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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began 2017 with a bold personal challenge: "to have visited and met people in every state in the US by the end of the year."
So far, his whistlestop tour of the states certainly bears all the hallmarks of early political canvassing.
As part of the challenge, Zuckerberg reportedly wanted to meet longtime Democrats who voted for Trump in the last election and asked his team to reach out and find such people.
[...]
Such a tour becomes even more conspicuous in light of unsealed court filings from a class-action lawsuit in 2016 in which Zuckerberg attempted to dilute shareholder power and afford himself permanent control of the $440 billion company.
Of particular note in the proceedings was a message sent to Zuckerberg by Marc Andreessen, one of Facebook's most prominent investors, in which he raised the issue of "how to define the government service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment."
"It's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the f**k are you guys doing agreeing to this', particularly since... government service would require you to give up control of Facebook anyway and it's a moot point," said Andreessen, adding credence to speculation that Zuckerberg will make a run for political office at some point in the future.
One of the richest men in the world will be looking out for the little guy, right?
Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/386718-zuckerberg-political-campaign-rumors/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:14PM (3 children)
Whoa, lemme stop you right there. This is a common misapprehension repeated by people who don't know billionaires. Billionaires don't know shit about managing money. They have accountants and lawyers for that. They also generally don't know shit about business. They have vastly more talented lackies for that. What they know about is rigging the game.
There are a couple of exceptions to that. Michael Bloomberg is one that springs to mind. He does understand managing money because he made his fortune rather than having it handed to him. He also understands managing people; I have only ever heard people extol how well-run his company is, and everyone who deals with the City of New York reports his level of organization and management was head and shoulders above Giuliani or de Blasio.
The dynasty types you're lauding do know how to pull levers, but they only ever pull them to further concentrate their own wealth and power above the already stratospheric stratum they're at. They never do anything to help anyone else.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:38PM (2 children)
He also understands managing people; I have only ever heard people extol how well-run his company is
I've only heard about how horrible working at his company is for programmers, because his company is a huge proponent of the open office, with really nothing more than flat tables in a giant open room. How forbidding quiet and privacy to people who need to concentrate to get their work done equates to "understand[ing] managing people", I'd really like to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:37PM
Big deal.
No, seriously, big deal.
His company is exactly like 90+% of all other big companies with that open-office stupidity (which is about saving money on floor-space per employee).
And that may be a big deal to you personally, but when it comes to the entirety of managing a company its a drop in the bucket.
(Score: 1) by Atatsu on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:32PM
Spoken like someone who has never actually worked in an open floor plan environment! The last company I worked for had an open floor plan and it was awe.... nope, you're right. It sucked.