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Zuckerbeg’s super power is actually operating a giant tech company successfully, executing on multi-year visions, and just barely turning 40.

calimariae 1y ago
You might manage the same if you’re rich enough to hire top-tier advisors. Let’s not kid ourselves—OG Facebook wasn’t a tech marvel or even particularly original. It just landed in the right place at the right time and snowballed from there.
- grandempire 1y ago
  I know too many rich people to know this isn’t true. > hire top-tier advisors The circle of top-tier leaders who know how to manage giant tech companies is a tiny circle with Zuck being one of them. In fact that’s what the board of directors did - they used their money to hire Zuck to run their company.
  - jasonfarnon 1y ago
    "In fact that’s what the board of directors did - they used their money to hire Zuck to run their company." doesn't he still have voting control of the stock?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - grandempire 1y ago
      You’re right - but the example stands. The CEO is a professional advisor hired to make the rich people money.
      - Hasu 1y ago
        This makes no sense in Zuckerberg's case: he was never hired by the board and they've never had a chance to fire him. Investors can sell the stock if they don't like what he does, but that is not a "professional advisor" relationship. It's mostly a cult of personality relationship, and you're deep in it with your belief that Zuckerberg is an unusually capable operator.
        grandempire 1y ago
        > This makes no sense in Zuckerberg's case: I already agreed with the correction - he has voting control. What is still incorrect is imagining that billions of dollars gets you advisors who know how to run a company - and those people aren't just high level executives already running companies. > you're deep in it with your belief that Zuckerberg is an unusually capable operator. The burden is on you to show a successful CEO for over a decade is actually an idiot.
        ashoeafoot 1y ago
        People like him exist a turtles nest full, but there is only one social network effect to rodeo .
        StopDisinfo910 1y ago
        Independently on what you think of Zuckerberg as a human being, on the basis of acquisitions alone, he can be judged as an insanely effective CEO. The way Meta managed the shift from Facebook to Instagram is impressive from a strategic point of view. Heck, Meta literally controls the world most popular chat application. I never liked social media, spent most of the past fifteen years avoiding them as much I could while maintaining just enough presence to stay reachable and a Meta application still remain my most used one. Let's not forget that Google, for all their billions, utterly failed to significantly attack Meta market.
        Apocryphon 1y ago
        Meta has been effective at being the owner of Instagram, even though that's because they've smartly mostly been staying hands off on it besides integrating it with Facebook wherever makes most sense. And also even though the platform is also getting long in the tooth, becoming a place dominated by brands rather than the hip kids' club it was in the past. Now it just seems like the default social media profile for people to connect with one another, like how FB was before it. I wonder what if Facebook's attempts to buy Snapchat had gone through. Would they have been an effective steward of that platform as well, or would it have gone the way of Twitter-acquired Vine? Would Snapchat even have been a good acquisition target? Okay, maybe it's not productive to discuss counterfactuals, but it does make one consider if we're self-selecting for big hits here and ignoring all of the duds that never amounted to anything- and the potential duds that didn't go through because the founders didn't want to just take the money. WhatsApp I'll grant you, hard to think of any alternate chat app that could've gotten as ubiquitous as it did. Though, again, was that also mostly WhatsApp's own success, amplified by Facebook's ubiquity? Not to mention, Google being as incompetent at chat as it is at social, Apple unwilling to entertain servicing other operating systems, and Blackberry, AOL, MSN Messenger, etc. having disappeared long ago. Interestingly, Meta hasn't seem interested in trying to compete with "channelized" IRC chatroom-style apps in the vein of Slack or Discord. Maybe there's some enterprise Messenger for Businesses that does that, idk.
Apocryphon 1y ago
In recent years, operating it successfully despite burning through billions for their metaverse boondoggle, sure
- grandempire 1y ago
  Should they be holding cash instead?
  - Apocryphon 1y ago
    Works for Apple. And other companies seem to be able to do R&D, even at a loss, without burning through billions.
    - grandempire 1y ago
      Did you forget that apple also has an AR/VR product and doesn’t report that portion of their R&D separately so we don’t know how much it costs?
      - Apocryphon 1y ago
        Cool so even if they burned through $45 billion as Meta did with VR, they still have $53.77 billion on hand as of December
        grandempire 1y ago
        So you just want Meta to carry more cash - the concern wasn't actually about metaverse?
        Apocryphon 1y ago
        I don’t want Meta to do anything. All I want to do is mock the idea that Zuckerberg has been some sort of exemplary CEO the last few years in the face of the Metaverse project being such a resounding dud- what’s the punchline, billions spent to add feet to the avatars? Not to mention how he’s allowed his actual site to go fallow, between the Feed being inundated with AI slop and Reels being an imitation of Instagram Shorts being an imitation of TikTok and Snapchat shorts and Vine.
Aeolun 1y ago
Maybe he’s just good at not rocking the boat too much? I’m fairly certain these things mostly keep moving without any input.
- vineyardmike 1y ago
  The boat is constantly rocking though, and it's actually incredible how he's kept the boat afloat and increasingly profitable. You can despise their impact on society, but he's an incredible example of a very successful CEO. Political investigations, anti-trust, terrible media and brand image. GDPR. DMA. Etc. A literal genocide associated with their product. The shift from desktop to mobile, and the continued evolution of the distribution channel - eg. the "Anti-tracking" requirement on apple devices. The shift from text posts to images, to stories, to short-form video. From broadcast to DMs and groups. The shift from "social" media to celebrity and influencer followings, to a feed entirely algorithmic. The shift in advertisement formats, the shift across what gets advertised (eg. apps didn't exist at all when Facebook started, now they track ad-click-to-install rates through ML models).
  - someusername321 1y ago
    I get your point about what he has accomplished. But at the same time, right after saying he's an incredible example of a very successful CEO, you acknowledge "a literal genocide associated with their product." I really wish we could shift how we define success for these CEOs.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    I suppose I just don’t find any of those things very admirable? The fact that their product is associated with so much bad shit and still alive is a terrible thing for society. I just cannot reasonably call someone that led all that a ‘good CEO’, because they represent nothing that I’d like a CEO to be, regardless of what Wall Street things. I’d also argue that it just means that Facebook was very successful at following all the trends and purchasing what they couldn’t replicate.
    - 1y ago

