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Do you think the other shareholders would have voted to dump Zuck if they knew he did not have a majority position? This act could have been a protest vote know

Do you think the other shareholders would have voted to dump Zuck if they knew he did not have a majority position? This act could have been a protest vote knowing it would only reform his behavior, not remove him. Similar to how people speculate that Brexit was only voted in because nobody thought the vote would pass- it was a protest vote.

cal97g 7y ago
The latter speculation is pure bullshit.
marvin-83 7y ago
Such speculation of voting intentions is disingenuous. To take your example, only people that oppose the result of the Brexit vote suggest that voters didn't really mean what they voted; it's just a way to apply favourable spin to an unfavourable outcome.
- atoav 7y ago
  Does everybody mean what they vote? Probably not, many people vote strategically or symbolically. But that doesn’t matter after the vote. The fascinating thing about Brexit was that the “people’s will” that was interpreted into the vote shifted its shape gradually over the months and years into whatever seemed to it the agenda that moment. Democracy is fundamentally about consensus, and the longer a decision affects the future, the more consensus there should be. In the Brexit process the most consens everybody could get was what 54%? And that 54% was gained on fraud and turned out to be split into fundamentally opposed directions. There was never consensus in Brexit.
  - marvin-83 7y ago
    I am not aware of any large, let alone national, democratic system that was based-on consensus. It has always been majority decision, with some variation on what constitutes a majority (e.g. simple majority, 2/3 majority, etc). I agree that the "people's will" talk is quite silly. Democratic support is notoriously fickle and claiming to represent a single coherent national will is disingenuous; but so is trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact. On matters such as these it is important not to let personal opinion cloud our perception. The brexit vote had a single question on the ballot and resulted in a clear majority (over a million vote difference). Both with this and the Facebook vote, we must be cautious before ascribing ulterior motives to voters.
    - atoav 7y ago
      > I am not aware of any large, let alone national, democratic system that was based-on consensus. It has always been majority decision, with some variation on what constitutes a majority (e.g. simple majority, 2/3 majority, etc). I didn't imply consensus was strictly necessary for a decision. But if you have a legally non-binding vote, isn't it's purpose to show which option has the favour of the people rather than beeing interpreted as a legally binding majority. The bigger the majority and the higher the voter turnout the more you can speak of a consensus. If you vote on something that might change the course of a whole nation over the next decades, a small lead with no real or realistic plan should not be basis for any decision. If you had a 51.9% vs 48.1% result when asking for the color of a bikeshed you wouldn't even call it a clear result then. You probably would argue on and vote again in order to avoid social conflicts. Especially when it turns out that one side used illegal methods in the runup to the bikeshed elections and all the people who use bikes are out on a bike tour for the last weeks weren't allowed to vote. This is a silly example, but it explains precisely the mess the UK got itself into since the 2016 referendum. The majority was in fact so thin that demographic change alone (old people dying and young people becoming old enough to vote) would have swayed it in January of 2019¹. However if I were thrown into the debate without prior knowledge I would have asumed a majority of at least 75% for Leave based on the words of the prime minister alone. > Democratic support is notoriously fickle and claiming to represent a single coherent national will is disingenuous; but so is trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact. The basis of any democracy is a informed vote. The Brexit referendum can easily discribed as a misinformed vote: think about Cambridge Analytica², Russian Interference with the election³, the unlawful campaigning on the Leave side⁴ and the right out lies like the 350 million pounds that UK has to pay to the EU every week – a lie by the way, that forces Boris Johnson to court right now⁵. English is not my first language, I have no ties to the UK and don't live there. I have no skin in the game and IMO they should be able to leave the EU if they please. But as someone who cares about democratic and humanist values, I also hate to see how undemocratic the whole process was. Essentially rich guys who own the tabloid