[HN Gopher] Mark Zuckerberg: "Please Resign" (2010)
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Mark Zuckerberg: "Please Resign" (2010)
Author : georgehill
Score : 148 points
Date : 2023-03-19 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techemails.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techemails.com)
| arjvik wrote:
| "If you don't resign, we will almost certainly find out who you
| are anyway"
|
| Is he really confident of this?
| outside1234 wrote:
| He runs a network that basically builds a East German style
| profile on people. Wouldn't doubt in the least he has best in
| class capabilities to track this down.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I agree with the first half, but I imagine Facebook is a
| kindergarten of espionage compared to actual spy agencies.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| I have a hunch it's the other way around these days.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| I always assumed it is a front for actual spy agencies?
| (the same as Google, MS and probably even Apple, to be
| fair)
| armatav wrote:
| False - today none of these companies can even accurately
| track granular performance metrics in a way that correlates
| it with the company's bottom line.
|
| Hence if they can't do that, he's gotta send an email about
| it. Tesla even had to send encoded spaces in letters to get
| leakers.
|
| If you can't measure what's going right, you sure as hell
| can't measure what's going wrong.
| helsontaveras18 wrote:
| Facebooks internal auditing of employee data access is
| world class. Not sure about what it was in 2010.
|
| And your remark about performance metrics is irrelevant to
| the question of, who accessed this sensitive company data?
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Calling something "world class" reminds me of "military
| grade". They've invested millions (billions?) at it and
| are probably better then most organizations outside maybe
| intelligence agencies (intelligence agencies sometimes
| being an oxy-moron in their own right) - overall I hate
| that facebooks internal data policies are referenced as a
| laurel that can be slept on.
| [deleted]
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| As I recall they did fire at least one person over this. Google
| had done something similar with the person (who turned out to
| be a contractor vs a full time employee) who leaked photos of
| the first Android phone.
| paxys wrote:
| Everything happening within a corporate network is tracked, so
| yeah unless the leaker was going through extraordinary lengths
| to cover their tracks it's only ever a question of how much
| effort you are willing to put in to find them.
| jmull wrote:
| "Let's commit to maintaining complete confidentiality about the
| company--no exceptions."
|
| Zuck sounds like he has no idea what he's doing?
| reactspa wrote:
| Seems like a case of burnout.
| [deleted]
| zinodaur wrote:
| I love it! So petulant and conceited. It's great to hear what
| these CEOs are like without the Corpo-speak PR filtering system
| d1str0 wrote:
| Title should mention this is from 2010.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| I think the post needs a [2010] tag, the article might be recent
| but the email is more than a decade old
| georgehill wrote:
| updated
| eddieroger wrote:
| Even with the tag, this feels click-bait-y given the current
| layoff trend in tech. This article is about a leaked, false
| story, not about people quitting as a result of economic
| issues.
| endisneigh wrote:
| With language models I won't be surprised if it's possible to
| create semantically equivalent but syntactically different text
| such that you can uniquely identify leakers.
|
| Then you could send these out in a coordinated fashion to
| identify which group, if not person, is leaking.
|
| The message says that they will find the leaker, but I doubt it
| (of course this is from 2010, so if they were found they have
| been for a while now).
| Centigonal wrote:
| You don't need an LLM to do this. You could use small sets of
| semantically equivalent words or whitespace. Things like this:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579101966453858305
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It's already been done at Tesla with spaces.
| daydream wrote:
| The basic technique is much older than that, dating to the
| Cold War era and likely even before.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| 7373737373 wrote:
| From the Alpaca report
| (https://crfm.stanford.edu/2023/03/13/alpaca.html):
|
| > we watermark all the model outputs using the method described
| in Kirchenbauer et al. 2023, so that others can detect (with
| some probability) whether an output comes from Alpaca 7B
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10226
|
| > We propose a watermarking framework for proprietary language
| models. The watermark can be embedded with negligible impact on
| text quality, and can be detected using an efficient open-
| source algorithm without access to the language model API or
| parameters. The watermark works by selecting a randomized set
| of "green" tokens before a word is generated, and then softly
| promoting use of green tokens during sampling. We propose a
| statistical test for detecting the watermark with interpretable
| p-values
| thisiswater wrote:
| There is no reason this couldn't be watermarked with the
| individual user, though the if it detects them
| probabilisticly then it could be difficult to make the case
| to take action on inferences made.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| If they start doing that, leakers will do the same - Take their
| leaked version, run it through ChatGPT, get something that's
| similar but not the same for the leak.
