Notes and lessons from Facebook’s Acquisition of Instagram

Posted on by Daniel Silva
Facebook acquires Instagram for $1B

Facebook acquires Instagram for $1B

Three notes about Facebook’s $1B acquisition of Instagram:

  1. Instagram total revenues since the service started: $0.
  2. Instagram company size at acquisition: 13 employees.
  3. Instagram, before it was Instagram, was actually a check-in company similar to FourSquare and Gowalla.

Three lessons from this:

  1. In all that you do, try to have the majority of those things be the things that you love. If you have a passion or a vision for a product or service, just do it. Don’t necessarily quit your day job to do it, but try to spend any free time you have on it. It will make you happier, and you might earn $1B for your effort.
  2. You don’t need hundreds of employees to serve millions of customers on the web.
  3. Embrace failure. I’m not saying to celebrate it. Just don’t run from it. Instead learn from it, iterate on your ideas, and press on.

iPhone/iPad OS 5.0.1 loses internet connection after using MyWi 5.0

Posted on by Daniel Silva

TL;DR version: Install Corona 5.0.1 Untether (1.0-3), even if you’ve already done an untethered 5.0.1 jailbreak by restoring using a custom IPSW via PwnageTool or RedSn0w, and MyWi will stop breaking your phone.

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12 Wishes For 2012

Posted on by Daniel Silva
Good-bye 2011, Hello 2012.

Good-bye 2011, Hello 2012.

  1. Weigh less on December 31st than I do today. If it’s just a gram less, it will count.
  2. Go on 20 “true” dates with my wife. For the date to count, it must include: dressing up, a fancy venue, no kids (of course) and a kiss at the end.
  3. 2b4me being a successful, self-sustained business. You don’t know what 2b4me is yet, but you will.
  4. Start three new savings accounts, one for each of my children.
  5. Take off my braces.
  6. Go back to London for a couple days and share a beer with my friends there.
  7. Bring the people that make me happy closer to me, while getting further away from those that don’t give a shit about me.
  8. Give Fred Gomez a job that maximizes his talents and abilities, and rewards him handsomely with a salary that reflects his ambition and capability.
  9. Write in my blog once a week. Not just an average of once a week, but every seven days at least one blog post. Or it doesn’t count.
  10. Get into a groove and do the Daily Practice.
  11. Meet three people I respect for their writing in person: Armando Salguero, Peter King, and James Altucher.
  12. Own a pair of legendary daggers.

Design by popular vote not always popular

Posted on by Daniel Silva

I read this today. Found it to be true and profound.

“…good games (maybe good anything) can’t be designed by popular vote. Our design feedback process is about making informed decisions. The developers will make the decisions we feel are right for the game, but we’ll do that armed with the feedback from players about what is fun and not fun for them.”

Source: Seeing the Forest for the (Talent) Trees

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