media spreading lies about the EU for decades⁶ and then as soon as the vote is done they think loud about abolishing human rights⁷. So in the beginning everybody voted for 350 million pounds on the side of a bus, and now they claim everybody voted for No-Deal all along. Ah and the money for the NHS... well it seems like they have just forgot they ever promised that. The problem here was that there was no real majority for anything – they said "Leave means Leave" when in fact it meant at least 3 mutually exclusive things depending on which one you asked. Imagine a cocktail party on a yacht. For some reason all passengers decide to vote whether they want to end the whole party. The leaving side has a majority because someone claimed you can stay on the yacht and be out of the yacht at the same time. But the ones that voted to leave are split in thre major plans: 1. those who want to go on land for a smoke and occasionally go back onto the yacht 2. those who want to go to a harbor and cancel the yacht trip 3. those who want to set the yacht on fire and crash it into an iceberg after throwing out the safety wests (but secretly keeping some for themselves). Of course you can say they all essentially want to leave the yacht, but there is no consensus between the three and no way on earth to make them all happen at once, because they are incompatible with each other. This is how I perceived the Brexit leave side: there was never any coherent plan and literally nobody voted on the same idea. That is why claiming there was a plan and claiming it was clear to everybody all along is a lie and boils down to > trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact If this was a clear vote, UK would have been out a while ago. But it wasn't and acting as if it was will only divide the nation further. ¹: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-second-referendum-brexit-no-deal-crossover-day-a8541576.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-... ²: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#United_Kin... ³: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... ⁴: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_campaigning_in_the_2016_EU_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_campaigning_in_the_20... ⁵: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johnson-appear-court-eu-referendum-misconduct-claims https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johns... ⁶: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/london-tabloids-brexit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/london-tablo... ⁷: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-human-rights-act-repeal-brexit-echr-commons-parliament-conservatives-a8734886.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-h...
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  > Such speculation of voting intentions is disingenuous. For Brexit, maybe. It was at least a mass vote with an uncertain outcome. But this was a vote which was literally guaranteed to fail - the one thing which can't explain it is the 'normal' pattern where people vote for a result to get that result. It's like watching Congress pass a bill that the President has promised to veto, knowing they can't override the veto. It has to be tactical voting, simply because it can't be anything else. More concretely, there were two votes happening today - to oust Zuckerberg as chairman, and to end dual class stock. It was common knowledge that both were doomed, so all we can do is see what they suggested. 68% of outside investors supported the ouster, so we see a 17 point rise in the show of no-confidence from the same vote last year. Meanwhile 83% supported ending dual class stock, suggesting a 15-point spread of investors arguing they want more of a say, but are showing confidence in Zuckerberg's chairmanship. Questioning whether those 68% actually want Zuckerberg gone seems entirely fair, because taking the vote at face value would imply they're acting like King Canute, and didn't even understand what they were investing in.
  - marvin-83 7y ago
    I would agree that voting results where the outcome was known ahead-of-time should be considered with caution. Such information undoubtedly influences both how votes are cast and who decides to cast a vote.
Bartweiss 7y ago
Even more directly, it looks like Congress passing a bill they know won't get past a veto. Rather than the uncertainty of Brexit, there's a single voter with veto power and a pre-declared position. (Though this is more extreme; in voting-theory terms, Presidents don't even have proper veto power, but Zuckerberg is a dictator.) I think the better headline here might have been "percentage of outside investors voting against Zuckerberg rises 17 points". You're exactly right - it's a show of no confidence, but hardly a guarantee that these voters actually want him removed.

