes come overnight. Admitted, for example, many of success founders graduated from Stanford. But a lot of them they worked hard in high school to get into Stanford. So you may see A (success), but to get to A, they worked hard on B (some good background to get to A), and to get B they worked hard on C (some good background to get to B). A <- B <- C <-D <- E...
Okay, now assume (just assuming, I am not saying that is in fact where you are) if you are at E you might feel A is so far away, and people at B is so lucky to be at B. But if you start doing little things and work hard, you probably (I am not saying definitely because determination is the only factor here) can start to get to D, C, and then B. Who knows? Why not give it a shot? Don't give up. [If you just stare at "A" you probably won't feel you are close, but start with getting to D!]
There are plenty of time left. One thing about some media at this age I don't quite like is to idolize those 20-some startup founders, and making it sound like not to be successful at your 20s is a complete failure. That is so not true, there are plenty 40+ internet billionaires out there.
>> "But that hope is quickly vanishing the more and more I read about these individuals' backgrounds."
Does the great background help? Of course. But one thing about the internet age is the cost to start a startup is so low. And you know what the best part is? Pixels don't care. The investors may care about what kind of background you have, but your customers don't. Have you tried, say, make a simple service (e.g. website, or other form even not related to internet) some time? If not, please give it a try. If you never try, you will never fail. And it's okay to fail. None of the startups are guaranteed to be successful. Actually possibly none of your startups will be successful if you are very unlucky. But that shouldn't stop you from trying.
Again, don't stare at billion (I am not saying you are), if it helps. That is like winning a lottery, and I don't think that's the right mindset. Do something small. Do something interests you. Build something just because you love building that.
>> I don't mean to rant or derail the topic, and apologies if I do.
Don't be. And thanks for reading all my comments if you made it this far. I hope my comment is not useless. Best luck, man. Don't give up.
What exactly is the point of this post? If it is truly to help the people at Rocketr better position their product, then I would think the 100+ comments in the original thread provided more than enough feedback. In fact, this article adds nothing, and I suspect you did this to help boost your 'web presence'.
I'm done with HN and this 'scene' for a while. Everyone seems to be more concerned with flailing their e-dicks around to establish their personal brand, without actually giving a genuine fuck about helping out others. Plus, this whole "I'm passionate about startups and I'm just blunt with my advice" attitude is getting really tiring.
More and more frequently I think about people actually doing meaningful stuff out there, and very rarely are they blogging, publicly critiquing others, trying to get their name out there online. I think I'm going to follow in their footsteps.
Rocketr: I think you guys received all the feedback and more that you asked for yesterday. I'm sure you guys were taken aback by the response to your article, but you seemed rather accepting of the advice. Ignore this fluff piece and don't take it personally. This guy really doesn't care about helping.
This is the equivalent of "Original title [fixed]" we see on Reddit. The attempt to generate publicity by submitting a new item instead of contributing to the original discussion. I think this highlights a problem with sites like these: They are terrible for discussion. Discussions are practically dead after a couple of hours. The deeper a discussion tree goes, the fewer people (the contributors) have a useful way to noticing new posts. I have no idea how to do it better, just thought I would share this thought.
If only there was some other means of social collaboration. Threads tend to enforce a hierarchy that is not enforced in normal social situations. If several root level comments all present the same idea, maybe it would make sense to respond to all of them with a single well structured response. The only way to do that with threads is via copy/paste. If only there was less structure. Maybe a collaborative note-taking technology is the solution?
Similarly, a post was submitted yesterday entitled "Why You Can't Admit Personal Mistakes on the Internet" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220074) regarding this whole fiasco, basically going against a lot of great posts on honesty and transparency. My reply to it is pretty aligned with your response to this one.
I can't help but wonder that perhaps the point of giving feedback on their own blog is not just about responding to Rocketr, but giving that same advice to all their readers too.
Leaving the equivalent of that post as a comment on the original Rocketr article would have meant that their own readers wouldn't have seen it.
