>I'm not saying that he didn't show drive and native ability. I'm saying that his life experiences gave him the opportunity to turn those things into an empire.

Sounds petty.


>No, I don't think so. How many of those millions got private tutoring in programming as teens? How many took graduate courses as high school students? How many would have been allowed to?

I know hackers that started as 8 years old in Alaska on some commodore.

Do you know how many wardialers were written when that War Games movie came out?


Here's the thing, the UT is basically what Facebook is. It's more for programmers than college kids. There was a Wednesday Night Lecture when I wrote a similar forum using ASP and VFP.

There was MySpace and millions of other things.

Facebook was the UT for college kids. Kids at Harvard to start with. Then more. And every couple years, you have a completely new user base because you kids graduate and new kids enroll.

Why aren't there a billion UT users? Why aren't there are billion users of my forum?

Zuckerburg's forum has a billion users because its demographic was perfect.

But that's only part of the story. Why didn't another college forum win instead of Facebook?

That's like asking why doesn't everyone buy Ford's? Why are there Chevy's and Toyota's?

No single car company is going to get every single customer.

Likewise, more people are joining twitter than Facebook today.

This is the nature of business. There were thousands of options (including the UT).

Over the years, the vast array of decisions made and development done determines how many people want to use the product.

Facebook is what is and Zuckerburg is what he is because he not only had a good idea (like a million other's, including Michel Fournier), but because he made enough right decisions, more right ones than the competitors.

That type of success is often resented and trivialized by those that don't understand what goes into it.


>>Most of them don't have the big ideas or the motivation to shape reality.
>>
>>The reason not everyone in the world, even people with educations from good schools, is a mover and shaker on Gates' kind of level:
>>
>>- It's easier to complain about the world than to shape it, so most people never try all that hard
>
>I agree that many people never try that hard, but most people also never start with the advantages of a Gates or a Zuckerberg.

Most people my age (Zuckerburg's age) have had computers around their whole lives.

Some play games.

Some learn PHP. Go Mark.