[numair]

Pro tip: there’s people other than Mark Zuckerberg who own those super-voting shares in Facebook, who keep his power unchecked. One of them is considered a darling investor in Silicon Valley and pretends to be a voice of social justice (and funds a lot of that sort of stuff).

When your politicians put random employees and other paid shills in front of committees as proof that they’re being “tough on Facebook,” understand that it’s a giant charade. It’s only when they call the super-voting shareholders and the board that something serious is going on. These are the people who think you’re all too stupid to know how the game works.

[jancsika]

> Pro tip: there’s people other than Mark Zuckerberg who own those super-voting shares in Facebook, who keep his power unchecked. One of them is considered a darling investor in Silicon Valley and pretends to be a voice of social justice (and funds a lot of that sort of stuff).

Pro tip: citations, please!

[thesausageking]

Zuckerberg controls 58% of the voting shares. No one else on the board matters.

[numair]

He controls them. He doesn’t own them.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS275871279920151202

> At Facebook, Zuckerberg’s stake, worth some $45 billion, comes with more than 53 percent of the votes in any shareholder poll, according to company filings. That rises to nearly 60 percent including stock owned by co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, which Zuckerberg usually gets to vote.

Note that there have been share sales since the time of this article (2015), so I would assume that the majority has become even more dependent on others voting his way (I wouldn’t know what the board has granted since then, which is a whole other topic...)

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"He controls them. He doesn't own them."

He controls at least 75% of the class B shares.

About half of that percetange are shares he owns; the other half are controlled by proxy voting agreements with the owners.

As long as at least 9.1% of all shares issued and outstanding are class B stock, the persons controlling those class B shares will have the majority of shareholder voting power.^1

The percentage of all stock issued and outstanding that is class A stock is unlikely to ever rise above 90.9%. Even if if owners of class B shares sell, there is an automatic conversion to class A shares on any transfer and Zuckerberg's voting power only increases as a result.

1. As of 31 Dec 2020, Facebook has 2,406 million shares of class A stock and 443 million shares of class B stock issued and outstanding. Class A stock has one vote per share, class B has 10.

[mark_l_watson]

+1 I totally agree with you that it is a charade, or theater.

I try to spend only 1 or 2 minutes when I visit Facebook a couple of times a week. If everyone did that then their profits would tank. My bad for not just quitting but I am addicted to the Oculus Quest (a favorite toy).

I know many people whose digital life experience is always having Facebook open on their desktop. Productivity is almost a religion to me: aspects of peoples' digital lives that prevent us from long periods of single pointed concentration are bad. I use https://freedom.to to limit my use of HN, etc. to specific periods of the day when I am not working - I almost feel like that is a personal failure that I need to do that, but that is what it is.

[nicbou]

I just unfollowed everyone and unliked everything, and my profile has just enough for people to know they have the right guy. There's literally nothing for me to see or do on Facebook. It works great.

[Strs2FillMyDrms]

Thiel's money is not red btw.

[numair]

They’ve got both sides covered. The fact that you only know about one side should tell you that the other side, and where it places its money, might be worth looking into.

You think Thiel and the Trump election was interesting? Go look at the largest donor to Biden’s “Future Forward PAC.”

[daveguy]

Dustin A Moskovitz of Asana. How is this some sort of gotcha? Just noting they're both in tech?