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I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier commen

• debt 8y ago
  "hemorrhaging its best people" I don't consider people that oversaw one of the biggest cases of user data misuse in history which, by the way, could've been easily prevented, as the "best people". Sounds like Facebook is making the changes necessary to rectify the mess they oversaw.
  • refurb 8y ago
    I read "best" as "most talented", not "most moral".
    • debt 8y ago
      Huh? I don't know what that means. Talented in fucking up the public perception of Facebook? Yeah they were good at that for sure.
      • docbrown 8y ago
        Let us settle this: they were intelligent enough to know how to create programs that were not so good for the public and dragged FB’s reputation down.
      • anigbrowl 8y ago
        They could be awful, and might still the best of the people working there in terms of ability to pursue awful goals. Stop getting so hung up on one interpretation of the word.
      • rchaud 8y ago
        "Talented" in terms of actually turning a social network (of which there were lots) into one of the most profitable companies in the world, let alone in 'tech'.
• ilovecaching 8y ago
  Maybe you are reading between the lines too much. Maybe he really just wants to do something else or spend more time with his family, and if he felt like Facebook was bending things the wrong way he'd say so. His point is more that progress in the right direction requires effort, and that instead of complaining we should take up our banner and work to make the future what we want it to be.
  • mindgam3 8y ago
    “if he felt like Facebook was bending things the wrong way he'd say so” I wish that were true, but this is a rather naive perspective. Facebook has a well documented history of requiring outgoing employees to sign non-disparagement clauses. For someone as high up as Chief Product Officer you’d better believe that they would have Chris sign something expressly forbidding any overt criticism of the company. Any severance package which in this case is worth millions or tens of millions would be contingent on signing. I’m actually surprised he was able to say as much as he did.
    • kjar 8y ago
      A non-disparagement clause is so fucking bonkers. I read these things and would never sign something like that. It’s a blatant corporate attack on your freedom of speech and absolutely insulting as a human. You pay me. You do not control me!
      • avinium 8y ago
        You're not wrong. But ethics can become a lot more flexible when someone's dangling a few million in stock options in front of your face.
        • j-c-hewitt 8y ago
          Flip it around. If you are an employee partly compensated in stock, is it fair for a multi-billionaire who was one of your former bosses to flippantly trash talk the company in public after he cashes out, potentially damaging the value of your stock...? Wouldn't you want your employer to put some controls into place to prevent that kind of pointless harm to you? You can still talk about literally anything else if you sign a non-disparagement clause or an NDA.
• NathanLands 8y ago
  Even if Mark Zuckerberg ends up being "wrong" by your definition, why does that mean he lied? It's odd to assume negative intent or that you know what is going on inside other people's heads.
  • seandougall 8y ago
    More odd to assume that Zuckerberg hasn’t had any feedback about how Facebook is used, or any sway over how it has been built. He’s hardly been a passive observer.
  • mindgam3 8y ago
    So, there are two ways of looking at Zuckerberg's idealistic positioning of Facebook as a force for good, which is how he pitched to me when I was recruited as a PM there in 2007 (and offered a job which I ultimately declined due to a counter offer, much to the detriment of my current net worth, but that is irrelevant to the current discussion): 1. Either this reflected a sincere belief by Zuck to build a different kind of product/corporate entity governed more by ethics than by money and power, or 2. This utopian positioning was a calculated recruiting strategy to attract the best and brightest recent grads from Stanford and other elite universities, who were extremely attracted by the idea of getting paid six figures to work on a fascinating product without having to sell our soul, like our friends in finance etc. Or it could be some combination of those two. My point is that if the underlying motivation were truly to do good, Facebook would have done something differently over the last 5+ years as the capacity for its product to cause harm became abundantly evident. Instead, at every crisis/opportunity to fix the underlying issues, Facebook chose to brush problems under the rug in the pursuit of growth. From my perspective, as someone who drank the Facebook kool-aid more than just about anyone in the early days, this represents a painful betrayal. I feel like one of the "dumb fucks" who trusted Zuckerberg's pitch to me back in the day.
  • anigbrowl 8y ago
    We've already had a look inside his head, because he joked with his friends about how naive the people giving their information to him were for trusting, and how they were dumb fucks that he looked forward to fucking in the ear. Sure, he might have changed since, but there's nothing wrong with rational speculation. Selfishness and greed are real phenomena in human relations so it would be as foolish to ignore such possibilities as to believe them uncritically.
