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>You can't ignore the signals that Zuckerberg is in way over his head. Yeah, you can. You can chalk them up to statistical noise resulting from a few engineer

>You can't ignore the signals that Zuckerberg is in way over his head. Yeah, you can. You can chalk them up to statistical noise resulting from a few engineering and business model problems that need to be solved, which shouldn't be surprising in the relatively early days of a unique new business model like Facebook. Just ignore the Silicon Valley and Wall Street news industry echo chamber, their fundamental business model is about turning statistical noise into ad impressions and cash flow. This too will pass. >He did a great job getting the company to this point but perhaps the next major departure/reassignment is his. It is not unprecedented to have the board of a public company replace the founder with a more experience CEO and that is what it seems like is needed in this case. As pointed out above, Zuck owns a controlling interest, so this won't happen. But more importantly, there no CEO alive with more experience in this domain than Zuck. Who are you thinking of, Tom the Myspace founder? An ex-Yahoo CEO? There's still no one better than Zuck for this, so even if he could be replaced it would be foolish to do so.

viscanti 14y ago
By most accounts Sheryl Sandberg is handling most of the traditional CEO duties. Zuck has the benefit of being a founder CEO, with an experienced exec in Sandberg to help. Any issues Facebook faces, won't be because Zuck is in over his head. The problem that Zuck (and Facebook at large) face is that there's a rift between expectations (100 Billion+ valuation) vs reality (it's a profitable, but much smaller business). Facebook needs to either change their belief (or expectations) or reality (somehow morph into a 100 Billion+ company). Neither is easy to do, but now that Facebook is a public company, they've at least got a chance. Market forces can help guide them to a realistic valuation, and given enough time as a profitable but lower valued company, it's possible they'll reset their expectations to something more realistic. Or they could finally pull the rabbit out of the hat and become a 100+ billion dollar company.
corin_ 14y ago
I'm not saying Zuckerberg should be replaced - I don't know nearly enough to even have an opinion, yet alone one that I think is correct, and if I did think he should be replaced I'd have no idea who would be a good replacement. However I disagree with "There's still no one better than Zuck for this". You were right that nobody has has much experience in specifically this area, however that doesn't mean there is nobody who could do his job better. It just means there's nobody who you can glance at and say "based on the headlines in their CV, they clearly have more practice doing this and their past results look good". An incredibly over the top example of my point: If tomorrow Zuckerberg introduced a company policy of "no black staff, no black facebook members" I would definitely argue there are people who could do his job better based on that one policy alone. However the question of "most experience" would not have gained a new answer overnight.
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"But more importantly, there no CEO alive with more experience in this domain than Zuck." This is a big mistake in the corporate world: thinking that you need a CEO with specific experience. On that high of a level, business is business. There are plenty of corporate executives who could do as good a job or better at running Facebook. But that's not to say Zuck doesn't have unique advantages having built the company. He is also going to learn as he goes; no one is born with CEO experience.
- lsc 14y ago
  >On that high of a level, business is business. Now, I have about as much experience at that level as you likely do, which is to say, none, but one of the primary functions of a leader is choosing empoloyees. And it takes one to know one. I'm sorry, but it's extrordenarily difficult to hire outside of what you know. Do you know how many people have approached me /this week/ as an expert? I mean, I laugh, but I really am the best those people could find. This wasn't due to lack of money; this was because they didn't have much knowledge of my field, and because I'm loud. (I mean, some of that has value; I do write better than most people. I am more outgoing and have more tolerance for bullshit than most people that are actually experts. But that is mostly bullshit.) I mean, sure, get a trusted co-founder or what have you. but if you don't have those skills? you won't know if that co-founder is a real expert... or me.
  - tatsuke95 14y ago
    >"but one of the primary functions of a leader is choosing empoloyees." With you 110%. This is, really, the role best filled by the leader. >"And it takes one to know one." Nope, disagree here. I am fully confident that I can hire a great rocket scientist, especially with the resources of a major corporation. And I'm most certainly not a rocket scientist. We're disagreeing on the fundamentals here. I believe that a good CEO knows that he doesn't need to understand the engineering of a social network in order to run a social network. At all. He has to put together the right strategy and the right team. It's not easy to accomplish, but it's certainly not complicated.
    - 14y ago
antidoh 14y ago
It's not new, it's been around for what, five years? It's not unique; it's usenet with javascript and ads.

viscanti 14y ago

By most accounts Sheryl Sandberg is handling most of the traditional CEO duties. Zuck has the benefit of being a founder CEO, with an experienced exec in Sandberg to help. Any issues Facebook faces, won't be because Zuck is in over his head. The problem that Zuck (and Facebook at large) face is that there's a rift between expectations (100 Billion+ valuation) vs reality (it's a profitable, but much smaller business). Facebook needs to either change their belief (or expectations) or reality (somehow morph into a 100 Billion+ company). Neither is easy to do, but now that Facebook is a public company, they've at least got a chance. Market forces can help guide them to a realistic valuation, and given enough time as a profitable but lower valued company, it's possible they'll reset their expectations to something more realistic. Or they could finally pull the rabbit out of the hat and become a 100+ billion dollar company.

corin_ 14y ago

I'm not saying Zuckerberg should be replaced - I don't know nearly enough to even have an opinion, yet alone one that I think is correct, and if I did think he should be replaced I'd have no idea who would be a good replacement. However I disagree with "There's still no one better than Zuck for this". You were right that nobody has has much experience in specifically this area, however that doesn't mean there is nobody who could do his job better. It just means there's nobody who you can glance at and say "based on the headlines in their CV, they clearly have more practice doing this and their past results look good". An incredibly over the top example of my point: If tomorrow Zuckerberg introduced a company policy of "no black staff, no black facebook members" I would definitely argue there are people who could do his job better based on that one policy alone. However the question of "most experience" would not have gained a new answer overnight.

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"But more importantly, there no CEO alive with more experience in this domain than Zuck." This is a big mistake in the corporate world: thinking that you need a CEO with specific experience. On that high of a level, business is business. There are plenty of corporate executives who could do as good a job or better at running Facebook. But that's not to say Zuck doesn't have unique advantages having built the company. He is also going to learn as he goes; no one is born with CEO experience.

lsc 14y ago
>On that high of a level, business is business. Now, I have about as much experience at that level as you likely do, which is to say, none, but one of the primary functions of a leader is choosing empoloyees. And it takes one to know one. I'm sorry, but it's extrordenarily difficult to hire outside of what you know. Do you know how many people have approached me /this week/ as an expert? I mean, I laugh, but I really am the best those people could find. This wasn't due to lack of money; this was because they didn't have much knowledge of my field, and because I'm loud. (I mean, some of that has value; I do write better than most people. I am more outgoing and have more tolerance for bullshit than most people that are actually experts. But that is mostly bullshit.) I mean, sure, get a trusted co-founder or what have you. but if you don't have those skills? you won't know if that co-founder is a real expert... or me.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  >"but one of the primary functions of a leader is choosing empoloyees." With you 110%. This is, really, the role best filled by the leader. >"And it takes one to know one." Nope, disagree here. I am fully confident that I can hire a great rocket scientist, especially with the resources of a major corporation. And I'm most certainly not a rocket scientist. We're disagreeing on the fundamentals here. I believe that a good CEO knows that he doesn't need to understand the engineering of a social network in order to run a social network. At all. He has to put together the right strategy and the right team. It's not easy to accomplish, but it's certainly not complicated.
  - 14y ago

antidoh 14y ago

It's not new, it's been around for what, five years? It's not unique; it's usenet with javascript and ads.