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Comment by Waterluvian

3 days ago

Reminds me of Notch from Minecraft fame. Struck lightning once and everything since has been pretty mediocre because he was lucky, not talented.

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Waterluvian

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Jtarii  3 days ago

It is odd when people try to put Notch on the level of someone like Carmack. Like because the guy made a billion dollars that means his opinion should be highly valued in perpetuity. He just seems like a fairly average game dev that lucked his way into making Lego 2.

herbst  3 days ago

He build the company for years, and made the brand to everything it is now. "Luck once" is a weird POV

  • Jtarii  2 days ago

    The game being successful wasn't luck but it being as successful as it was definately was. Block based games had existed for years before minecraft, I don't think there was any reason to believe that this one in particular was going to explode in 2010.

  • latexr  3 days ago

    I don’t know much about Notch so I have no comment on them specifically, but “building the company and brand for years” can still count as “luck once”. Once you strike gold and make it big, you have a lot of leeway for mistakes, it becomes harder to fail. Case in point, Zuckerberg.

nashadelic  3 days ago

if we're being serious, they made bets on instagram, whatsapp and now manus and are great 2nd, 3rd and 4th acts even if external.

  • yabatopia  3 days ago

    Instagram and WhatsApp were far from bets. Both were growing exponentially. Both were serious threats to Facebook's money machine.

    Facebook used their lucky cash cow money to eliminate the threat, by offering way more than any reasonable market value. Absolutely crazy money. An offer they couldn't resist, especially the investors.

    No bet, just an ice cold rational calculation. Anyone wealthy and crazy enough could have done the same. No skills needed, no risks involved. It's like betting tomorrow will be another day.

sledgehammers  3 days ago

It does take tremendous talent and knowledge to build what he built, saying anything else is not just dishonest but weirdly cynical if not hateful. I think you grossly underestimate how difficult it is to build anything good. Not an easy thing to follow up all the expectations set after a massive global hit like that, a classic dilemma of a successful artist.

  • Waterluvian  3 days ago

    There's a level of talent necessary to be a one-hit-wonder, yes. But I think what makes someone a one-hit-wonder and not a career star is that their success was driven by luck more than by talent. In this case "luck" is being in the right place at the right time: that nexus where cultural and technological timing is perfect for a phenomenon to appear and take hold.

  • rf15  3 days ago

    It really doesn't. We teach kids how to program basic games like minecraft. The real appeal was and always has been the fully destructible Lego-like world bundled with good-enough online multiplayer. I was there when it started and he posted his questions/progress on the forums I frequented back then. Those posts where the starting ramp and testing ground that got him his first few users which then snowballed.

    There is neither knowledge nor talent here, he stumbled into it, and that's fine.