Tech history is filled with former champions such as IBM and Microsoft who were pretty damned sure their customers would find it too difficult to abandon them, only to wake up one morning to find themselves abandoned by millions of formerly "owned" customers.
Microsoft has a $231 billion market cap and makes ~ $17 billion a year.
IBM has a $162 billion market cap and makes ~ $13 billion a year.
One day I hope to have started a company that this guy views as a 'former champion abandoned by millions of formerly "owned" customers.'
Seriously, people need to cool it off with all these MZ critics. The guy does 9 things right, no one cares. He does one thing differently and a handful of bloggers start screaming "privacy, privacy". This is the internet, how private do people want it to be?
A handful of people shouting will always make more noise than the rest of the world singing together. This is exactly why the quit facebook day was a disaster.
Have a problem with Facebook? Just use it less or not at all. But please, Mark is only 26, Give the guy a break.
I really don't understand the "Mark is only 26" argument. I'm not arguing against you in specific, rokhayakebe, I've just seen this argument come up time and time again. The "Mark is only 26" argument may be strong if Mark went and got drunk one night and had some candid/unfortunate photos taken, but the man is trying to build a multi billion dollar franchise. I don't think anyone should get a break using this excuse. IF he's too young (and I'm not saying he is), then he should just step down. If he's not too young, then let's not talk about his age :)
What I am trying to say is that everyone makes mistakes. At 26 he only had 5 years to learn how to run a multi billion dollar company. And he is learning on the fly. Like Farb Nivi says, "jump of the cliff and build a plane on the way down".
When you are dealing with this size of companies you are going to make mistakes. You are going to make great decisions. Your best hope is to make more smart decisions than bad ones.
Now if you are a 20 year industry veteran, than I can get it. And let's be honest, social networking, social graph, friending, following, the stream etc... are all new and we should not expect any of the contenders to get it right the first time.
...the best way to build an ENDURING franchise is to do right by your customers above all else.
This ignores the fact that Facebook users are not necessarily Facebooks customers, for which Facebook is doing right by aggregating as much personal information as possible about the users.
I agree that Facebook privacy issues are a pressing and downright threatening issue for the company. They are just a complete turnoff for many users. But I thought Mark Z. answered pretty candidly and saying to him that he should step down (of off to the side as the post suggests) now is ignoring the realities of the choices he probably faces as an entrepreneur.
This post is just the same old Facebook privacy issues repackaged as link bait. The problem Facebook has isn't Mark Z. it's the fact that they need revenue and every privacy feature they implement makes them less likely to get it. That puts their needs at odds with their customers wants and that's going to be true no matter who the CEO is.
It's all about striking the right balance and I think
Facebook will eventually get there.
Step down for what? Because he interviews badly? I'd rather have someone that knows how to run facebook, rather than someone that interviews well.
As for the privacy thing, I think Zuck's right. In a coupld of years, people will wonder what all the fuss was about, just like how people made a huge fuss about the news feed. He's dragging us kicking and screaming into personalization and open-ness of personal data in the future. Because if he doesn't, someone else will.
My initial impression on the first question was that he didn't really have an answer. If it was a completely new issue, I might consider being slow and deliberate in his response a point in his favor (I often prefer no statement over a poorly prepared one). However, this is not a new issue, and he's been telling the Facebook users that they don't actually want the privacy they're asking for. He didn't repeat that answer this time, but he evidently hadn't thought about a different answer. At a quick glance, it seemed that on being confronted with it like this, he realized that people aren't buying it.
Whether this impression is true is still an open question. If it is, the problem goes beyond "not interviewing well," and Facebook may be better off reducing his direct influence. If not, he just needs PR staff to take the questions.
Open letters in general seem childish to me. As if they were saying "Hey internet! Look over here at me. I'm putting Mark Zuckerberg on notice! Officially!"
"Perhaps, you think that because we users don't pay for your Facebook service, then our wishes and our rights, such as choices over our own privacy settings can be disdained or even abused."
Am I the only one who wishes most things weren't free and instead charged a small fee and was devoid of advertising? I am just tired of everything I do on the internet being about shoving better and better ads in my face. I would happily pay a few bucks a month to use a Facebook like service without ads. Too bad none of my friends would though...
This is wrong on many points; First, AFAIK, Zuck is not just another founder, he is a major driver of internal FB culture, which is intensive, akin to Brin&Page. You can't just oust him and replace him with a corporate raider MBA type that the troops won't respect.
Second: "Because Facebook has treated us so badly, there is still the possibility that we can just turn and walk away." Can we just put this misguided idea to rest, nobody's leaving FB, at least for now. Checkout the recent post on HN about "leave FB day" and how very few people actually did it. People have invested greatly in their social networks, this is not something you switch individually, e.g. like your search engine choice, the majority of your network has to do so, too. FB has to make much larger snafus than the recent one to provoke large scale user drops.
Mark Zuckerberg has grown incredibly fast with Facebook and has maintained both control AND growth. No matter who is running the company they will always be in uncharted territory.
That article was a little mean I have to say. First off he's a techie not a Steve jobs. He was clearly nervous and is totally not a politician. The fact is he's been doing a great job and he's been screwing up privacy since the beginning. Beacon anyone. He was honest and came off as weaselly(not a politician). The news feed comment was very fair. People hated it but now love it. I got the impression we will be seeing tons of new news feeds like features in the future. The market will decide. It's his company and I got the impression that he'll do with it as he pleases. He's had countless opportunities to step down or sell and hasn't. Personally I think he's overstepping his bounds....but I haven't canceled my account yet. I'm curious, did the author of that post cancel their account?
Steve Jobs was 30 when he was pushed out from Apple. He was 28 when he asked John Sculley to take over the CEO seat. Probably because people told him to "step down".
Microsoft has a $231 billion market cap and makes ~ $17 billion a year.
IBM has a $162 billion market cap and makes ~ $13 billion a year.
One day I hope to have started a company that this guy views as a 'former champion abandoned by millions of formerly "owned" customers.'