Facebook, privacy and sweat
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
A few years ago I went for a job interview with a certain computer, personal media device, phone and software company. I had a hugely successful pre-interview with the HR girl, who talked me into wanting to chop off my own arm for this job. The interview was going to be the in UK with some big wigs that I had already met through my, at the time, current job. The day before I was to have my real interview, the whole thing was cancelled because the HR company was dropped from the job, and said computer company never got back to me and hired someone else directly.
One of the interesting points the HR manager made with me was that I was open, honest and confident in my abilities. She said whittling down the people to go for an interview was difficult because the company were very picky. So much so that one individual who she thought was a shoe-in previously didn’t get the job because during a presentation (part of the hiring process) he was sweating… a huge negative for this particular client of the HR girl. If Mark Zuckerberg (26 year old CEO & founder of Facebook) had interviewed for this position, based on the interview he gave to AllThingsD last week, he would be fruitfully unemployed.
He was sweating so much so that, for the first time ever, he removed his trademark facebook-branded hoodie in order to cool down while being pursued quite vigorously on privacy issues. His sweating, nervous gesturing, quivering lip and overall miss-handling of the scenario was not that of a CEO in charge of an internet empire, but rather a kid who’s being scolded in school. Some of his answers, when you strip away the quivering, sweat and nervousness were quite good. And often he hit the nail on the head… but because his ability to speak in public is so profoundly weak it all comes across as a bit of a hazy mess that makes me want to join the thousands leaving Facebook daily.
For sure, I agree with Tom Foremski when he says Zuckerberg needs adult supervision in the same way that the founders of Google did, hence former Sun Microsystems man Eric Schmidt leading their company to glory. Larry and Sergei still get to do their thing, and so would Zuckerberg, but having a proper adult who knows what they’re doing means you’re not reckless with decisions.
The other thing about Zuckerberg is, according to one twitter friend of mine, is that he reminds people (or perhaps this one friend alone) of an early Bill Gates. I tend not to agree, in that I don’t think he’s nearly as clever as Bill Gates. Gates dreamed up a way of interacting with your personal computer through a GUI… Zuckerberg dreams of everyone sharing information with each other (or perhaps with the wider web) on one service. Sure, there are apps and connectivity involved with Facebook and its future, but when your number one app is farmville, and Facebook connect allows some developers to pull my private profile information out, I can’t see it as anything but destructive to itself, rather then a stroke of genius a-la Windows in the 90s.
I’ve had this discussion a few times with people, and a fair point has been raised. Am I having a go at Zuckerberg because, like the job interview I mentioned at the top, I didn’t get to work in Facebook when they opened in Dublin? No, not at all. Given the chance I’d probably still work for Facebook. It seems like a good company with a real future, if they stop letting their CEO go out making brash statements and quickly changing very big things with the service, without warning, and to the detriment of its users. Maybe I am a little bitter at not having wonderful chefs make me pizza everyday for lunch in a subsidised canteen. I have a wonderful job now, thankfully.
I see where Facebook is going. Perhaps moreso then others. My background is computer science, and my final year project was/is a search engine that draws data from social media outlets (i.e. user submitted content) rather then web crawled links, like Google. Facebook, in my eyes, is clearly going after this idea. Slowly gathering user data to make it searchable, and ousting Google as the top dog in search. Even my own search engine shows more relevant data then Google when it comes down to popular, recent and relevant topics. Instead of going out to the web to look for information, the information is coming right to the service itself. Searchable, media-rich information. So a link to NYT about Gaza becomes a series of status updates from people in Gaza, with pictures, audio, video etc. all from their phone, in real time. Suddenly, Facebook’s millions of users are far more valuable then first perceived. No longer is it a social media place where people play terrible flash games (not on iPad!) and “Like” things related to celebrities. Now it’s a full on media company, powered by people.
The Google guys
And this is why Zuckerberg needs a CEO to help steer the ship, and not sweat all over himself while stuttering when asked about serious issues relating to your own users. Someone needs to guide the company through the next few years, just like Schmidt did with Larry & Sergey at Google. They still got to do their mad-hatter things, buying random companies and starting services that Google probably shouldn’t have, but Schmidt kept them in check, ensuring they didn’t go wild and run the company into the ground. Facebook could be much bigger then it is now. It’s the only social media outlet to have a real shot at the big time, even moreso then Twitter. But the way they’re going, things are going to go from bad to worse, and before it gets better it’ll lose that part of the userbase with real information to contribute to its future.