calimariae 1y ago

You might manage the same if you’re rich enough to hire top-tier advisors. Let’s not kid ourselves—OG Facebook wasn’t a tech marvel or even particularly original. It just landed in the right place at the right time and snowballed from there.

grandempire 1y ago
I know too many rich people to know this isn’t true. > hire top-tier advisors The circle of top-tier leaders who know how to manage giant tech companies is a tiny circle with Zuck being one of them. In fact that’s what the board of directors did - they used their money to hire Zuck to run their company.
- jasonfarnon 1y ago
  "In fact that’s what the board of directors did - they used their money to hire Zuck to run their company." doesn't he still have voting control of the stock?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - grandempire 1y ago
    You’re right - but the example stands. The CEO is a professional advisor hired to make the rich people money.
    - Hasu 1y ago
      This makes no sense in Zuckerberg's case: he was never hired by the board and they've never had a chance to fire him. Investors can sell the stock if they don't like what he does, but that is not a "professional advisor" relationship. It's mostly a cult of personality relationship, and you're deep in it with your belief that Zuckerberg is an unusually capable operator.
      - grandempire 1y ago
        > This makes no sense in Zuckerberg's case: I already agreed with the correction - he has voting control. What is still incorrect is imagining that billions of dollars gets you advisors who know how to run a company - and those people aren't just high level executives already running companies. > you're deep in it with your belief that Zuckerberg is an unusually capable operator. The burden is on you to show a successful CEO for over a decade is actually an idiot.
        ashoeafoot 1y ago
        People like him exist a turtles nest full, but there is only one social network effect to rodeo .
      - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
        Independently on what you think of Zuckerberg as a human being, on the basis of acquisitions alone, he can be judged as an insanely effective CEO. The way Meta managed the shift from Facebook to Instagram is impressive from a strategic point of view. Heck, Meta literally controls the world most popular chat application. I never liked social media, spent most of the past fifteen years avoiding them as much I could while maintaining just enough presence to stay reachable and a Meta application still remain my most used one. Let's not forget that Google, for all their billions, utterly failed to significantly attack Meta market.
        Apocryphon 1y ago
        Meta has been effective at being the owner of Instagram, even though that's because they've smartly mostly been staying hands off on it besides integrating it with Facebook wherever makes most sense. And also even though the platform is also getting long in the tooth, becoming a place dominated by brands rather than the hip kids' club it was in the past. Now it just seems like the default social media profile for people to connect with one another, like how FB was before it. I wonder what if Facebook's attempts to buy Snapchat had gone through. Would they have been an effective steward of that platform as well, or would it have gone the way of Twitter-acquired Vine? Would Snapchat even have been a good acquisition target? Okay, maybe it's not productive to discuss counterfactuals, but it does make one consider if we're self-selecting for big hits here and ignoring all of the duds that never amounted to anything- and the potential duds that didn't go through because the founders didn't want to just take the money. WhatsApp I'll grant you, hard to think of any alternate chat app that could've gotten as ubiquitous as it did. Though, again, was that also mostly WhatsApp's own success, amplified by Facebook's ubiquity? Not to mention, Google being as incompetent at chat as it is at social, Apple unwilling to entertain servicing other operating systems, and Blackberry, AOL, MSN Messenger, etc. having disappeared long ago. Interestingly, Meta hasn't seem interested in trying to compete with "channelized" IRC chatroom-style apps in the vein of Slack or Discord. Maybe there's some enterprise Messenger for Businesses that does that, idk.