I don't want to be that guy, but as someone in the medical field, I take issue with OCD being thrown around so casually as a good thing to have. It's a legitimate mental disorder that can cause its sufferers a lot of turmoil.
I absolutely get what you guys are going for, and you seem like a fun bunch, but I'd be a bit more sensitive about using terms like that. It'd be like someone saying "We're looking for ridiculously good programmers, like autistic good."
Absolutely right. There are plenty of ways of making the same point without invoking a very serious condition that makes a lot of peoples' lives extremely difficult.
I saw a demo of Metro on a tablet at the Microsoft store a few weeks back and was really, really turned off. Why are the app squares of variable sizes? The guy accessed a settings menu out of nowhere. I was so confused I had to ask him to show me how he did it. There were no indications, cues, hints, etc, that would've led me to believe the menu was there. This isn't only limited to the settings menu.
I don't want to turn this into an iPod/iPad vs. WP8/Surface debate, but the first thing that popped into my head after I walked out of the store was "Jesus, my mom would have a hell of a time learning how to use that." She's a pro with her iPad, and it'd take her a very long time to reach that same level of savviness with a tablet running Metro.
Metro isn't designed for the average person. There's nothing that directs you, there are no consistent UI elements that carry on throughout the design. Every app the guy opened was designed differently. With iOS, I at least have the top (and often bottom) nav bar to guide me. I, a guy who's been playing with computers for years, was utterly confused and put off from Metro.
I think they've got a long way to go if they plan on seeing the same adoption of their WP8 phone that the iPhone has seen. I'm not sure if that's what they want, but I assume they do.
>"There were no indications, cues, hints, etc, that would've led me to believe the menu was there. This isn't only limited to the settings menu."
You're right. You're totally right. What I think you're missing though is that this is a pattern. And once you learn this pattern ONCE, it applies to EVERYTHING. That means that the settings for EVERY app are accessed the same exact way. Sharing from ANY app is accessed the same exact way. Etc.
This, I think, will be very powerful. Sure the charms menu is a little unintuitive at first (especially with a mouse) but once you figure it out, it makes your life much easier in the long run.
Good point. How do you access settings for an iOS app? Some are in the Settings app, under that app's name. Some are in the Settings app, under Notifications. Some are in a settings view within the app itself that's accessed by a gear icon somewhere on the screen.
In Facebook you go to the pop-out side menu, scroll to the bottom and find settings. In Twitter, you go to the Me tab, scroll to the bottom and find settings. In Foursquare you touch the Foursquare logo to show notifications then touch an icon with gears to get to settings.
It's interesting that this understanding exists. To note a few case: the Windows Phone was awarded the most intuitive phone, and another one that said it's the best phone for people over 50 (or 60?). Also user satisfaction is right up there with the iPhone.
What do you think about Android? Personally I find it confusing with menu lists in several places (apps, settings, etc.). The iPhone I agree is very intuitive. And I tend to think the WP is even simpler.
That is interesting because I really like the aesthetic. Some of the apps I have used are indeed not consistent but I found the same on iPhone and android as well.
Another thing I think to keep in mind as well is designing and implementing for a 'metro' UI is new for many developers and it will take time to get used to (and create) the conventions. I can't recall: when the iPhone came out was there a period of 'flailing' as devs figured out conventions that worked?
But I think that's because "like" and "aesthetic" wasn't quite the words the gp was aiming for.
It's more like their User Interface Paradigm just doesn't work.
A cool sports car with no door handles or keyhole, that the cool kids open with right twist of the wrist or something can have a really nice aesthetic but be really annoying in the real world. Multiply that by a thousand and you've got something where the right mindset will get you love while the rest of us will hate and hate. Especially, menus in invisible places. That's a terrible designers are often tempted towards but should know better. If I ever have to use that stuff, some karma bolts be stinging the aestheticians who dreamed them up.
