Ways To Riches: Mark Zuckerberg vs. Kevin Colvin, THE MENTAL CAGE MATCH!
Posted by Chris Johnson on Tue, Feb 05, 2008 @ 08:55 PM
Don King couldn't script a better or worse fight. I'd love to see a cage match between the minds of Mark Zuckerberg (creator of facebook) and Kevin Colvin (fairy, Holy Cross senior, former bank intern, and if you don't know who he is by now then please read my first blog article, "How Facebook Is Killing Careers," and resume this one. I think the match would go a little something like this:
Mark's brain: I was writing code and deemed a progamming genius by the time I was in 6th grade and decided it would be a great idea to go to Harvard and receive one of the most respected educations in the world.
Kevin's brain: I think I like girls. Beer is cool right guys? Right? HOLY CROSS! Busch Light!
Mark's brain: I got to Harvard and thought of this great idea with the help of some other students, lifted all the pictures of the students off the Harvard system, and created this thing now called facebook where you could then rate and berate the appearances of your classmates.
Kevin's Brain: I thought Rugby was the coolest because my brother was on the team at Holy Cross. I think he might still go professional. I hoped I could ride his coat tails through college so I wouldn't have to be an individual at some other school. BEER! PARTAY! Holy Cross Babay!
Mark's Brain: Facebook blew up and we spread it to over 40 colleges and universities. Then I dropped out of Harvard and moved to Palo Alto, CA to pursue something that may rival Google's popularity one day.
Kevin's Brain: You dropped out of college Mark! What a loser you are man. When are you going to have time to party running your own company?
Mark's Brain: Yahoo showed up on my door step with duffle bags full of a billion dollars in cash. I turned them down.
Kevin's Brain: I decided to become an intern at a bank during my senior year of college, because that's what I was supposed to do...become an intern.
Mark's Brain: Yeah....well then Bill Gates swooped in an gave me $240 million for 1.6% of facebook. That means he valued my company at around $15 billion dollars.
Kevin's Brain: I learned how to manipulate my boss at my job and scored some time off work to party over Halloween with my Holy Cross buddies. I told my boss I was going to New York to visit my family for an emergency...a hangover emergency! Huh huh ha huh. Busch Light!
Mark's Brain: I'm now 23 and trying to figure out how to run one of the fastest growing companies in the world. Do I try a revenue model around advertising? Did I make a mistake? There are a lot of people's futures riding on my decisions. I'm excited to make every one of employees live's better. Did I mention that I haven't changed who I am one bit.
Kevin's Brain: Oh man...bummer...my costume picture got on facebook and now everyone in the country totally knows I skipped work to party over Halloween. I dressed up as a fairy and now my life totally sucks cause everyone/most employers in the area knows I'm a party harty fairy. I'm now my own dismal yet hysterical viral marketing campaign thanks to you Mark. I had to pull my profile down off of your facebook.
Mark's Brain: No problem Kevin. You're an idiot...sorry, want a job at faceook? Psyche! You're still an idiot. That's why we created privacy settings. T.K.O.
I've watched the 60 Minutes episode with Mark Zuckerberg a few times now, and I'm always amazed at what he's accomplished without changing who he is (he's also one of the smartest kids on the planet). I will admit that I was a bit of a socialite in college like Kevin. But I also focused on the best way to get a quality education and make money at the time, where I was, with what I had, and then the best way to get into a career of my interests. During college one of my friends and I took over a small business' online advertising and keyword strategy. We managed to raise their organic ranks, traffic, revenue, and soon took over their computer based bookkeeping. It just makes a lot of sense to me not to sacrifice who you are for the sake of becoming involved in a job that doesn't compliment you and vice versa. If you're not ready for responsibility then don't take it on. If you're passionate about something then GO AFTER IT! If it means dropping out of Harvard to try and launch the biggest company post Google then so be it. As Kevin would probably, stagnantly say...Get 'Er Done!