|
| Post-truth is the era where nothing is attributable to a human
| because of AI interventions, and liability is shielded at every
| level because of it. It's insane.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| This post feels a bit like "the dress"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress)
|
| Half the commenters in here are saying this a completely
| reasonable thing for him to say, and the other half are saying
| this is completely unacceptable for a CEO to send out
| gretch wrote:
| Honestly people just have different values. And that's totally
| okay. There's lot of places to work and live and we don't all
| have to homogeneous aspire to a single model or culture or
| behavior.
|
| I like this kind of direct messaging and dislike the weak
| corporate messaging of today's landscape. "Moving on to a
| bright future.." and then 2 paragraphs of meaningless fluff
| before finally finding out that there's a product line being
| shut down or there was a security breach.
| mepian wrote:
| Yes, I think this post is a great test for, uhh, certain
| personality traits.
| hardware2win wrote:
| It seems reasonable tbf
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Did they ever find out?
| tyingq wrote:
| It's interesting that he didn't consider the effect of all his
| employees seeing the email "from:" and "subject:" sitting in the
| inbox.
|
| That's a tense few moments before opening it for people.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| That's... exactly what he was going for? He wanted this email
| to have a lasting impact and to make people afraid of ever
| sharing confidential information. The subject was perfect.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| You can have a lasting impact without doing something that
| makes you also look like you don't give a shit about your
| employees. If I see my employer _purposefully_ try to make me
| feel for a moment that he was demanding I resign, my opinion
| of him would immediately shift to "he's either immoral or
| has a more concrete psychological issue." I think most people
| probably would feel that way, but there are social politics
| at play in this case causing people to be unwilling or unable
| to make an honest attempt to put themselves in the situation.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You don't think he considered that?
| foogazi wrote:
| I would expect FB employees to know how email works
|
| I'd open an email from the CEO without reading the subject tbh
| toast0 wrote:
| I wouldn't, it's probably phishing.
| danw1979 wrote:
| I'm chuckling at the fact Mark thought they had "too much social
| good to build" to be dealing with leaks.
|
| What happened, did things like this keep distracting them ?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| no i think they realized they're an advertising business from
| even this early on
| ninth_ant wrote:
| You are absolutely correct that during this time, they
| (accurately) predicted that targeted advertising would give
| them a tremendous advantage and become lucrative.
|
| However, folks there also sincerely believed that authentic
| identities would curb some of the toxicity that was being
| seen on the anonymous internet. That being exposed to diverse
| perspectives from friends could be an Avenue for increased
| tolerances. That giving common people a platform would be a
| net benefit to the world (Arab Spring was around this time).
|
| In hindsight, much of that was wrong, but that doesn't change
| the sincerity of the belief in that moment.
| [deleted]
| vcryan wrote:
| The most interesting part to me was the "change the world"
| rhetoric.
|
| I'm always curious to what extent people in positions like Zuck
| believe their own bs.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| > I'm always curious to what extent people in positions like
| Zuck believe their own bs.
|
| Fully. At least where I worked.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Facebook aside, Mark did buy WhatsApp and Instagram, and both
| those products have indeed changed the world.
|
| Personally, I like their work in the Telecom sector: Evenstar
| (open RAN) and TIP (https://telecominfraproject.com)
| nl wrote:
| It's pretty difficult to argue that Facebook didn't change the
| world (for better or worse).
