Changes in a service tend to infuriate customers. Innovation in a customer-facing technology company usually results in more customer service complaints than it resolves. As far as I can tell, Facebook as a service is horrifically unstable, weak as an ad platform (ignoring the scale of the revenues – Myspace was once also impressive), and questionable in terms of its IPO scheduling judgment.

I like you a lot, Mark, but I'm confused about your evaluation.

Yes, effective leadership will piss people off. But it's foolish leadership to make decision after decision that infuriates your customers. It leads to a collapse of the company. Every time.

As a side note, I hardly use Facebook at all, and have always disliked the service. The whole concept of an internet-within-an-internet harkens back to the early days of AOL.

Your reading of AOL history is also skewed. Perhaps you forget, but they relied on volunteers to handle their customer service. A class-action lawsuit in filed in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Lead…) put an end to that, and crushed AOL's competitive advantages relative to other dial-up providers.

So… be more rigorous, Mark, you're supposed to be a Venture Capitalist!

Changes in a service tend to infuriate customers. Innovation in a customer-facing technology company usually results in more customer service complaints than it resolves. As far as I can tell, Facebook as a service is horrifically unstable, weak as an ad platform (ignoring the scale of the revenues – Myspace was once also impressive), and questionable in terms of its IPO scheduling judgment.

I like you a lot, Mark, but I'm confused about your evaluation.

Yes, effective leadership will piss people off. But it's foolish leadership to make decision after decision that infuriates your customers. It leads to a collapse of the company. Every time.

As a side note, I hardly use Facebook at all, and have always disliked the service. The whole concept of an internet-within-an-internet harkens back to the early days of AOL.

Your reading of AOL history is also skewed. Perhaps you forget, but they relied on volunteers to handle their customer service. A class-action lawsuit in filed in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Lead…) put an end to that, and crushed AOL's competitive advantages relative to other dial-up providers.

So… be more rigorous, Mark, you're supposed to be a Venture Capitalist!