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Will Facebook's Grownups Please Stand Up

21 points by petethomas 8y ago

sandworm101 8y ago
The Wall Street journal is calling for adults within facebook to make a stand? Talk to the shareholders. They have the only real power. Get them to "stand up" by either demanding new leadership or dropping the stock.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  Do Facebook shareholders actually have any power, though?
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    By dropping the stock, yes they have leverage against facebook. The stock price matters to mr z more than anything.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  Zuckerberg has a 28% share. Dustin Moskovitz has about 7% some other decent sized chunks are owned by various VC firms http://www.whoownsfacebook.com http://www.whoownsfacebook.com
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    He has 60% of voting rights, though.
- thisisit 8y ago
  You do know Zuckerberg holds majority of the voting - Class B shares?
scurvy 8y ago
Meh. Just another bash Facebook rant. When are we going to ask the grownups at Goldman Sachs to stand up? Chevron? Dow Chemical? Dupont? And on and on. There are no morals in corporate America, only quarterly and year end bonuses. Any talk otherwise is delusional hanging on to a mythical era of corporate responsibility that has never actually existed.
- zajd 8y ago
  It's far easier to point fingers at bad actors than to address the systemic causes of corporate malfeasance. And quite frankly, most people on HN don't really want to do that. Biting the hand that feeds and all that.
- ex3xu 8y ago
  > Any talk otherwise is delusional hanging on to a mythical era of corporate responsibility that has never actually existed. While I think this is correct in the most general sense -- examples throughout history of the old consolidative robber barons, GE destroying the streetcar for its own benefit, etc -- one thing that has changed in the last 30-40 years is the change in mentality and priorities of the average shareholder and the average corporation. John Kay gives an example in his book, Other People's Money, comparing the change in chemical company ICI's annual shareholder reports: 1987: ICI aims to be the world's leading chemical company servicing customers internationally through the innovative and responsible application of chemistry and related science... Through achievement of our aim, we will enhance the wealth and well-being of our shareholders, our employees, our customers, and the communities which we serve and in which we operate. 1994: Our objective is to maximise value for our shareholders by focusing on businesses where we have market leadership, a technological edge and world competitive cost base. Kay goes on to attribute the change in the rise of financialisation and deregulation in the 80s and 90s, as well as the wide adoption of technically rigorous but conceptually questionable financial economics innovations like the efficient market hypothesis, Harry Markowitz model, Black/Scholes for pricing derivatives, and Ramsey/Savage's subjective utility. He also cites the rise of "I'll be gone, you'll be gone" trading culture on Wall Street, explaining traders are incentivized only to pad their own bonuses with no regard for the bigger financial picture. It may be that there was no mythical corporate responsibility at the top level, but I think it's important to understand that there are underlying structural changes that have spread the poison of financialization to the point where even good actors in corporate America are now incentivized to behave in ways that don't support the public interest. And in my view, the most appalling changed, is the modern inability for muckraking journalists to create public outcry and political will to regulate the worst of the bad actors.
thisisit 8y ago
Facebook and grownups in the same sentence? Given how long Zuckerberg and Sandberg have been deflecting questions on Russian ads etc, it is not going to happen. Not until Facebook share suffers significant damage. While people have been dropping out of Facebook, IMO it has been more due to rise of instagrame etc and less about Facebook's behavior. So, nothing is gonna change. At least in the short term.

21 points by petethomas 8y ago

The Wall Street journal is calling for adults within facebook to make a stand? Talk to the shareholders. They have the only real power. Get them to "stand up" by either demanding new leadership or dropping the stock.

i_am_nomad 8y ago
Do Facebook shareholders actually have any power, though?
- sandworm101 8y ago
  By dropping the stock, yes they have leverage against facebook. The stock price matters to mr z more than anything.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
Zuckerberg has a 28% share. Dustin Moskovitz has about 7% some other decent sized chunks are owned by various VC firms http://www.whoownsfacebook.com http://www.whoownsfacebook.com
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  He has 60% of voting rights, though.
thisisit 8y ago
You do know Zuckerberg holds majority of the voting - Class B shares?

scurvy 8y ago

Meh. Just another bash Facebook rant. When are we going to ask the grownups at Goldman Sachs to stand up? Chevron? Dow Chemical? Dupont? And on and on. There are no morals in corporate America, only quarterly and year end bonuses. Any talk otherwise is delusional hanging on to a mythical era of corporate responsibility that has never actually existed.

zajd 8y ago
It's far easier to point fingers at bad actors than to address the systemic causes of corporate malfeasance. And quite frankly, most people on HN don't really want to do that. Biting the hand that feeds and all that.
ex3xu 8y ago
> Any talk otherwise is delusional hanging on to a mythical era of corporate responsibility that has never actually existed. While I think this is correct in the most general sense -- examples throughout history of the old consolidative robber barons, GE destroying the streetcar for its own benefit, etc -- one thing that has changed in the last 30-40 years is the change in mentality and priorities of the average shareholder and the average corporation. John Kay gives an example in his book, Other People's Money, comparing the change in chemical company ICI's annual shareholder reports: 1987: ICI aims to be the world's leading chemical company servicing customers internationally through the innovative and responsible application of chemistry and related science... Through achievement of our aim, we will enhance the wealth and well-being of our shareholders, our employees, our customers, and the communities which we serve and in which we operate. 1994: Our objective is to maximise value for our shareholders by focusing on businesses where we have market leadership, a technological edge and world competitive cost base. Kay goes on to attribute the change in the rise of financialisation and deregulation in the 80s and 90s, as well as the wide adoption of technically rigorous but conceptually questionable financial economics innovations like the efficient market hypothesis, Harry Markowitz model, Black/Scholes for pricing derivatives, and Ramsey/Savage's subjective utility. He also cites the rise of "I'll be gone, you'll be gone" trading culture on Wall Street, explaining traders are incentivized only to pad their own bonuses with no regard for the bigger financial picture. It may be that there was no mythical corporate responsibility at the top level, but I think it's important to understand that there are underlying structural changes that have spread the poison of financialization to the point where even good actors in corporate America are now incentivized to behave in ways that don't support the public interest. And in my view, the most appalling changed, is the modern inability for muckraking journalists to create public outcry and political will to regulate the worst of the bad actors.

thisisit 8y ago

Facebook and grownups in the same sentence? Given how long Zuckerberg and Sandberg have been deflecting questions on Russian ads etc, it is not going to happen. Not until Facebook share suffers significant damage. While people have been dropping out of Facebook, IMO it has been more due to rise of instagrame etc and less about Facebook's behavior. So, nothing is gonna change. At least in the short term.