| amelius wrote:
| Building a phone would actually be a good move. There is just too
| little competition in this space and the only two players are
| hiding behind the duopoly so they don't have to deal with
| competition laws. And for Facebook it means that they don't have
| to comply with AppStore rules.
| pavlov wrote:
| Zuck dabbled in a phone platform, saw Microsoft's $10B+ failure
| at building the third smartphone ecosystem despite deep pockets
| and a product that critics liked, and decided he would drop the
| phone and instead get a head start on the next revolution.
|
| Ten years in, the company has been renamed, numerous variations
| of hardware and software have been tried, and all the pieces
| for a platform are theoretically in place. Yet users seem to
| only show up for occasional fitness and horror games. But Apple
| is entering the headset market this year, which could be a
| turning point eventually.
|
| Can Quest 3 be like Windows 3.0? Seems unlikely, but at least
| it's interesting to see these giant companies push so hard for
| a new interaction paradigm.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Microsoft only has itself to blame. They reset the ecosystem
| _3_ times. First with Windows Phone 7 (no backwards-
| compatibility with Windows Mobile 6 and prior), then with
| Windows Phone 8, and finally with Windows 10.
|
| If you're already struggling to get developer mindshare, the
| last thing you should be doing is making backwards-
| incompatible changes every other year and force everyone to
| start from scratch.
|
| A Facebook phone would have many problems, but I'm sure they
| would at least not be as stupid as Microsoft was.
| aierou wrote:
| That is plainly what they are trying to accomplish with VR.
| curiousObject wrote:
| If an employee admits leaking they could be sued by Facebook.
|
| I assume Zuckerberg understands that legal jeopardy so he did not
| honestly expect anyone to comply with this rant. It's merely a
| position statement
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| It depends how many people resign per week (how many employees
| did they have?) but merely resigning may not raise flags.
|
| That said I wonder if there was anyone about to resign, but
| held off, to avoid it looking like this was the reason?
| curiousObject wrote:
| > I wonder if there was anyone about to resign, but held off,
| to avoid it looking like this was the reason?
|
| It's an entertaining idea, but also sounds like a genuine
| possibility
| bobleeswagger wrote:
| Usually I join in on the hatred for someone like Zuck, but this
| was a well articulated email that addressed the issue directly. I
| hope if someone did leak information intentionally that they did
| resign. Can't feel good to be called out amongst tens of
| thousands of others and know it was you.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Well, I mean in a sense it's a laughable game that companies
| play, isn't it? There's a constant battle going on, and not just
| a little because of the company's own creation, don't you think?
|
| Company X wants to keep plans and products confidential and
| internal, yet at the same time, wants to achieve world domination
| and penetration of its products to all the world's users.
| Somewhat inevitable to be in conflict, these goals, especially
| when you start to have on the order of 100,000 people you hire to
| be able to take over the world.
|
| And I get the frustration, but not the outrage of executives. You
| created this human-based organization to power your capitalist
| (in the best sense) ambitions -- don't imagine that you have full
| control over it, especially if your past actions have created a
| culture that doesn't trust your intentions fully.
| Orangeair wrote:
| Having worked at a different FAANG (and more recently than 2010),
| I'm kind of on Mark's side with this one. It got to the point
| where I worked that anything that executives said would be leaked
| pretty much immediately, so we hardly ever got any information
| ahead of when the general public did. From what people with
| longer tenures said, there used to be more information shared
| with the company at large, but they had to curtail it due to the
| constant leaks.
|
| Obviously I don't mind people leaking things that are cause for
| serious concern (i.e. whistleblowers), but yeah it results in
| kind of a crappy company culture when the people setting the
| direction for the company are afraid to share their plans with
| the people actually doing the work. Maybe that's just inevitable
| for a company with a hundred thousand employees, though.
| smegger001 wrote:
| huh. I always figured it was the companies pr department doing
| leaks to drum up interest ahead of release or asses market
| demand for the products/build anticipation, or maybe executives
| trying artificially/deniable juice the stock price just before
| selling stock's.
