There are two news items that if put together raise an interesting question about how artists should a) distribute their works and b) make money from their works. We suggest artists give away their works on the Internet and use the Internet to receive …

Thank you for that observation. You’ve picked out perhaps the most important theme in the book: what the facebook team achieved was amazing, and everyone showed their true genius as they did their part – AND, we can all do that.

I’m really not saying that lightly. I firmly believe that we all have unique gifts, and if we actively nurture them and ride them as far as they will take us, we can act like geniuses in what we are doing. Sometimes to billion dollar heights. Zuck is amazing, yet he is no different from many other people i’ve met. Anyone really doing their best, living at their peak, is Amazing.

No contradiction. We are all geniuses, once we find our unique talents and mission. Then the universe conspires towards our success.

Some amazing results are not financial, so I wrote the section on what is success. Mother Teresa or Gandhi didn’t have any unique ability that we don’t all share – yet they polished simple human qualities until they .. became amazing.

I don’t have all the answers on how to build a business, and they wouldn’t fit into one book. I’ve presented my unique contribution – the story of how one successful company did it. And I’m delighted my small piece has inspired and educated some readers, coming up on a thousand, who were already at a place in their journey where it was right for them.

interesting book. But I see a big contradiction there.

On one hand you describe how Facebook is full of geniuses and people with superhuman abilities and you go on describing how these people tackled difficult problems etc…

However, then you conclude in several places, that it’s not that hard to build a social networking site, given how many people have already done so.

These facts really contradict one another and thus as a reader, I am inclined to think that the notion of superhumans/geniuses was just your subjective perceptions of others.

The facts are interesting, especially about the early days and culture, but give me a break on all the Facebook aggrandizing, self-help motivational blather, and recycled visions of the future.

This author clearly has no idea of what it takes to build a company from scratch, and those who do know recognize all this as mindless masturbatory banter that does more harm than help to would-be founders who are looking for the proper tools and inspiration.

Warning: I’ve been doing startups since college and I know what it takes. If you thought this ‘book’ was ‘good’ then stop reading immediately and clear your mind. You are probably pretty green and you need to read some real books by people who’ve done it before. Let me recommend Rob Ryan’s “Entrepreneur America” / “Smartups” and Randy Komisar’s “The Monk and the Riddle”

The comments above are very Digg like. So in that vein, could I ask you to re-write this and please tell me, step by step, exactly how I too can be a billionaire and not pay taxes.

-K

Ironic, but you might not want to shorten your sentences *that* much.

I wish you the best of luck!

Also, in order to be successful, you’ll have to learn to ignore people like Janson.

But Janson, you may want to go get your eyes checked. Of the 1600 readers who looked at the second page of the book yesterday, a full third continue of to read every.. single.. page. And dozens went on to buy the PDF.

Thank you kind readers, for the many wonderful emails. I’m making my way, and I expect to answer all of them.

Thanks for sharing.

“Steve [Facebook ex-engineer], an early engineer on Paypal, was often hard to locate, and left within a couple of months. Yet even Steve made it big; he immediately co-founded YouTube”

I do find it frustrating that a lot of the real issues an entrepreneur faces seemed to have been solved by luck in this story.

I agree that the parts on how Facebook is going to change the very nature of how people interact with each other is a bit far-fetched. While there have been some interesting uses of it (fund raisers, getting sex, etc.), I can’t say I’ve seen a fundamental shift in how people socialize. MySpace definitely has the upper hand in this regard. People use MySpace to promote their bands, their music, and so on. Entire careers (Tila Tequila) have been created thanks to MySpace. Does Facebook have any similar accolades?

Lastly, I personally think the author sounds a little too defensive in his comments on this post. Not everyone is going to like this book, so just let people discuss it and jump in later.