cal97g 7y ago

The latter speculation is pure bullshit.

marvin-83 7y ago

Such speculation of voting intentions is disingenuous. To take your example, only people that oppose the result of the Brexit vote suggest that voters didn't really mean what they voted; it's just a way to apply favourable spin to an unfavourable outcome.

atoav 7y ago
Does everybody mean what they vote? Probably not, many people vote strategically or symbolically. But that doesn’t matter after the vote. The fascinating thing about Brexit was that the “people’s will” that was interpreted into the vote shifted its shape gradually over the months and years into whatever seemed to it the agenda that moment. Democracy is fundamentally about consensus, and the longer a decision affects the future, the more consensus there should be. In the Brexit process the most consens everybody could get was what 54%? And that 54% was gained on fraud and turned out to be split into fundamentally opposed directions. There was never consensus in Brexit.
- marvin-83 7y ago
  I am not aware of any large, let alone national, democratic system that was based-on consensus. It has always been majority decision, with some variation on what constitutes a majority (e.g. simple majority, 2/3 majority, etc). I agree that the "people's will" talk is quite silly. Democratic support is notoriously fickle and claiming to represent a single coherent national will is disingenuous; but so is trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact. On matters such as these it is important not to let personal opinion cloud our perception. The brexit vote had a single question on the ballot and resulted in a clear majority (over a million vote difference). Both with this and the Facebook vote, we must be cautious before ascribing ulterior motives to voters.
  - atoav 7y ago
    > I am not aware of any large, let alone national, democratic system that was based-on consensus. It has always been majority decision, with some variation on what constitutes a majority (e.g. simple majority, 2/3 majority, etc). I didn't imply consensus was strictly necessary for a decision. But if you have a legally non-binding vote, isn't it's purpose to show which option has the favour of the people rather than beeing interpreted as a legally binding majority. The bigger the majority and the higher the voter turnout the more you can speak of a consensus. If you vote on something that might change the course of a whole nation over the next decades, a small lead with no real or realistic plan should not be basis for any decision. If you had a 51.9% vs 48.1% result when asking for the color of a bikeshed you wouldn't even call it a clear result then. You probably would argue on and vote again in order to avoid social conflicts. Especially when it turns out that one side used illegal methods in the runup to the bikeshed elections and all the people who use bikes are out on a bike tour for the last weeks weren't allowed to vote. This is a silly example, but it explains precisely the mess the UK got itself into since the 2016 referendum. The majority was in fact so thin that demographic change alone (old people dying and young people becoming old enough to vote) would have swayed it in January of 2019¹. However if I were thrown into the debate without prior knowledge I would have asumed a majority of at least 75% for Leave based on the words of the prime minister alone. > Democratic support is notoriously fickle and claiming to represent a single coherent national will is disingenuous; but so is trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact. The basis of any democracy is a informed vote. The Brexit referendum can easily discribed as a misinformed vote: think about Cambridge Analytica², Russian Interference with the election³, the unlawful campaigning on the Leave side⁴ and the right out lies like the 350 million pounds that UK has to pay to the EU every week – a lie by the way, that forces Boris Johnson to court right now⁵. English is not my first language, I have no ties to the UK and don't live there. I have no skin in the game and IMO they should be able to leave the EU if they please. But as someone who cares about democratic and humanist values, I also hate to see how undemocratic the whole process was. Essentially rich guys who own the tabloid media spreading lies about the EU for decades⁶ and then as soon as the vote is done they think loud about abolishing human rights⁷. So in the beginning everybody voted for 350 million pounds on the side of a bus, and now they claim everybody voted for No-Deal all along. Ah and the money for the NHS... well it seems like they have just forgot they ever promised that. The problem here was that there was no real majority for anything – they said "Leave means Leave" when in fact it meant at least 3 mutually exclusive things depending on which one you asked. Imagine a cocktail party on a yacht. For some reason all passengers decide to vote whether they want to end the whole party. The leaving side has a majority because someone claimed you can stay on the yacht and be out of the yacht at the same time. But the ones that voted to leave are split in thre major plans: 1. those who want to go on land for a smoke and occasionally go back onto the yacht 2. those who want to go to a harbor and cancel the yacht trip 3. those who want to set the yacht on fire and crash it into an iceberg after throwing out the safety wests (but secretly keeping some for themselves). Of course you can say they all essentially want to leave the yacht, but there is no consensus between the three and no way on earth to make them all happen at once, because they are incompatible with each other. This is how I perceived the Brexit leave side: there was never any coherent plan and literally nobody voted on the same idea. That is why claiming there was a plan and claiming it was clear to everybody all along is a lie and boils down to > trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact If this was a clear vote, UK would have been out a while ago. But it wasn't and acting as if it was will only divide the nation further. ¹: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-second-referendum-brexit-no-deal-crossover-day-a8541576.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-... ²: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#United_Kin... ³: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... ⁴: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_campaigning_in_the_2016_EU_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_campaigning_in_the_20... ⁵: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johnson-appear-court-eu-referendum-misconduct-claims https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johns... ⁶: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/london-tabloids-brexit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/london-tablo... ⁷: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-human-rights-act-repeal-brexit-echr-commons-parliament-conservatives-a8734886.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-h...
Bartweiss 7y ago
> Such speculation of voting intentions is disingenuous. For Brexit, maybe. It was at least a mass vote with an uncertain outcome. But this was a vote which was literally guaranteed to fail - the one thing which can't explain it is the 'normal' pattern where people vote for a result to get that result. It's like watching Congress pass a bill that the President has promised to veto, knowing they can't override the veto. It has to be tactical voting, simply because it can't be anything else. More concretely, there were two votes happening today - to oust Zuckerberg as chairman, and to end dual class stock. It was common knowledge that both were doomed, so all we can do is see what they suggested. 68% of outside investors supported the ouster, so we see a 17 point rise in the show of no-confidence from the same vote last year. Meanwhile 83% supported ending dual class stock, suggesting a 15-point spread of investors arguing they want more of a say, but are showing confidence in Zuckerberg's chairmanship. Questioning whether those 68% actually want Zuckerberg gone seems entirely fair, because taking the vote at face value would imply they're acting like King Canute, and didn't even understand what they were investing in.
- marvin-83 7y ago
  I would agree that voting results where the outcome was known ahead-of-time should be considered with caution. Such information undoubtedly influences both how votes are cast and who decides to cast a vote.

Bartweiss 7y ago

Even more directly, it looks like Congress passing a bill they know won't get past a veto. Rather than the uncertainty of Brexit, there's a single voter with veto power and a pre-declared position. (Though this is more extreme; in voting-theory terms, Presidents don't even have proper veto power, but Zuckerberg is a dictator.) I think the better headline here might have been "percentage of outside investors voting against Zuckerberg rises 17 points". You're exactly right - it's a show of no confidence, but hardly a guarantee that these voters actually want him removed.