| ignoramous wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
| nichohel wrote:
| Could you explain how this relates to this discussion? I
| understand The Tragedy of the Commons and I don't see how
| that concept is relevant here.
| glenstein wrote:
| I assume that they are suggesting that free and open
| dialogue is shared "resource" that is exploited via the
| choice of individual actors to engage in leaks, thereby
| contributing to the depletion of a resource that they
| themselves would benefit from.
|
| However, it's only applicable at an extremely general
| level, and if you wanted to you could draw a connection
| between this kind of article and any number of new stories,
| if you're willing to stretch the terms enough. If it were
| up to me, comment section etiquette would discourage links
| to generic Wikipedia articles like logical fallacies,
| Dunning Kruger effect, or more or less familiar economic
| concepts unless they had some strong connection to the
| article.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Leaks happen because the personnel conveying the information
| believe it to be an indication of bad intent. This means that
| ill intent on the part of leadership was assumed.
|
| An atmosphere of lack of trust is built. It can be through
| neglect, or through evidence, but it doesn't occur
| spontaneously. It is a failure of upper management.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| > If you believe that it's ever appropriate to leak internal
| information, you should leave. ( ... ) We are a company that
| promotes openness and transparency, both in the world at large
| and here internally at Facebook.
| ccooffee wrote:
| "Ever" is an exceptionally poor word choice in Zuckerberg's
| email. Imagining a scenario where something bad is being done
| (intentionally or not) isn't that difficult. I believe there
| are circumstances that NOT whistleblowing would be a moral
| failing.
|
| "But no realistic situation would require you to leak" is not a
| good strawman defense for Zuck's word choices. There is a broad
| history of whistleblowing in America being the necessary first
| step to unravel bad things. You don't even have to leave
| Silicon Valley to find Theranos, the Google/Apple/Facebook no-
| poach collusion, etc.
| quocanh wrote:
| Do people on social media believe that all employees should
| freely share confidential internal information? Or is it that
| this is an email from a frustrated person and no one should ever
| share "bad feelings"? Or is it that CEOs should never be
| aggressive and "how dare he punish someone who broke the rules"?
|
| Am I crazy for thinking that this is completely reasonable in
| context?
| kazinator wrote:
| We could discuss whether it is reasonable for an actual leak:
| information which is accurate in its details, so as for to be
| vanishingly improbable that it's anything but a leak.
|
| Information that is false isn't a leak; it's rumor anyone could
| have started, pretending to be a Facebook insider. Someone
| could have forged an e-mail, which someone else believed and so
| it goes.
|
| You can't simultaneously say that it's a fabrication, _and_
| imply that it 's a real leak by calling for someone to be let
| go.
|
| Everyone who received the e-mail would have first seen the
| subject line "Please Resign" and that it's from Zuckerberg,
| before seeing that it has many recipients. That doesn't seem
| very reasonable, even in case of an actual leak.
| oconnor663 wrote:
| I worked there at the time and got this email when it went out.
| It was completely reasonable in context. I assume these days,
| everyone just knows that you can't openly share something
| within a tech company without it getting leaked, but that
| change was just starting to happen in 2010 (at least at FB),
| and everyone could tell something nice was getting lost. C'est
| la vie.
| p1necone wrote:
| The _content_ of the email seems fine to me. The title, which
| everyone will see first with no context is horrendous though.
| mlyle wrote:
| > It was completely reasonable in context.
|
| Lighting up everyone's notifications with "From: Mark
| Zuckerberg Subject: Please resign" has a cost to everyone's
| quality of life, IMO.
