Senior journalist from Wired Magazine unveils new book to expose “paranoid” Zuckerberg
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Silicon Valley insight” (ID: guigudiyixian) , author: Silicon Valley insight.
As the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook is always at the center of public opinion. The blind development of the company’s internal and endless pursuit of performance culture has exposed many scandals in the past few years. For example, although it has a huge user base, its platform is full of extreme speech, outrageous reports, and fake news.
It is particularly ironic that the company and its leadership often blame the problems of the platform on the huge size, and think that it will take more time to resolve such problems.
For example, when Mark Zuckerberg explained the scandal in Cambridge analysis, he said, “When you build such a huge platform, it has problems, and it will take a long time to resolve. I do n’t Do n’t think that you or any one person can solve these problems in months or six months. ”This has become Facebook ’s argument for all the mistakes that it has made: too much false information will not be resolved in a short time; hate speech is too much , It is difficult to be effective in a short time; there are too many ads to be reviewed, which also takes a lot of time. At the same time, however, Facebook’s size continues to grow.
So, what exactly is Zuckerberg like? If he leaves, how long will Facebook remain as a company? As the leader of FLAG, what is the difference between Facebook’s internal culture and Apple and Google?
At the end of February, Steven Levy, a senior reporter for Wired Magazine, launched a new book, Facebook: The Inside Story. In the past 3 years, in order to write this book, Levi has approached Facebook executives including Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and many of their senior assistants As well as employees. Let ’s take a look at Levi ’s point of view and take a glimpse of the 16 years behind this giant on the cusp.
“Emotional and suspicious” Xiao Zha once created a mobile phone that only right-handers can use
Facebook has never lacked news coverage for 15 years. However, some of these negative news are about internal decisions at Facebook. When Steven Levy had an in-depth interview with Facebook executives, he said: “Nobody at the time could say that Facebook’s early decisions were wrong., But after the fact, I can clearly see that certain decisions (usually Zuckerberg’s decisions) did cost Facebook a lot of money. “
In addition, there are many interesting news that the media has not even reported. For example, an anonymous Facebook employee told Levi that Facebook had designed a very special mobile phone with an unusual The groove can be rolled with your thumb. Intel provided the phone with “an innovative touch sensor that can either unlock the phone or scroll in a single action.” However, this touch sensor is only suitable for right-handed people. Nonetheless, Facebook decided to move forward with the project and make the phone. “We decided that we would not consider the needs of the” left-handed “crowd,” said the anonymous employee.
Of course, there are also crazy ones. In 2010, the American media “Business Insider” reported that Zuckerberg’s “creative theft” between Harvard and Winkelvoss brothers “The dispute, the Winkelworth brothers consider Facebook to be their idea, and Zuckerberg just took the opportunity to work with them to steal it.
After this incident was exposed by Business Insider, Zuckerberg hacked into his mailbox through a media reporter who accidentally entered a wrong password on Facebook, although he wanted to find out what the media was prepared to do, although Finally, “Business Insider” claimed that Zuckerberg was innocent, and he did not steal anything from the Winkelworth brothers. But Zuckerberg still saw words like “despicable” in his reporter’s private email.
We all know that Zuckerberg wants to connect to the world through Facebook, and his own talent and almost extreme sense of competition also support him at the peak of the world, but this is exactly the negative news of Facebook today. Surrounded by reasons.
His sense of competition is not only reflected in Facebook rivals. When he found that Nigerian users prefer Instagram over Facebook, he was very angry. Even at the cost of compressing Instagram resources to drive away the founders. Such a decision is undoubtedly very emotional, and one cannot believe that this is what Zuckerberg did.
