he developed an automated system that generated personalized query letters to more than 800 literary agents nationwide
Spamming literary agents? Ouch. Your typical literary agent gets 100s of manuscripts a day, and accepts maybe 10 a year. (Much, much worse odds than applying a yc).
Obviously, the facebook idea was old, old, old even when Zuck got to it, so of course he's no innovator. Just threw the dice and won. (Plus, he's probably a good operator, despite his assholism).
Comments
he developed an automated system that generated personalized query letters to more than 800 literary agents nationwide
Spamming literary agents? Ouch. Your typical literary agent gets 100s of manuscripts a day, and accepts maybe 10 a year. (Much, much worse odds than applying a yc).
Obviously, the facebook idea was old, old, old even when Zuck got to it, so of course he's no innovator. Just threw the dice and won. (Plus, he's probably a good operator, despite his assholism).
mail merge? rocket science.