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Open rate and read through was probably close to 100% on
| this one.
| 7e wrote:
| It's well known that Zuck is a first class douche.
| sebastien_b wrote:
| [dead]
| klyrs wrote:
| My line is drawn at bona fide business concerns. Sharing
| details about an upcoming product is a hard no in my book,
| unless that product is illegal to the point that whistleblower
| protections would apply. But this response where Zuck is
| flipping out (and sent _everybody_ an email with the heart-
| stopping subject line of "please resign")? It's borderline, in
| my mind -- I wouldn't share it, personally, but it doesn't seem
| particularly wrong that it was shared.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I think this is ridiculous and borderline sociopathic.
|
| The signal Mark Zuckerberg is sending is that it is OK for a
| manager to be a bully "in the interest of the company".
|
| No it is not.
| deltree7 wrote:
| If this triggers you, Please resign.
|
| Sometimes corporations face tough intense competition, where
| margins are pressured and products need to be shipped or
| media/government/bad actors go on a propaganda. If you can't
| handle that please join a steady, stable electric company or
| join the government.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I would clearly not work for a FAANG, ever, for many
| reasons, including the risk of awful bosses/managers.
|
| Last time I had an awful boss I triggered him on purpose to
| get fired.
|
| As they used to say in the Mafia, the fish rots from the
| head, I think that Facebook/Meta is such an horrible
| company because of Zuck.
| capitalsigma wrote:
| We're not talking here about being overly critical in a code
| review, or even criticizing someone who pushed bugs to prod.
| This is someone who intentionally violated company policy in
| a way that harms everyone who works there. It is not business
| as usual. Getting mad about this sort of thing is like
| getting mad about somebody keying your car or spreading false
| rumors about you: entirely reasonable and justified and not
| an interaction where professionalism is expected.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| The email reads like a tantrum, mostly because of one unneeded
| paragraph. The employee should be fired but the CEO sending a
| company wide email blast that boils down to "Quit or we'll find
| you and fire you" is just....bizarre and immature?
|
| If you change the subject line and cut the 3rd paragraph it
| comes across as pointless but standard corporate nonsense where
| they feel the need to reiterate common sense stuff and ignore
| the fact that most people work for money not ideals, but having
| such a petty line reeks of playground bullshit.
| busterarm wrote:
| It wasn't really "Quit or we'll find you and fire you."
|
| The real threat went unmentioned because it's illegal. It was
| "Quit or we'll find you and fire you and every other
| company/startup in SV will know why we fired you."
| User23 wrote:
| Why would that be illegal in the USA? It's not slander or
| libel if it's true.
|
| There are plenty of good reasons for companies to not
| honestly describe bad behavior of former employees, but I
| don't see that one of them is that it's illegal.
| kimixa wrote:
| I don't think it'd be illegal at all.
|
| I think a number of people misunderstand that the reason
| why a lot of companies have a "Don't talk about why
| someone left" de-facto policy is because if there's any
| ambiguity it's probably not worth the cost of having to
| defend yourself from a possible libel lawsuit, and not
| that it's against any law.
|
| The cost/benefit of that changes if there's no ambiguity,
| evidence of truth is after all a good defense against
| libel charges (in most sane jurisdictions...), and if the
| reason is "big" enough they may feel obliged to make it
| known.
| roundandround wrote:
| Defamation that questions someone's ability to do their
| profession is in a special class. You don't want to be
| the slightest bit wrong about anything in that, i.e. were
| they misquoted or overheard instead of talking directly
| to a reporter? Might some employer somewhere who would
| hire them view any such distinction as different?
|
| Similarly, they leaked data but didn't or he lied and
| they were entering the phone market? Details wrong could
| be a long civil case, all the details right could still
| be a long case.. The only reason to engage in that kind
| of behavior is to sabotage yourself.
| busterarm wrote:
| It's intentional blacklisting.
| baxtr wrote:
| No you're not. I also think it's not ok to share confidential
| internal info.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| You're using a lot of absolutes ("all", "ever", "never").
| You're implying there are a few absolute positions, but, as
| commenters have pointed out, that's not the case (it never
| really is).
|
| You're not crazy for thinking it's reasonable in context, but
| it's also not crazy to disagree with you.
