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Sure, he gets input from all the board members, but he is unconstrained, he controls the majority of voting shares. The headline is not qualified.

by gfosco 6y ago

hayksaakian 6y ago
I think you're missing the point of the OP If Zuckerberg undermines the leadership of his operators some of them will move on to other companies. It's not feasible to run an enterprise as large as Facebook as 1 person at the top, so you need leaders with mutual trust to execute in their department.
- gfosco 6y ago
  No I think we're really missing each other somehow... Board members don't usually work at the company. They don't have Workplace accounts, or departments. The headline that this 'asserts control' is click-bait.
  - alwayseasy 6y ago
    It really is an article about board politics. It's a different kind of game where control isn't only about shares in the company but also about controlled assets and influence outside the company. In Facebook's case, Zuck already has control of the company but "asserts control" through strategic moves at the board level by "firing" Hastings and Bowles (who both disagreed with his fumbling on political ads). Outside the company he "asserts control" thanks to his increased acrimony towards regulators while appeasing the Trump circle. A board member who goes after Zuckerberg not only risks getting fired from the board but also getting heat from the White House. This is a very unusual situation for a company in a democracy and in the tech sector.
    - bryan_w 6y ago
      It's really weird how all these unrelated accounts keep giving gfosco non-seqitor answers to his responses in this thread, just pointing that out.
- vasco 6y ago
  You're talking about the senior executive team, which may overlap with the board but it's not 1-1.
- cryptica 6y ago
  Yes and let's not forget that all companies of such size have many skeletons in their closets and directors know all about them and they can be used against the company. If some of these board members are well connected to lobbyists in Washington, they can change the balance of power. Facebook's dominance is completely dependent on cheap fiat currency issued by banks at low interest rates. If the economic and political environment changes, Facebook may not survive. Facebook was founded on an unsound economy where popularity is valued much more highly than profits. In a sound economic environment, popularity by itself is a fickle thing which cannot be relied upon (without it being supported by real net value), but in our new economic age with massive fiat money printing, companies like Facebook have found a way to monopolize user attention and control it in a predictable way.
  - looping__lui 6y ago
    Not sure where you draw these conclusions from or how you back them up... I’d say FB reaching 1/3 of the worlds population, allowing advertisers to target very specifically whom they spend money on and giving metrics that are more understandable and ROI-relatable than TV/print make them pretty strong. Oh, and a 30% or so operating margin, 20% YOY growth are generally kind a strong and beyond most business performance... See: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-q1-earnings-2020-4?r=DE&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-q1-earnings-2020-4?...
erispoe 6y ago
Each director gets a vote on a company board. Being a majority shareholder gets you to control who sits on the board, but you don't control board votes directly. A company officer still has a duty towards the company as a whole and all the shareholders, even if they also control the majority of votes. Facebook is a public company, which creates additional safeguards to protect the interests of all shareholders.

Sure, he gets input from all the board members, but he is unconstrained, he controls the majority of voting shares. The headline is not qualified.

by gfosco 6y ago

Sure, he gets input from all the board members, but he is unconstrained, he controls the majority of voting shares. The headline is not qualified.

hayksaakian 6y ago

I think you're missing the point of the OP If Zuckerberg undermines the leadership of his operators some of them will move on to other companies. It's not feasible to run an enterprise as large as Facebook as 1 person at the top, so you need leaders with mutual trust to execute in their department.

gfosco 6y ago
No I think we're really missing each other somehow... Board members don't usually work at the company. They don't have Workplace accounts, or departments. The headline that this 'asserts control' is click-bait.
- alwayseasy 6y ago
  It really is an article about board politics. It's a different kind of game where control isn't only about shares in the company but also about controlled assets and influence outside the company. In Facebook's case, Zuck already has control of the company but "asserts control" through strategic moves at the board level by "firing" Hastings and Bowles (who both disagreed with his fumbling on political ads). Outside the company he "asserts control" thanks to his increased acrimony towards regulators while appeasing the Trump circle. A board member who goes after Zuckerberg not only risks getting fired from the board but also getting heat from the White House. This is a very unusual situation for a company in a democracy and in the tech sector.
  - bryan_w 6y ago
    It's really weird how all these unrelated accounts keep giving gfosco non-seqitor answers to his responses in this thread, just pointing that out.
vasco 6y ago
You're talking about the senior executive team, which may overlap with the board but it's not 1-1.
cryptica 6y ago
Yes and let's not forget that all companies of such size have many skeletons in their closets and directors know all about them and they can be used against the company. If some of these board members are well connected to lobbyists in Washington, they can change the balance of power. Facebook's dominance is completely dependent on cheap fiat currency issued by banks at low interest rates. If the economic and political environment changes, Facebook may not survive. Facebook was founded on an unsound economy where popularity is valued much more highly than profits. In a sound economic environment, popularity by itself is a fickle thing which cannot be relied upon (without it being supported by real net value), but in our new economic age with massive fiat money printing, companies like Facebook have found a way to monopolize user attention and control it in a predictable way.
- looping__lui 6y ago
  Not sure where you draw these conclusions from or how you back them up... I’d say FB reaching 1/3 of the worlds population, allowing advertisers to target very specifically whom they spend money on and giving metrics that are more understandable and ROI-relatable than TV/print make them pretty strong. Oh, and a 30% or so operating margin, 20% YOY growth are generally kind a strong and beyond most business performance... See: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-q1-earnings-2020-4?r=DE&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-q1-earnings-2020-4?...

erispoe 6y ago

Each director gets a vote on a company board. Being a majority shareholder gets you to control who sits on the board, but you don't control board votes directly. A company officer still has a duty towards the company as a whole and all the shareholders, even if they also control the majority of votes. Facebook is a public company, which creates additional safeguards to protect the interests of all shareholders.