Fuck a prominent position. He doesn't have a prominent position, and every single large exec would open their mouth when their entire country is being destroyed.
Fuckin' hell HN. As an Arab, I'm severely disappointed that everyone forgot the reason the Arab Spring started was because a 26 year old burned himself alive because he couldn't afford to live. Not some social media savvy guy from google.
So whats the lesson? To me it's pretty simple. You want change learn to do it the right way. Gandhi, MLK and Mandela didn't burn themselves and get change over night. And guess what, being media savvy is how you make change happen. There are to this day people who will call those three characters the most media savvy men of their time.
If marketing can sell Coke, Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian it can be used to sell other things too. Positive things. Constructive things. To pretend without media savvy your message will get out and have influence is highly misguided in this day and age.
What fucking media and marketing are you even talking about? I am a Tunisian citizen and I have never heard of this guy until these last couple of days.
Give it up. I left out an important part in my original post: this guy only got media attention in America. No media attention in the Arab world, because being a Google employee didn't make his sacrifice any more significant. The European media had enough sense to not focus on this guy either. Only the insufferable mainstream American media is self-centered enough to push the narrative that an employee of an American company was instrumental in the Arab Spring.
Too late. The kids around here believe that the world donating 50 Billion dollars to prop up a Mark Zuckerberg, so that he can bring virtual reality (or whatever else) to the masses is worth while.
How does this matter seriously? It's been a while since I have had a problem making payments anywhere in the world, or even on crappy e-commerce sites anywhere in the world.
I think it matters because many countries have enormous populations without computers, which means the current state of e-commerce needs to be made mobile friendly (and low bandwidth/high latency) to make sales. I think they are also implying that WeChat is going to beat Facebook to the next billion users internationally.
I don't buy this narrative. It's been used for a while to raise funds to "scale up".
The truth I fear is, if the bottom of the pyramid cant afford a computer, how much do you think they are going to be spending out of their empty mobile wallets. And then some wise ass will say but look they are spending.
The truth is they are being manipulated into spending, just like the suckers who were tricked into mortgages they couldn't afford. Who else does one think is clicking the infinite supply online ads.
Just wanted to add that the process described is more or less the same whether you are a musician beginning to compose, a dancer learning to choreograph, a painter creating new style etc.
At the end of the day its all about learning and developing language. The language of thought.
How many people in prominent positions in well known companies open their mouths when there is a obvious stink in the air?
I have massive respect for the guy.