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's reasonable to not want your employees to share internal
| information. It's perhaps less reasonable to put an entire
| company on blast because one person violated that expectation.
| ok_computer wrote:
| The sentiment is totally ok to think and feel. But it makes you
| look like an insecure loser to blast the entire directory with
| you latest grievance.
|
| If you want to project power as a ceo you have the
| communication task delegated to someone who specializes in
| company communications and information security.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. The head of corporate comms or someone in that chain of
| command would be very justified in sending something along of
| the lines of:
|
| This was shared externally from our internal company meeting.
| I'd like to remind everyone that keeping the information
| shared in these meetings confidential allows us to be more
| open with all our employees. etc.
|
| There may be times for the CEO to send the message but,
| especially at a high visibility company, it's probably
| inevitable it will become more of a personal thing.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Facebook was a much, much, much smaller (like 30-60x)
| smaller company back then.
| ghaff wrote:
| Facebook was still a big company in 2010.
|
| (But I agree that this sort of communication, if not its
| exact wording, is more appropriate at a smaller company.)
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Sure, according to Statista
| (https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-
| faceboo...) they had 2k employees in 2010.
|
| They now have 70k, so they were 3% of the size back then.
|
| I stand by my point.
| ipaddr wrote:
| 68k extra employees and facebook of 2010 was better than
| today.
| ghaff wrote:
| Fair enough. I didn't realize they were that relatively
| small. So I guess my objection is mostly with some of the
| wording.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't know.
|
| Corporate leaks are pretty serious, and maintaining a culture
| of no leaks is a CEO-level priority.
|
| Handling these at the CEO level feels far more appropriate
| and effective than delegating it to a security specialist
| nobody's heard of before and whose e-mail will mostly just be
| ignored.
|
| I don't see "insecure loser" at all, I see a CEO acting
| correctly to nip a problem in the bud.
|
| Except for the "please resign" subject line which is a bit
| hyperbolic.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Corporations aren't people and don't (or shouldn't, anyway)
| have privacy rights.
| crazygringo wrote:
| None of this has anything to do with privacy _rights_.
|
| This is _private_ enforcement of secrets with employees.
| If you leak company secrets, your in opposition to what
| you were hired for, and you get fired.
|
| Nobody's arguing the journalist who published the story
| shouldn't have been legally permitted to.
| yunohn wrote:
| Privacy? I'm not sure what you think that means in this
| context.
| corbulo wrote:
| If Corporations weren't people you wouldn't be able to
| sue them. Read more.
| majormajor wrote:
| Corporations aren't the only non-individual entity you
| can sue, and the ability to sue could be extended
| separately from other person-like rights or
| responsibilities (see, for instance, that corporations
| can't vote).
| underwater wrote:
| I was at Facebook shortly after this. Zuck was very present
| in internal comms, regularly posting on the internal Facebook
| and holding a weekly Q&A. To me it felt transparent and
| authentic, and I felt aligned with company strategy.
|
| Now at another big tech co and I hear from my CEO and CVPs
| via mainstream news instead of internal channels. I feel very
| little connection to the culture and have no idea what our
| strategic direction is.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| Honestly I cannot express how much I don't understand this
| idea.
|
| He has some extremely important message to pass to entire
| company (failed projects due to lost trust in mobile sector
| can easily shake company).
|
| Why on earth delegate that and have yet another canned
| corporate email that will be forgotten 20 minutes later? You
| can always run content by someone experienced if you want to
| round up the edges, but if you have something to say to
| people usually it's best to just say it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Agree 100%. When I read this sentence "If you want to
| project power as a ceo you have the communication task
| delegated to someone who specializes in company
| communications and information security" I literally had to
| read it like three times because it seemed so obviously
| backwards to me I thought I must be missing a negative
| somewhere.
|
| I hear on HN 99% of the time how folks don't like corporate
| speak and that they wish leaders were more forthcoming and
| honest, and here someone is arguing that they just want the
| corporate-speak version of it. It is completely baffling to
| me.
