In 2002, a young computer programmer decided to flip the script—or code, rather—on how people interacted online. He was fed up with trolls, spammers, and anonymity in general. Instead of fanning the flames of cyber-anarchy, he set out to create a social network that could mirror the real world.
“I wanted to bring that real-life context that you had offline online,” he explained. Instead of hiding behind pseudonyms like Cyberdude307, he envisioned a future where users displayed their real names, occupations, schools, and locations.
He wasn’t the only person who shared that sentiment. By 2004, the social network blossomed to more than 75 million users. Time, Vanity Fair, and Fortune sang its praises. Google tried to buy it for $30 million. Within two years, a previously-nameless programmer cracked the literal code that sparked the social media boom.
If you’re like most people (including myself), you almost certainly thought this was the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. But Facebook didn’t launch until 2004. The company we’re talking about is Friendster and the programmer’s name is Jonathan Abrams—two names you’ve probably never heard of.
There were dozens of Friendster rip-offs in the early 2000s, one of which was Facebook. There was Google’s version, Okurt, along with MySpace which made an early splash. But none of these networks could run stride-for-stride with Facebook. What was a college drop-out (Zuckerberg) doing that even Google couldn’t figure out?
As Tim Wu points out in his book The Attention Merchants, Facebook’s ascent had nothing to do with better technology. They just identified their competitors’ weak points and reverse-engineered a better product.
“Facebook was actually providing not something new but an enhanced representation of an existing social reality,” says Wu. “The networks, so-called, were there already: Facebook simply made them visible, graphically manifest, and easier to keep track of.”
Facebook’s steal-and-improve strategy is far from an anomaly. From tech to art to music and everything in between, survival (and success) is typically more dependent on marginal improvements than massive innovations.
We think of Uber as the first ridesharing app, but it was actually a polished version of a failed startup called Taxi Magic. We think of the iPhone as the first smartphone, even though IBM made its own phone with a touchscreen and email functionality a decade prior. Rather than trying to predict what people wanted, Uber, Apple, Facebook waited for the dust to settle before throwing their hats in the ring.
The steal-and-improve strategy extends into entertainment as well. “Hotline Bling,” “Old Town Road,” “Sicko Mode,” and countless other hits incorporate samples from decades past. The best movies and shows replicate the same narrative DNA of plays written 2,000 years ago. Even this article you’re reading is stitched together by ideas from other writers.
For all the glamor associated with being first to market, history is quick to remind us that it’s almost always better to be second—or fifth, or fiftieth. Whatever. Just make it better.
Ironically, when you ask yourself, “What can I steal and improve?” instead of “What can I create?” you end up creating better stuff. Let someone else do the legwork, spend the money, and make the mistakes. Then swoop in and fill in the gaps.
But don’t take my word for it. David Bowie: “The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from.”
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