I have news. The average person is less, less - not more - less patient with "getting used to the conventions" than developers. The average person may wind-up using "conventions" but probably couldn't "describe conventions" more easily than they could solve differential equations.
If how you use the thing isn't screamingly obvious, how do you expect Joe Average to shell out the big bucks for something they still expect to be "mostly just a phone".
>I can't recall: when the iPhone came out was there a period of 'flailing' as devs figured out conventions that worked?
When the iPhone came out you couldn't develop apps for it.
There was a period of time when everyone was just using the Apple supplied apps and they laid the groundwork for establishing nearly all the conventions. New conventions have since been established (ie. pull-to-refresh) but the 'tone' was solidly set by Apple.
I like the idea of tiles but as they get more numerous and varied (with photos and custom apps) it starts to look like the classified ads. I don't know where to look and feel disoriented.
Yes. The white on solid color tiles look good with a couple of colors on the screen but once there are 8 animated tiles in different colors and background images on the screen, it looks more like the TV ads on Idiocracy: http://creativebits.org/files/idiocracy-tv.jpg
How is this different than the iPhone or Android metaphors? There you have a bunch of tiles that are all the same size. Is that more confusing than different sizes?
Frankly, I have no idea who he is, and I tend to respect opinions more if they're based in real experiences rather than observation (not to say I don't respect well-argued opinions from observation, it's just relative). It's a mystery to dig into who he is, too, and the best I've been able to find is this:
Which just says, vaguely, that he's a neuroscience student who "put his degree on hold". Anybody know who this guy is, and why his opinion is this important to HN and 35,000 Twitter followers? Honestly, I'm just curious. Is this guy some kind of valley culture icon? I've noticed the same trend of all of his posts hitting the front page of HN.
[Since you're in this thread, now: Dustin, a quick "who I am" page which isn't a million pixels wide and describes more about yourself and your goals would go a long way toward credibility. Unless you're a pseudonym, and I respect that (look at my username), but your about page leads me to believe otherwise.]
The first time I heard of him was when he redesigned the American Airlines website. http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html
He's a good designer and I tend to read what he says because svbtle is just so nice to look at. I suspect that 99% of my decision of whether or not to read something has to do with how easy it is to read it.
Honestly: I'm not qualified to judge the prospects of a photo sharing site. I mean that sincerely: I have no f'ing clue of whether a photo site is worth $1 or $1Bn.
I'm in the exact same place as 'tferris: as a company operator and likely future again-founder, I have a somewhat visceral reaction to overly intricate investor courting rituals.
It might be a totally reasonable response to say "You're crazy, this is going to be super effective, they did exactly the right thing here." Awesome! I'll have learned something new. Fire away!
Although people will often credit Jobs with the creation of Apple's products, it's great that Jony is getting recognition here. I can't even imagine the amount of time and effort he and his team must've put in to developing their designs.
With the industrial design of products like the iPhone or MacBook, every single dimension must be precisely calculated. There's no "eh, it's a bit off, but that'll do" like what we may do with web apps. The number of concepts and iterations they must've gone through is staggering, I'm sure.
Edit: It's sad to see only two other commenters recognizing Ive's achievements. It seems now that almost every single accomplishment posted to HN is questioned, overanalyzed and criticized out of what is likely a place of envy. We don't need your commentary on the social ramifications of knighthoods. If that's your reaction to a post like this, then you need to seriously reassess your perspective.
I would argue the exact opposite: celebration of apple and their achievements is a subject that has been done to death on here and elsewhere. Everyone here takes Ive's achievements as a given. Discussion of the social ramifications of knighthoods is likely to be much more fruitful. It certainly seems that way from this instance.
This isn't about Apple, though. This is about Jony Ive. And although people here might know who he is and what influence he's had over the years with creating such iconic designs, I highly doubt that the every day person on the street knows.
This is simply about him gaining public recognition. Nothing more.
I've got enormous respect for them, too, but I'm beginning to think that the breadth and depth of expertise and foresight they display shouldn't be taken too seriously.