All Things Tech & Social

I recently just watched what has progressively become one of my favorite movies. I would normally talk about movies on my MCAT Review Blog, but this isn’t a post about the movie. One of the reasons why this film has stuck with me is because I feel there are valuable lessons learned from it. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between Mark and Eduardo that shows this, and the  “meaning” in it relates more to the Tech and Social aspect of entrepreneurship. This stands out to me because it shows the necessary mindset it takes to build something that will live beyond its present form or its 10th iteration.

-Eduardo: “It’s time to monetize the site.”
-Mark: “How do you want to do it?”
-Eduardo: “Advertising.”
-Mark: “No.”
-Eduardo: “Well, we got 4,000 members.”
-Mark: “Because The Facebook is cool, and if we started selling popups for Mountain Dew… We don’t even know what it is yet. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know what it can be, we don’t know what it will be. We know that it is cool. That is a priceless asset I’m not giving up.”
-Eduardo: “So when will it be finish?”
-Mark: “It won’t be finish, that’s the point. The way fashion is never finish.”
-Eduardo: “What?”
-Mark: “Fashion. Fashion is never finished.
-Eduardo: “We’re talking about fashion, really you…”
-Mark: “I’m talking about the idea of it and I’m saying that it’s never finished.”

Whether this conversation between them actually “happened” is irrelevant. Either way, what we learn from it is priceless: there is a difference between what something “does” and what something “is”. To ruin something so early in its development (with advertisements) would be negating how priceless its potential growth is: the big picture. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what that “big picture” is, just as long as you understand there is one. Recognizing this in the early stages is an invaluable understanding and it is the difference between building something that is only a fad, and building something that can change the world.