The Social Network? Or Jungle?
Thanks to the good people at TGV & SMCKL yours truly was invited to watch 'The Social Network' a day before it came out on cinema's along with the usual Social Media Suspects. No it was not a Premier (was told premieres are for important people, haha) more like a sneak preview.
The movie was excellent, I simply loved it. You must go watch it! Am not a critic so do not expect me to break it down any further than that.
The thing with movies is that (not unlike history) the power lies with the storyteller. If that is the case, then Fincher & Sorkin must not have liked Sean Parker much. Coz in the whole movie I think you only really walk away hating him, even the Winklevoss twins & trusty braniac Narendra were relatable and sometimes just plain 'good guys' likable. It goes without saying that most watching the movie was rooting for Eduardo 'the voice of reason' to get his dues.
Judging by the discussions after the movie, people walked away with their own inspirations. Programmers/coders were inspired to code the next big thing, lawyers (ok perhaps just you Khairul haha) were saying this was a movie on how important your lawyer is and never NEVER sign anything without legal advise.
Personally I walked away with two important lessons. Both which I feel I've always known but just not consciously.
1- if someone wants to screw you over they can find a way to do it!
The first is somewhat obvious to me, having been a part of a few partnerships before (and still in some now) the key to any partnership is the relationship between the partners not the contract. It's the trust. For example even in the movie: Eduardo was undone by the contract he was made to sign, but ultimately Mark made the call to allow it to happen. He could have stopped it at anytime but never did. Same goes to life I guess, if people want to undermine you there's not a contract in the world that can save you all the time every-time. It's about people so nourish these relationships well.
2 - obsession is the quality that tips you towards success
Mark Zuckerberg can be summarized as a genius with an asshole complex. But that's somehow just the byproduct of his obsession with his idea (yeah, you can call it Vision). I found his obsession to be the most fascinating and motivating aspect of the movie. His obsession was/is borderline crazy, and sometimes he was just plain crazy.
This is something all entrepreneurs should take note. A lot of people get into business for the wrong reasons. There's a lot of grey area in this but the one single most absolute truth is that you don't really choose to become an entrepreneur, it just happens. It happens when you're obsessed in making your idea come to life and in the process of doing so you gather a team, form an entity find a way to pay for all the expenses to make this idea come thru and before you know it, there's a business !
I am not saying this is the only way to do it, but it's how the greats have done it! What i'm really trying to say is, get obsessed with YOUR idea! I see a few startups who are more focused on their business plans rather then their ideas (I don't blame them, it's a necessary evil to get funding & etc) A business plan should be how to best make that idea into a reality but a BP is not the idea itself, you can kill a BP but you can never really kill an Idea. I was inspired by the movie to get even more obsessed with my ideas, I hope it inspires you to get obsessed with yours!