Apocryphon 1y ago

In recent years, operating it successfully despite burning through billions for their metaverse boondoggle, sure

grandempire 1y ago
Should they be holding cash instead?
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  Works for Apple. And other companies seem to be able to do R&D, even at a loss, without burning through billions.
  - grandempire 1y ago
    Did you forget that apple also has an AR/VR product and doesn’t report that portion of their R&D separately so we don’t know how much it costs?
    - Apocryphon 1y ago
      Cool so even if they burned through $45 billion as Meta did with VR, they still have $53.77 billion on hand as of December
      - grandempire 1y ago
        So you just want Meta to carry more cash - the concern wasn't actually about metaverse?
        Apocryphon 1y ago
        I don’t want Meta to do anything. All I want to do is mock the idea that Zuckerberg has been some sort of exemplary CEO the last few years in the face of the Metaverse project being such a resounding dud- what’s the punchline, billions spent to add feet to the avatars? Not to mention how he’s allowed his actual site to go fallow, between the Feed being inundated with AI slop and Reels being an imitation of Instagram Shorts being an imitation of TikTok and Snapchat shorts and Vine.

Aeolun 1y ago

Maybe he’s just good at not rocking the boat too much? I’m fairly certain these things mostly keep moving without any input.

vineyardmike 1y ago
The boat is constantly rocking though, and it's actually incredible how he's kept the boat afloat and increasingly profitable. You can despise their impact on society, but he's an incredible example of a very successful CEO. Political investigations, anti-trust, terrible media and brand image. GDPR. DMA. Etc. A literal genocide associated with their product. The shift from desktop to mobile, and the continued evolution of the distribution channel - eg. the "Anti-tracking" requirement on apple devices. The shift from text posts to images, to stories, to short-form video. From broadcast to DMs and groups. The shift from "social" media to celebrity and influencer followings, to a feed entirely algorithmic. The shift in advertisement formats, the shift across what gets advertised (eg. apps didn't exist at all when Facebook started, now they track ad-click-to-install rates through ML models).
- someusername321 1y ago
  I get your point about what he has accomplished. But at the same time, right after saying he's an incredible example of a very successful CEO, you acknowledge "a literal genocide associated with their product." I really wish we could shift how we define success for these CEOs.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  I suppose I just don’t find any of those things very admirable? The fact that their product is associated with so much bad shit and still alive is a terrible thing for society. I just cannot reasonably call someone that led all that a ‘good CEO’, because they represent nothing that I’d like a CEO to be, regardless of what Wall Street things. I’d also argue that it just means that Facebook was very successful at following all the trends and purchasing what they couldn’t replicate.
  - 1y ago