The Facebook Effect - Review

The Facebook Effect pretty much is the play by play of the story the Facebook just as Delivering Happiness is on the story of Zappos.

The writer, David Kirkpatrick is a tech journalist and has been covering facebook and others tech company like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple etc for years. This in effect means that by reading this book you will:
1) Understand the dynamic of tech company today (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft).
2) Get some insight on the inside of Facebook, it's culture and how it grows.
3) Get to know Mark Zuckerberg and hopefully absorb some personality from him, mainly the quiet confidence, the ability to have a very long term view, and the Zen-ness in dealing with both crisis and fame.

In retrospect, it is easy to take the success of Facebook for granted. I always known Facebook as the better Friendster but never really remember (until this book) how and why Friendster faded away . I sort of just remember that we lost interest in Frienster, and then Facebook came along.

Notes I took for this book:
1) You can't predict success.
Facebook is never a sure thing until it became one.
No one was sure that it would be popular outside of Harvard until it did.
No one was sure that it would be popular outside college until it did.
There is no indication that it will be accepted by adult community until it did.

2) Step by step, methodical expansion is important.
This is how Facebook avoid becoming Friendster. Friendster over expanded and cause the service to become laggy, which is the big reason of it's demise.

3) Facebook is more powerful than I thought it is.
That data that it has. It knows your identity and hence can sell you ads tactically.
It is also the platform for many application.
Facebook currency may also be huge, look at bitcoin now.

4) Mark Zuckerberg looks at the data when facing crisis. This is a good habit for everyone. When there is a subjective problem, try to find some data, something that can provides an objective feedback on the issue.
(eg Newsfeed fiasco: User hates it, but user activity spikes: hence newsfeed need tweaking, not eliminating)

As many great man, Mark Zuckerberg also has the idea of "doing things that worth doing". It is a recurring theme that great entrepreneur and great people usually has the focus on living for a cause, while the rest of us is living to work for money and to buy stuff. 

One may not have the same status or intellect or vision of great men, but one may still choose to live with the same attitude that great men shares.

Facebook page of The Facebook Effect
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Do you remember when facebook photo is not a thing and all everyone have is just 1 profile picture?
Do you remember pre-newsfeed days?
Do you remember the days before having a wall?
I can't. I too, have took Facebook as granted.

Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill - Review

Remember those old technical manual you found buried in an old library or second-hand book shop? With it's page turn yellow and fragile, with unknown stain at the side? The content is old, mostly still functional albeit very outdated. You flip through the book, nodding at the content but ultimately decide to pick up a more contemporary counterpart for that book.
-This is how I felt about Napoleon Hill's famous book, think and grow rich.

Originally published at 1937, the book is O-L-D. The world was a very different place then, so was the style of writing.

The book aims to provide principles, knowledge and wisdom for success. Lifting lessons and examples from historical giants like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Mohammad Gandhi, Andrew Carnegie etc etc. While a more contemporary book will make a point and elaborate it with scientific studies and observations, Napoleon Hill's think and grow rich were written at an era where lesson and principle were derived from his personal observation and deductive thinking, relying heavily on anecdotes and personal opinion. I didn't really enjoy reading the book due to this method of writing. However, it is fun in comparing how far self-help book has evolved in 8 decades. I certainly would recommend this book as a material for researching on evolution of self-help book.

Style of writing comparison: theoretical VS empirical
Then: Perseverance is the most important quality of success. You can't find a successful person in history that were lacking in the ability to persevere. Take Thomas Edison, he yada yada yada; Mohammad Gandhi, he yada yada yada. Perseverance is important! Perseverance is number 1! U no persevere, you no succeed!

Now: A longitudinal study has shown that the most important factor that may predict success in life, is surprisingly not IQ, not family social status and not even the level of parental education. It was conclusively shown that the number 1 factor of success is the ability to delay gratification. A group of 4 years old has been brought into a study that we call the Marshmallow test.....

I guess this book is the pioneer of all self-help book. Most of it's principle may still hold true today, albeit in a "duhhh, common sense" way.

As all fix-your-life-and-be-successful now does, this book provides some checklist for you to reflect and improve upon one's habit/attitude/character/personality. However, to continue with my analog of "old manual lying in old library", I would rather instead pick up Anthony Robbins for that purpose.

At least I don't feel like my mum nagging at me when I read Anthony Robbins.

TD;DR, I would say this book has reach it's expiry date and belong to a Museum. Come on! Ghandi was alive when the book was written!

PS: Do you know who is Andrew Carnegie? I bet you probably knew Dale Carnegie better XD



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