Gordon Crovitz has written one of the more thoughtful reviews on “The Social Network” in the Wall Street Journal Today. He echos Lawrence Lessig in making the case that many of the choices made in the film’s artistic license reveals the hostile and proudly ignorant stance that Hollywood still has towards the software industry. The story of success born of superior execution that is the Facebook story is hidden behind the movie’s focus on the highly entertaining but largely bogus lawsuit that FB has faced.
Google did not invent web search. They executed better, simper and faster than their competition. WordPress did not invent blogging software but that community has iterated better in many areas and faster than their peers and now are rightfully being looked at as a premier enterprise web publishing platform. The Beatles did not invent the three minute pop song . In fact they started out mostly covering other songwriters. These are success stories born largely through superior execution. Rising to the top in an existing crowded space is never easy and it rarely has to do with anyone ‘stealing’ an idea. We should all hope that the legal system does as little damage as possible to the next Facebook.
See: Gordon Crovitz: The More Exciting Story of Facebook – WSJ.com.