| marricks wrote:
| [flagged]
| charcircuit wrote:
| This leak wasn't about violating labor laws. It was a leak
| about a potential future product which they were no longer
| considering pursuing. This wasn't sharing something bad being
| done by the company. It was leaking internal information that
| simply damaged the company with no societal benefit.
| coding123 wrote:
| Not a bad email at all in my opinion. I don't see how it's much
| different for other companies and leaks.
|
| I think the snowflakes probably arrived, what 2015?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Just because certain behaviors are common among CEOs, doesn't
| mean those behaviors have no elements that can be criticized
| (i.e. "everybody does it" does not equate to "good"). Also,
| "snowflake" is pretty meaningless by now. In most cases, it's
| simply used as a synonym for, "people I hate."
| Nullabillity wrote:
| You're off by about a decade, Zuckerberg was there from the
| start.
| kadoban wrote:
| It's not too bad of an email. It probably could be done a lot
| better, but whatever.
|
| It's a shitty, insensitive, email subject line though. Many
| people are going to see that and have a very negative reaction.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| What would you suggest the subject line should have been?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're getting at. It's only the subject
| line the parent is referring to. There are practically
| infinite possible choices for a relevant subject line on
| any topic, with varying degrees of specificity and tone.
| Zuckerberg chose super-low-specificity, super-high-
| negativity. It reads to varying degrees as impetuous,
| petty, vindictive, ominous, drunk on power, and emotionally
| retarded (in my personal opinion). It's also unfortunately
| not terribly surprising/rare in situations like these.
| kadoban wrote:
| Even something as crap as "to the leaker: please resign"
| would be infinitely better. At least that won't give the
| entire recipient list a heart attack.
| mi_lk wrote:
| I also would like to know what's interesting about this email
| that makes OP want to share?
| [deleted]
| bilekas wrote:
| > We have too much social good to build to have to deal with
| this.
|
| I did laugh a bit out loud reading this.
| [deleted]
| zuzatm wrote:
| I was an intern in FB in 2010 and I distinctly remember getting
| this email. My full-time buddies, some of which included very
| senior engineers who often work with Mark, mentioned the got the
| shivers when they saw the title and thought they just got booted
| :)
| yalogin wrote:
| Well, looking back, would they have been better off had they
| built a phone?
|
| Tough to say, Mark doesn't know how to build a device. However
| may be he could have made the device free in exchange for reaping
| all of user's data. May be not. It would cost a lot of money and
| probably put google at a crossroads because apple and Facebook
| would then be positioned on either end of the spectrum with
| google not knowing what to do. I would have loved to see mark try
| to make a phone instead of Bezos.
| anonymous344 wrote:
| why is hacker news full of clickbait headlines?
| vandahm wrote:
| I've never submitted anything to HN, but I think they want you
| to use the original title of the article, which is what the
| submitter did.
| upon_drumhead wrote:
| you clicked in and engaged, which is what the author/submitter
| wanted
| enteeentee wrote:
| "We are a company that promotes openness and transparency" except
| we aren't.
| elkos wrote:
| > If we don't, we screw over everyone working their asses off to
| change the world.
|
| I work at a non-profit and wouldn't dare to utter these words to
| any employee. I understand believing what you preach, but
| actually saying you work on "changing the world" in an internal
| email seems very problematic? Is it just me?
| deltree7 wrote:
| Non Profits rarely have the kind of impact
| Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple on the world. It's not
| even comparable.
|
| Billions have lives have changed due to these corps, while your
| Non Profit may affect 100s
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I don't understand this comment at all. Lots of executives talk
| like that. Why would it be "problematic" (ugh)?
| endisneigh wrote:
| Why is it problematic?
| mabbo wrote:
| Well, to be fair he didn't specify that they were changing the
| world in a positive way.
| ditonal wrote:
| He actually did when he says they have too much "social good"
| to build.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| They did absolutely change the world in a significant manner
| though. Time and again! Just not in the direction Mark openly
| hoped for.
| irishloop wrote:
| Honestly think this is quite common at the CEO level. I swear
| it's like a requirement, founders have to be a little bit
| deluded into thinking they're changing the world and not
| just... starting a business.