Levy commented on this: “I think the Instagram team is still full of doubts about Zuckerberg’s decision. Although he did not admit that he was because of” jealousy ” Maybe during that time, Zuckerberg wanted to build a social empire that belongs to him. Only by cleaning up these founders can companies such as Instagram better integrate into Facebook, not so much an emotional decision. , I prefer to call it a strategy. “
And ZuckerbergThe executives around Ge have some fears about such a strategy. “When I interviewed Cheryl Sandberg (CEO of Facebook), she told me that she would work hard if it wasn’t for fear of something. Be the CEO of Facebook and tell the world that she is a feminist. She was very sincere in answering this question, which is exactly the same as described in her own book, but even today I do n’t know what she is afraid ? “
Facebook has lost many executives in recent years. For example: WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, public relations and public policy director Elliot Schrage, chief security officer Alex Stamos, partner vice president Dan Rose, former CEO and co-founder of Oculus, Brendan Iribe
The departure of Chris Cox, in particular, shocked Levy. He said in an interview that he once thought Chris would be Zuckerberg’s successor.
The outside world often thinks: Is Facebook’s talent pool sufficient? Can they still find such good executives to run the company. To the outside world, Zuckerberg often makes quick decisions about impacting performance and expansion, but it takes a long time for him to fully trust someone.
Levy said: “There is no doubt that Facebook still has talent. However, Zuckerberg likes to leave key tasks to people he has known and trusted for a while, and fewer and fewer of them. “
For example, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president of AR / VR, is one of Zuckerberg’s most trusted people. Although he was caught in a whirlpool of public opinion because of the 2016 memo, Zuckerberg still chose to be him. Speaking of justice, in return for his many years of loyalty and credit, inside Facebook, many people think Andrew will be Zuckerberg’s successor.
David Marcus, the former PayPal global CEO who was persuaded to join Facebook in 2014, also fully won Zuckerberg’s trust. Under his leadership, Facebook Messenger is active. The number of users has grown significantly, and its functionality has also been improved, including the introduction of tools to facilitate interaction between retailers and their customers, such as chatbots that support payments. Four years after Marcus led Facebook’s communications unit, Facebook announced that he would be responsible for the newly formed exploratory blockchain task force, whose product is now a virtual cryptocurrency product called Libra.
What is the difference between Facebook, Apple and Google?
When Levy was interviewed by the American media about the new book, a reporter once asked: “You have studied Apple and Google in depth before. What is the internal culture of Facebook compared to these two companies? If Zach How long will the company remain after Berg leaves? “
In this regard, Levy believes that Facebook has been operating under the image of Zuckerberg. Importantly, when he dropped out of college, he created a reckless dormitory culture based on rapid development. Cheryl Sandberg has specialized in Facebook’s culture to some extent, but the principles of “engineering thinking” and “quick action” are still valid, and they are exactly what Zuckerberg explicitly advocated.
Even if Zuckerberg leaves, the company will not disappear, and a large number of advertisers will continue to pay for Facebook’s advertising space. But no matter who the successor is, the situation will be different. Perhaps the successor’s attitude towards those so-called “political advertisements” will change.
In contrast, Google, while ambitious, is more about research and science. Apple is respected for its outstanding design. “When I joined Facebook, the biggest difference from Google was that engineers and designers were different in their companies’ importance,” said Rasmussen, an engineer who had left Facebook. In an interview with BusinessInsider, at Google, engineers ’ The influence is far greater than that of designers and marketing teams, and the opposite is true on Facebook. “
In contrast, Rasmussen said that Facebook does not conduct experiments and does not collect data, but Facebook is product-oriented, and scientific content such as data must follow the product to support the product. But at Google, it takes a lot of research and development to finally form a product.
So, what’s Facebook’s attitude towards Levi’s writing this book?
Facebook’s open email to the media said: “We let Levi reach our executives extensively, and they told him the truth about Facebook’s most painful moment in the past. Although we don’t fully agree with what he said, we also He does not deny the problems he described, and we are actively working to resolve them. “
In any case, Facebook has been great enough after 16 years of development, and the leader of this social empire: Mark Zuckerberg is undoubtedly a genius. I believe that after going through the baptism of massive negative news in recent years, Facebook and Zuckerberg will become more mature than before.
References
https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/2/26/21152872/facebook-inside-story-steven-levy-q-a-mark