[pak]

If you made a site and showed it to a guy that made a similar site now valued at $20B, you'd probably think about it a lot.

I think one of the main takeaways here is that an initial media backlash is the fastest way to kill a social site looking for its critical mass. It's like any party, if people think it'll be lame or unsafe because that's the word of mouth, nobody will go. Whether playing fair or foul, somehow Mark got the right words in people's mouths about his site and it took off.

[weego]

That's like saying people who sell their failing business for 100k that then gets turned around to a 100 million business were stupid to sell. By being the one who failed to make it work you would have always failed and the other person succeeded. However, humans are notorious for lacking decent introspection skills I guess so I can see how it could eat someone up slowly.