| gretch wrote:
| There's a survival selection process. The ceo founders who
| did not believe it in their bones failed very early on.
| Because honestly you have to be a little bit insane to take
| on that much risk and uncertainty (not to say it's a good
| thing, the other 999/1000 who also believed don't go
| anywhere)
| chitowneats wrote:
| Facebook most certainly changed the world. The result was not
| good from my perspective. You can justify phrases like "social
| good" in a lot of different ways. Which is why you should
| always be skeptical of such claims.
| eastbound wrote:
| > Actually saying you work on "changing the world" in an
| internal email seems very problematic? Is it just me?
|
| Yes it's problematic.
|
| No, it was the usual thing to say back in 2010, it was normal.
|
| My unicorn adopted the value "We advance humanity, through the
| power of software" in 2013 and that triggered me quitting and
| relinquishing half my stock options. I was a problematic
| employee so it was a winwin for them, but nonetheless it was a
| fucking gross thing to say, especially with the videoclip of a
| girl limping in Africa, for which we made the software that
| helped the developer that helped the doctor that helped the
| little girl getting stilts. We don't advance humanity, we get
| overpaid from large corporation margins for outputting good
| software, with a sidenote of donating 1% for the greater good.
| It's not even open-source.
|
| That's fucking extremely gross and inappropriate to say that's
| advancing humanity. It lacks humility.
|
| To their credit, they didn't prolong the campaign and I've
| never heard them say it ever since 2013. I still have this ad
| in my new startup. In the toilet. To remind people to take care
| of their family before the corporation. Social fabric is what
| ties humans together, not our software.
| m1117 wrote:
| Isn't this publicity good? I think whoever leaked that to press
| gave Facebook a favor. He could've twitted, "Fake news, we're not
| building a phone" and that's it.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| From the email:
|
| > Even now, we're in a more precarious position with companies
| in the mobile space who should be our partners because they now
| think we're competitors. They think we're building a phone to
| compete with them rather than building integrations to make
| their phones better.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| However, it mentions lesking internal communications - which
| indicates that the leaked information was actually legit at
| the time, even if nothing came out of it.
| kazinator wrote:
| Summary: someone in the world spread a false rumor about
| Facebook, and Zuckerberg stupidly called it a leak, assuming
| someone one the inside is responsible, and should be let go.
| w_for_wumbo wrote:
| I can't help but thinking whenever I see Facebook about the
| change that we could see in the world if the platform were able
| to prioritize connection and social cohesion. Enabling people to
| see things from new perspectives and discuss things freely and
| openly.
|
| There's so much power for good in the platform, which is being
| held back by the need to return a profit.
| nixass wrote:
| Did they ever find the person?
| sberens wrote:
| Just to note, 3 years later they did release a phone:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First
| ricardobeat wrote:
| They did not release a phone, they developed a custom Android
| skin that could be adopted by partner telcos.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| Of course they did. If the leak didn't have some truth to it,
| he wouldn't have been so upset about the leak.
| twostorytower wrote:
| It's literally not a phone. Facebook didn't build or design
| any hardware. It's exactly what Mark said, an interface layer
| (Launcher) for Android, and it came bundled with this HTC
| phone.
| mabbo wrote:
| Around the same time, summer of 2010, TechCrunch also reported
| that Google was making a ChromeOS tablet, which was going to be
| released in the next few weeks.
|
| I was interning on the team building the first ever touch screen
| for ChromeOS, in Waterloo, ON. We had barely gotten anything
| working yet. It was all super early days stuff.
|
| We all laughed at the article and thought nothing more of it.
|
| I think TechCrunch was just basically throwing darts and seeing
| what hit.
| susrev wrote:
| > Confidential--Do Not Share
|
| > We are a company that promotes openness and transparency, both
| in the world at large and here internally at Facebook.
|
| The irony of these two statements being separated by three
| paragraphs made me lol
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