Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fargle 563 days ago
particularly the bit where they are painting over the old Sun Microsystems sign.

a solid engineering company that actually build good stuff, destroyed in collateral damage from the dot-com bust, sold off to oracle of all things. now further being humiliated by this narcissistic, exploitative, personality-disorder-masquerading-as-a-service company?
1 comments
yuliyp 563 days ago
Huh? That's a weird take. What should they have done? Left the entrance to their headquarters with a Sun Microsystems logo rather than their own? The Sun Microsystems sign continues to be there at the end of Willow Road, just facing toward the campus vs toward the street.

This is doing more to honor Sun than any other realistic choice they could have made.

link
52-6F-62 562 days ago
The message in the book seems to be that Sun failed out of weakness and it could happen to fb as well if they don’t eat the world.
link
fargle 562 days ago
which is just so narcissistic! the way i see it sun failed because it was a well run sensible company that made good products, that were liked by its customers, and not eat the world.

and that's not what succeeds. so FB will do just fine, if i'm right about that.

link
fargle 562 days ago
i didn't say there was anything that FB should have done different. it's just sad.

it's sad to see a genuinely good company gone and replaced by a slimy one. actually if you include oracle, two slimy ones. who are both inarguably far more successful.

it's sad because it's a statement about what our current economy values and what it does not. and to any of you who have the word "engineer" or "scientist" in your job title: it's definitely not those things.

link
worik 562 days ago
I find it sad, but am also glad, because Zuck and their colleagues came very close to owning Internet communications.

They still rule the roost with that spyware WhatsApp

But at the point they were connecting people as a priority Facebook was an astoundingly good product.

Their greed ruined it (much like Google - it is a characteristic of public corporations in the capitalist system I guess).

If they could have been happy with simply being astoundingly rich they could have built on what they had, developing an ecosystem of software, and developers, to aid in connecting all the people of the world.

Instead they got deep into ad tech. Squeezed every dollar. Ruined it.

Mēh! Better off are we now!

link