• dunkelheit 8y ago
  So, do you read this quote as a very mild-mannered 'fuck you' to the current facebook modus operandi? I obviously know nothing of Chris, but the message doesn't feel that different from the grand but empty proclamations that Zuck spouts in his posts. Also, he has worked there for fourteen years and in the most senior leadership positions, how can he be not complicit?
  • stingraycharles 8y ago
    He might be complicit, but maybe he was trying to change the direction. Those two things should be treated separately.
    • dunkelheit 8y ago
      This is what I am trying to understand - why do people feel that he was trying to change the direction? If e.g. Zuck would say something like that everybody would just ignore him.
      • stingraycharles 8y ago
        I think it has more to do with high skepticism towards Zuckerberg. Combine that with lots of internal struggles and high level executives that openly stood up against Zuckerberg, and Chris Cox comes out as a hero by default. At least, it’s probably something along these lines. In the end we don’t have enough information, and probably never will.
    • mindgam3 8y ago
      I agree. It is possible that his ability to effect real change was severely limited if it contradicted Zuck's vision.
  • mindgam3 8y ago
    I 100% view his quote as a mild-mannered 'fuck you' as you suggest. I also do see him as complicit to a certain degree. That said, there has been a very strong reality distortion field involved in being a Facebook executive since the beginning. I personally experienced this while being recruited there in 2007 and it took me years to work through the cognitive dissonance involved in understanding that a dream you deeply believe in is actually more of a nightmare. From a psychological perspective, when you escape a cult, there is a process known as "exit counseling" which is often required to help former members process their experiences and return to reality. I suspect that former Facebook insiders will undergo a similar process. And I view Chris' quote as an indication that he has begun his own transition.
• whalesalad 8y ago
  I can't believe anyone was unable to see through the bullshit on FB from the very very beginning. Does ANYONE there now, or at any time in the past, have any real belief that what they're doing is connecting the world? It's a money making machine, plain and simple. (Money making machines are not bad, as long as there is never any dog and pony show about being some higher form of existence) I think that the people leaving also knew this all along, but now they are finally coming to terms with the impact that FB has really had on people, the world, privacy, and the way it has desensitized everyone to this type of behavior. Facebook hasn't changed, that's not why people are leaving. They're leaving because they've finally been able to look in the mirror and realize that this isn't worth the paycheck anymore. That's gonna be a tough pill to swallow for most.
  • colecut 8y ago
    I remember using Facebook before it even had ads. So maybe not the very very beginning.
  • o10449366 8y ago
    It's easy to believe the bullshit when that money machine is funding your six figure salary, free meals, unlimited vacation, recreational and health services, and 401K and Roth. That's why there are engineers at Google right now working on a censorship machine at the directive of the Chinese government. I find it highly doubtful that they would still believe the project is a net good on the world and not motivated by pure greed if they weren't getting paid so well. Similarly at Facebook. Human morality is cheap and SV has showed that.
    • resters 8y ago
      > That's why there are engineers at Google right now working on a censorship machine at the directive of the Chinese government It's already been built for the US government, so why not profit by selling a US supervised version to the Chinese? Better than China building its own tech. I think you underestimate the degree to which Google is a top defense contractor and in building this stuff for China is acting at the behest of the US Government.
    • 8y ago
• passn 8y ago
  "Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and the companies they own). The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) is literally an inch away on our smartphone, but it is such bad quality and so expensive its unusable. For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing.
  • civility 8y ago
    > Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. [...] The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) I use email to keep in contact with my family. CC everyone, then reply all. No Facebook required.
    • joe_the_user 8y ago
      Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email. It seems like the situation of Facebook-anger today involves some people looking at particular interface of details that allegedly make Facebook in particular "more addictive" than email (or whatever unspecified social activity) but with this group with this narrow critique being joined by those with a broader critique of social media that essentially calls for nothing but face-to-face contact. We face a difficult question of "at what point is a communication medium a tool of its users and at what point does a communication medium merely act on the users without them being truly conscious agents". I don't think we can really address this question by demonizing Facebook (the problem has existed since the dawn of mass media, with nearly all these media forms accused of doing terrible things and with the accusations at least have some support). Just for example, Zuckerberg may indeed have made some terrible choices but Facebook seems to signal a desire to take on this difficult question.
      • 8y ago
• manigandham 8y ago
  Or maybe people are complicated and they use tools to connect and amplify natural behavior. All this digital technology and instant communication with everyone is still very new and the human species is still learning how to best use it. If Facebook didn't exist then something else would've taken its place. This is part of technological progress and similar things happened with the invention of radio, tv and telecom. It's very presumptuous to think a single person or company knows better than the entire world on whether something is "good" or not.
