the hidden power of social networks

 Sam Lessin (Picture: Dave Pinter/Flickr)

This post by Ryan Tate at Gawker is actually a very sharp piece of media-sociological analysis. Its starting point is a New York Times report on Silicon Valley's hunt for 'the best talent', which leads with Facebook's recent purchase of a company started up by Sam Lessin. The NYT's point is that Facebook's primary reason for acquiring the company was to acquire Mr Lessin, a 'talented engineer'. But Tate argues that to report it this way misses out at least half the story:

If you want Facebook to spend millions of dollars hiring you, it helps to be a talented engineer, as the New York Times suggests. But it also helps to carouse with Facebook honchos, invite them to your dad's Mediterranean party palace, and get them introduced to your father's venture capital pals, like Sam Lessin did.

Lessin is the poster boy for today's Times story on Facebook "talent acquisitions." Facebook spent several million dollars to buy Lessin's drop.io, only to shut it down and put Lessin to work on internal projects. To the Times, Lessin is an example of how "the best talent" fetches tons of money these days. "Engineers are worth half a million to one million," a Facebook executive told the paper.

We'll let you in on a few things the Times left out: Lessin is not an engineer, but a Harvard social studies major and a former Bain consultant. His file-sharing startup drop.io was an also-ran competitor to the much more popular Dropbox, and was funded by a chum from Lessin's very rich childhood. Lessin's wealthy investment banker dad provided Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg crucial access to venture capitalists in Facebook's early days. And Lessin had made a habit of wining and dining with Facebook executives for years before he finally scored a deal, including at a famous party he threw at his father's vacation home in Cyprus with girlfriend and Wall Street Journal tech reporter Jessica Vascellaro.

Tate's point is not to denigrate Lessin's achievement. It's more that Lessin's wealth probably has as much or more to do with his social network (in sociological terms, his 'social capital') as his raw talent - yet the Times reports his advancement as if it were only about the latter. This is indicative of a wider media bias towards ascribing people's advancement to their own agency and ability rather than to luck and inherent advantage. The result is that we get a distorted idea of how our societies work which  - if you want to get all Marxist about it - is one way that inequality entrenches and sustains itself.

Comments

[Anthony]

I'm inclined to agree. I have to say that my views have become shaped somewhat by personal experience. I went to a university that attracts among the best non-Oxbridge students. I studied alongside a mix of bright comprehensive school people and public schoolers. Looking at where people ended up, there is simply no doubt in my mind that the public schoolers have overwhelmingly done better at getting into plum graduate jobs than the comprehensive crowd. The public school intake varied in quality, with some of the best and the worst students. But they pretty much all have something in common - they have all done very well. I think this is due to a combination of factors, primarily a network of contacts and the fact that the public school veterans tended to present a more "finished" face to world, with a certain confidence and easy plausibility that can carry a person a long way. People from the right background who basically spent three years playing rugby and partying wafted onto the six-figure salary track without blinking. In the most egregious case, the son of a modestly prominent left-wing political figure managed to earn the dislike of most of the students, antagonise the academic staff and take a very poor Third, after which he mysteriously gained access to a pretigious Master's programme at another university that nominally required an Upper Second to even be considered for entry. He has since secured a string of plum internships that most of the "ordinary" students on course for Firsts could only dream of accessing.

I wouldn't swear to it but I strongly suspect that, were one to compare the salaries of an equal number of comprehensive bods with Firsts and high Upper Seconds and public schoolers with Lower Seconds and Thirds from my intake, the public schoolers would be taking home more money and would generally be in more prestigious jobs. My major caveat would be whether this applies to people with scientific and technical qualifications, as opposed to arts and humanities degrees.