5 ms·
FB's valuation is currently around $1T. Shareholders should be pretty happy with what Zuck has done with FB's business and this seems sufficient to justify prot
by avalys 5y ago
FB's valuation is currently around $1T. Shareholders should be pretty happy with what Zuck has done with FB's business and this seems sufficient to justify protecting him from what would have been a major personal distraction.
But by all means, have sympathy for all those shareholders who were forced to invest their money in FB stock against their will and without any knowledge of the ownership structure.
- CamelCaseName 5y agoWho exactly was forced to invest money into FB stock? Why should we have any sympathy for them given the stock is up 200% over the past 5 years?
- avalys 5y agoI was being sarcastic.
- CamelCaseName 5y agoMy apologies, that went over my head. Thank you for clarifying.
- edoceo 5y agoMy friends mocked me for buying on IPO day. Sold 1/2 a few months ago. I don't use the network but thanks for the money Zuck!
- skeeter2020 5y agoWeird flex. Do you have a system I can buy that will let me reproduce your results?
- edoceo 5y agoDice. Purchase from your local gaming house.
- neonnoodle 5y agoAnyone with a retirement account in an index fund!
- asteroidbelt 5y agoAnyone with a retirement account can pick a different fund. They can be even buy individual stocks to collect their own portfolio. Or even buy anti-Facebook security. But there's no demand for that as far as I see. So I guess shareholders are actually happy, and unhappy are the people here on HN who are not shareholders.
- JohnFen 5y agoThere is a rather large number of investors that are not happy, and aren't quiet about it. That's why Facebook faces investor lawsuits every so often.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoInvestors sue because they can, not because they are unhappy.
- cool_dude85 5y agoWhere does this logic end? If Zuck shoots a guy in the middle of the street, is it fine for FB to finance his legal defense fund? Hire operators to bust him out of jail if he's convicted? Both of those "protect shareholder value" in the same sense as this.
- vasco 5y agoIt ends in illegal activities. If you disagree with the settlement you should harp on the FTC for having offered it. Zuck is no saint but this "where does it end" is a poor argument.
- cool_dude85 5y agoFTC seemed to think that Zuck was taking part in illegal activities right up until he offered a few extra billion in the deal. So it ends, well, before the article being discussed?
- COGlory 5y agoYou can't prove it's illegal if you stop it from ever going to court.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Where does this logic end? When there is an actual cost to Zuckerberg's behavior. So far, Silicon Valley is fine working for Facebook and Wall Street fine financing it. Users aren't rebelling. Advertisers are docile. Where is a politician aspiring to take Zuckerberg on supposed to find berth? (Genuine question.) The only fecund ground, to my sense, is the far right accusing Facebook of censoring its Nazism and far left upset that Zuckerberg is rich. Neither makes for a sustainably extensible base.
- shmageggy 5y agoWhat about the far middle who have been hearing for years how Facebook is eroding democracy, providing a platform for misinformation, instilling anxiety in teenage girls (the latest headline), and on and on. Zuckerberg continually makes decisions that benefit him and shareholders to the detriment of society and humanity. I think there's a greater appetite for change than it might appear, but I also think for the average person, it's really, really hard to imagine what that might be.
- lordlic 5y agoI'm not sure what you think minority ownership of a public company should entail, but surely you'd agree that it should protect them from the majority shareholder spending unlimited amounts of company cash to save themselves from personal inconvenience/embarrassment?
- asteroidbelt 5y ago"Personal inconvenience/embarrassment" will hurt his ability to operate the company efficiently. Protecting CEO is (usually) in the best interest of minor shareholders. This is why companies pay for personal security of CEOs or for their personal PR (most large companies, not just Facebook). > spending unlimited amounts of company cash This is clearly not the case here.
- lordlic 5y ago$4.9B over what the fine would otherwise have been is pretty hefty. I don't think any human alive is worth $4.9B to their employer.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoPerhaps damage to Z would result in damage to FB for more than 5B (company market cap would definitely fall for more than that, and it could result in large mismanagement in the following years), so he is worth it.
- lordlic 5y agoI meant "really" worth, for some reasonable definition of "really." But I can't argue that market cap is a more pragmatic definition of worth, so your point is fair enough I guess.
- skeeter2020 5y agoSo if I buy a share today at the $1T valuation, I DON'T support Zuck in this case, but if I bought one ten years ago I DO, because he made me rich?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> So if I buy a share today at the $1T valuation, I DON'T support Zuck in this case, but if I bought one ten years ago I DO, because he made me rich? If you bought a share today, you presumably aren't doing it out of charity.
- howaboutnope 5y agoThis wouldn't be a "distraction", this would be him owning his shit. The distraction from that is what he fills the rest of his life with.
- sfg 5y agoThey bought under the condition of the ownership structure and also the law. If, as alleged, the law was broken, then there is nothing wrong with shareholders seeking redress.