  • GuiA 8y ago
    Well, the people who argue that these networks have an overall negative impact have plenty of examples to draw from - ranging from the last US election, to the genocide in Myanmar, the extremely fine ad targeting it enables perpetuating sociology economical discrimination, etc. People who argue for its value mostly point to the fact that grandma can see pictures of the kids and other pedestrian examples of things that were just as feasible over email/instant chat before planetary scale social networks. At this point it’s becoming pretty clear that open by default social networks à la Twitter/Facebook are generally a bad thing for our societies.
    • blackoil 8y ago
      How do we know that examples are not polluted by the biases. Not so long ago FB/Twitter was hailed for its role in Obama's campaign and Arab Spring. It is still being used same except now we don't like the side using it.
    • manigandham 8y ago
      It's not clear at all, you just picked a random example of grandma when the reality is billions of people have and connected to each other and there are many examples of people avoiding censorship, exposing crimes, finding loved ones, getting help, and spreading news that otherwise wouldn't have happened. The real issue is human nature. Social media is just a new medium that facilitates instant (and optionally public) communication but its still the same people at the end of the day. Email, chat and phone calls still have have vast amounts of scammers and propaganda and that will continue into any new comms that people use. There's no magic solution for that and never will be.
• joelrunyon 8y ago
  > encourages all employees to bend it towards the good The problem is this means something different to every employee.
• saiya-jin 8y ago
  WTF are you talking about? Facebook didn't became what it is today last week, but with great focus over last 10 years minimum. We're not in some wake up call scenario here. Those decisions happened very, very long time ago, in internet years an era ego. This now are just consequences of a carefully laid path.
  • jinushaun 8y ago
    I’ve been saying this since 2009. A lot of what’s wrong with Facebook started when it tried to copy Twitter in 2009: making posts public by default and preferring news articles over user generated content.
• fwdpropaganda 8y ago
  > It's the fact that Facebook is hemorrhaging its best people as those on the inside finally start waking up to the fact that Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie. I would say that if these people are the best, they it couldn't have taken them this long to figure out what's obvious to so many of no. No, these are rats leaving the ship.
• sonnyblarney 8y ago
  This isn't fair. These people are vested, super rich and probably a little bored. As long as FB is a 'darling' they can ride that - now when the narrative is darker, it's just a grind for them. They can move on, do nothing, do something fun, and possibly get out before any ugly things happen. Just as FB was over-hyped on the way up, the negative narrative is also a little too much. There's a lot of grey in the details. I think Zuck has made some mistakes, but FB is not trying to do evil. Also: FB may have been a fad, not a trend. It may be kind of slowly dying as other things take it place, and while they continue to make money, some of the underlying metrics might be heading down. Usership certainly is. So it's easy to see people wanting to move on as FB moves into a more 'grind' stage of either limited growth, maturation into a boring corporation, or even downward stagnation. The koolaid party is definitely over, the money is in the bank, so the impetus to stay is much less.
  • cm2187 8y ago
    Also I suspect facebook is in decline in term of engagement, I hardly know anyone around me who still uses it. That sounds like a more plausible rationale for top employees leaving than them worrying about facebook “being good for the world”.
• spinach 8y ago
  Can a for-profit company that even went public, that offers it's product "for free" to it's users really be good? I think at the heart of the problem is Facebook's business model. It can't be good and still sustain itself. I think, at the very least, it would have to be a not-for-profit organization.
  • seba_dos1 8y ago
    There's something called Social Purpose Corporation, at least in some states, which would probably fit to this case (a for-profit, but not profit-maximizing entity that exists to "do good" for a specified clause instead).
• jrockway 8y ago
  > Facebook is hemorrhaging its best people as those on the inside finally start waking up to the fact that Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie Or maybe they have acquired Enough money and have decided that sleeping in to noon every day is more valuable than making an app for people to share drunken photos of themselves? My point is, there can be many reasons.
• a-dub 8y ago
  I don't think it was a lie. A mistake, a delusion, quite possibly... but lbh nobody quite expected where this thing ultimately ended up going and tbh^2, a lot of the problems aren't facebook in particular, but rather what happens when humanity collides with one of, if not the, single biggest singularity in human communication (beyond speech and language itself) since the beginning of humanity. (ie. the internet)
• chewz 8y ago
  So Mr Cox is the good guy who happend to be in charge of this toxic and privacy abusing platform for the last 10 years? - I had to do that to survive - would be rather lame excuse.
• MichaelMoser123 8y ago
  My guess is that these are all unintended consequences of very big systems. If you have so many actors in your playground as Facebook, then it just becomes impossible to foresee the results of your actions, and how people will use the platform.