The Accidental Billionaires

Four years ago, I begin receiving all these friend requests on my hotmail account. For a site called Facebook. Looking at the description, I was like: what the fuck is the difference between this and Friendster of MySpace? I was busy clicking delete for quite a few days before reaching home one day and found more than 20 emails. I was like... Hmm.. Might as well check it out for a bit.

Boy... I both regret and not regret on that decision. I think everyone had that same feeling, I'm sure.

Just watched this movie just a few days ago, and I gotta say, it brings a whole new light to programmers all around the world. Intellectual property theft... Boy, you gotta be hell thick in order to sue someone over that. If you are so damn self conscious on where your program gets to, write up a contract, a one-pager, or even something on a piece of tissue for god's sakes. Just because someone is designing something that is somewhat similar to what you are planning to write, doesn't make him a villian or a thief. It's called - seizing the moment!

Programming in my opinion, is all about seizing the right moment. If there is no standing contract between two parties, it pretty much mean that nothing stops a guy from developing another website. Though Mark did the right thing and avoided using any pre-existing code. But I just don't agree on his way of leading the twins and Divyna by the nose, and not rejecting them outright. If he had only rejected them, and came up with something of his own, then he wouldn't have lost those millions of dollars.



Now I am reading "The Accidental Billionaires", the book this movie is based on. Reading it on my iphone is a drag, but so far it has been quite a good read. Computers + code + jocks + sex + drugs? Seems like there's nothing that can connect them together. But by reading on this, the chronology in the book and the chronology in the movie is quite different. Will need to read more to understand.

Man, I hope I would have a million dollar idea soon. :D Then I would be able "to stand beside Oprah and the Queen". :D

Wilfred