[nashashmi]

> what Facebook _could have been_

In 2010, facebook changed. Twitter was cooler. Myspace was more money. So facebook took a page out of their platforms.

In 2012, facebook went to Washington DC.

In 2016, Washington DC went to facebook.

When did facebook change? When zuck lost control of it after sandberg came on board. When did zuck get control? When zuck changed to be in alliance with the master plan… which was take control of the world… politically. Remember zuck running for election?

[ninth_ant]

Oh my god, no.

Zuck had — and I believe still has — complete control of the company. Demonizing Sandberg and lionizing Zuckerberg is a complete disservice to reality. It was the focus on growth and not money that ruined everything.

Many changes occurred in this period. I was there.

A big change is that ads became profitable. I think it’s fair to say this change was sudden. Facebook went from being scrappy and underfunded to being wealthy and powerful.

At the same time, the growth had eclipsed competitors and Google Plus came and went. The media tone and coverage changed from “oh this startup is doing neat stuff” to a point concern for data privacy and the implosion of journalism revenue. So they became a lot more influential culturally.

Being suddenly wealthy and influential but with a cultural mentality of being a scrappy and upstart— something this book accurately reflects — lead to hubris.

The focus on hypergrowth which had served them well from a small startup — under the umbrella of this hubris — led to events like the Cambridge Analytica disaster. Insufficient care was being placed on how data could be collected and misused by others, growth took priority.

This focus on Hypergrowth meant that changes that responded well in metrics got pushed. The longer-term damage of people not enjoying their experiences wasn’t a high enough ranked metric compared to engagement and user metrics.

None of this was Sandberg’s fault. She was an extremely competent manager and is brilliant. Absolutely she was instrumental in leading Facebook to profitability but this push wasn’t a big factor in their decline.

Instead, Facebook got too big way too fast and the employees and Zuck didn’t have the mindset shift needed to consider everything as it was happening. Yes, money ruined everything eventually — but that came later.

The most crucial damage had already happened — people gave up on trust that Facebook could handle their data responsibly, and trust that they’d have a good experience on the site.

I could go on but that’s enough.

[cruffle_duffle]

> The most crucial damage had already happened — people gave up on trust that Facebook could handle their data responsibly, and trust that they’d have a good experience on the site.

I think it was also that people were beginning to see the consequences of “over sharing” with people you’d never normally share things with. The vision of connecting everybody sounds great but not everybody needs, wants or even should hear everything everybody else says. And once such a realization comes about, away goes the linear timeline and in comes a more algorithmic approach. Suddenly your own posts get algorithmiclly ranked, sorted and filtered by every person on your friends list. And to get your post to show up on their feed you have to please an algorithm first in order to get permission. Thus comes a whole host of negative social interaction and toxicity.

I dunno. Maybe the decline of things like Facebook are simply because society “figured out through lived experience” what the end game of a tool like facebook looks like.

[ninth_ant]

You’re right about how this decline happened.

But encouraging people to share to the widest audience was another aspect where short-term growth of metrics was prioritized over long-term health of the platform.

There was a possible future where FB leadership didn’t get worried about/envious of Twitter and push so hard on public sharing. But that type of call was solidly on Zuck and not Sandberg.

[disgruntledphd2]

To be fair to Sheryl Sandberg, she kept telling them that posting to everyone was a terrible idea but Zuckerberg and Cox didn't listen.

[ninth_ant]

I'm not aware of that personally, but I believe it. The revisionist history trying to paint Zuckerberg as being manipulated here is so just insulting to reality. Zuck deserves the credit for both driving the decisions between both the successes and the failures that arose here.

[disgruntledphd2]

She mentioned it in a performance session that was recorded before I joined FB (I joined in 2013, I believe the talk was from 2011).

I completely agreed with her, but after watching the talk came to the conclusion that if she couldn't change it, then I certainly wouldn't.

More generally, younger people tend to be OK with everyone knowing everything, while as you get older you want to share with smaller circles to avoid conflict. Sheryl was quite a bit older than Mark and Chris at the time, which may have been the difference.

[nashashmi]

The points you illustrated is part of what I think caused Zuckerberg to lose control: hyper growth, fast money, an emerging market of personalized ad tracking. Sandberg being the more experienced manager steered the company well enough during this time but in a direction that I don’t think Zuckerberg felt at home with. Hence This red book was a way to bring back some of his spirits.

I also think so much potential for political influence had a weight on facebook but was not in the roadmap from Zuck’s POV. But it surely was for Sandberg because she had already been at Google witnessing the power of influence. Her husband’s own successes with SurveyMonkey emphasized some of that. This success+money+potential+(emerging ad tech) for facebook combined with a young startup spirit led to many scenarios that young Zuck was not prepared for. It definitely steered the company away from its founding vision. The company was suddenly infused with professionals that did not embody the spirit. And Zuck was quietly observing during this period.

Today, he looks around FB and says that things need to change. “And if people are not happy about this, then I am ok with them finding something else.” (i am paraphrasing).

Zuck has doubled down on a different vision now: Oculus VR. It seems his desire for FB social networking has plateau’d.

[mgiampapa]

I think FB turned the corner when Mark stopped driving his Acura. I'm not sure when I last saw it at building 16, but that was the date for me.

[ninth_ant]

I don't think what car he was driving was a factor at all. He had incredible wealth even before this, driving a cheap old car is effectively just a stunt to promote a specific kind of public image. Which is fine, but it's somewhat irrelevant.

The change happened because FB didn't internalize quickly or deeply enough that the mindset that got them to defeat MySpace wasn't the mindset they needed to become a trusted service for the long-term. Obviously yes it still exists but it's an absolute shell of what it could have been had this not been squandered -- which is the point that the parent comment was addressing.

[gopher_space]

I know like three people who bought cars they couldn't park near their employees in good conscience, and I think there's a point where obvious disparity starts doing things to your brain.

Almost like a "I don't owe, but I should pay more, but I don't owe..." thought process that leads to moral vapor lock.

I think there used to be more release valves for this pressure. There aren't any tithing billionaires, for example.

[bagels]

You don't think Zuck has much control over the company? What evidence do you have?