
Sheryl Sandberg Is Said to Have Asked Facebook Staff to Research George Soros - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/technology/george-soros-facebook-sheryl-sandberg.html
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dstroot
She did what I would have done if someone was attacked my company for no
obvious reason - I’d want to know if they stood to gain and how. Obviously
when someone holds a short position and bashed a company it’s pretty
transparent. That’s a big reason why Tesla was in the news so much the last 12
months.

It’s when FB went on the offensive and started attacking Soros with “factually
questionable” information that they crossed the line.

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jacquesm
That's fine. But she lied about the whole thing which is not. It's a far cry
from 'some emails crossed my desk' to 'I directed the research be done'.

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mc32
>told subordinates to examine why Mr. Soros had criticized the tech companies
and whether he stood to gain financially from the attacks.

Well, he is an investor who has a history of causing financial damage to whole
countries by betting against their currencies.

So, it shouldn't be surprising FB would want to know what might be in store
for them if he went nuclear on them.

What is surprising is the odd bedfellows of Soros on the left and others on
the right clamoring for FB regulation. I probably agree they need some kind of
regulation --but one more generalized to all user-facing internet companies
(colloquially "user is the product" companies).

~~~
askafriend
If someone is publicly saying questionable things about your organization,
then trying to find out what their motivations might be by doing research is
just common sense (especially if the company in question is publicly traded).
So I'm with you there, I don't get the outrage here at all. It comes off as
cheap and manufactured from what I'm seeing.

~~~
natch
Which outrage are you referring to? I didn't see any in the article. It seemed
pretty even keeled.

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ALittleLight
I think the outrage is implicit in the the publication of the article. Why is
this in the New York Times? He criticized the company, she asked is he had a
financial interest behind the criticism. Okay? Why is this a story?

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phs318u
> Why is this a story?

Because George Soros is a lightning rod for the alt-right and NWO conspiracy
theorists.

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swampthinker
Facebook is turning an awful lot of Democrats into enemies. Very curious to
see how Zuckerberg tries to maneuver Facebook through wartime. [1]

[1] [https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceowartime-
ceo-2/](https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo-2/)

~~~
vtesucks
It's because the establishment segment (clinton) genuinely fear him throwing
his hat in for 2020. Not that I like him but honestly, if he can sells fb
stock and promises to genuinely treat Usa like his firm, I'd prefer him over a
politician who says what pays (which is all politicians in all sides).

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Jtsummers
Is Facebook actually well run? Or just fortunate in its timing in the market?

It’s a spectrum, right? Skill and luck. How much of each has contributed to
its success?

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dunpeal
Did you forget that Facebook used to play David to Myspace's Goliath?

There was never any shortage of competitors, and Facebook wasn't the first on
the social media scene by any measure. It came out of nowhere and toppled the
dominant incumbent, and is still going strong against competition from giants
like Google.

~~~
Jtsummers
That's why I posed it as a question and mentioned the spectrum that this sits
on. Facebook got lucky in some ways, I don't think Zuckerberg meant to create
artificial scarcity when it launched, I think he was growing it deliberately
but the effect was unintended.

Facebook started with Harvard students. Then Boston area colleges, Ivy League,
then it was expanded to most universities with a .edu domain. You didn't need
invites (Google's preferred method), just to be a member of the right kind of
institution. It launched to the public at large in 2006.

Those first couple years, a lot of the use of Facebook was reconnecting with
old friends. High school classmates, or if you'd graduated but still had a
university email your fellow college classmates. This was a distinct endeavor
from Myspace. It was explicitly about connecting people who shared a
particular geographic or institutional social context (not _any_ context,
school). There were no bands, no autoplaying music. Just you and people you
may or may not know connecting to each other.

Now, they obviously intended to grow it into something larger. And they have
done a great job with it. Here's the question:

The choice to open it to universities was obviously deliberate, but was the
intent to test scaling Facebook or to create an initial critical mass of
likeminded, like-aged individuals?

My wager is on the former, though I could be proven wrong. That initial
smaller but _focused_ group is what allowed them to successfully compete.

Luck: They stumbled onto a successful model for building a from-scratch social
network with their focused approach.

Skill: They intended to be focused on college-aged students believing it would
build their critical mass social network more effectively.

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40acres
Not surprising but definitely adds to the icky feeling surrounding Sandberg
and Zuckerberg. Interestingly enough I think Scott Galloway makes some great
points, Sandberg is probably the most powerful woman in tech right now, it's
probably a bad look for the board to let her go; and I doubt Zuck would force
her out. I think she'll leave on her own terms.

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richardknop
I think given George Soros' history and the fact he is an investor known for
making big bets, it is possible he would have a big short position open
against Facebook and could gain lots of money if $FB stock keeps going down.
It's not outside of realm of the possibilities the he would make a big bet
like that so investigating what are his current positions in the stock market,
how many puts is he holding etc might be a good idea.

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heifetz
I think the reason why this is a story that is causing a lot of interest and
outrage is that Soros was right! Sandberg, Zuck and co, instead of reflecting
on what was actually happening, and investigating the issues that Facebook was
causing, or was being used for, chose to try to play defense and attach the
people and organizations that were criticizing them. If Facebook was serious
about becoming a "good" platform, then it would have acted sooner. Instead, we
can look back and say that they pretty much only care about growing revenue
and did not care too much about these issues, until they because front and
center after Trump was elected. There is probably some sexism towards the over
criticism of Sandberg over Zuck. But at the same time, Zuck was more hands off
while hosting facetime live from his backyard, and traveling around the US,
and proclaiming how great Facebook was, while Sandberg is suppose to be the
day to day operator. I think Zuck deserve a lot of the same blame for this, as
the CEO and the founder.

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rdlecler1
That’s a lot of speculation from limited information. Best to default to
outrage in this case...

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chewz
What? FB didn't have George Soros shadow profile at hand?

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SirLJ
But, but, but, she said she didn’t...

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vtesucks
Mr soros is known to move markets to make money. I don't see why media can
just label someone beyond reproach and malign anybody who tries to even dare
to look them up

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
I would not be surprised if Mark Zuckerberg ends up becoming a Republican. He
very obviously has political ambitions. A significant portion of the Left
blames Facebook (at least in part) and by extension Zuckerberg for the
election of Donald Trump. If he says the right things, I expect the Right to
be more accepting than the Left which would still hold 2016 against him.

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create_novelty
I would assume that any important PR decision at Facebook would have to be
green lit by Sheryl or Mark or both. Not surprised at this finding by NYT

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elicash
While it would be safe to assume that Facebook was being misleading from the
start, it's important that news organizations do actual reporting to before
coming to those types of conclusions.

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docbrown
This may be an unpopular opinion but here it is: Zuckerburg started this as a
hobby with it being something he may never have thought of becoming full-
scale. Fast forward to today and Zuckerburg is in over his head.

He has control over this !massive! amount of data that companies are chomping
at the bit for. He’s trying to make sure his company survives and his product
does no harm. But, he’s losing control. They’re trying to wiggle out of these
wormholes they’ve sunk in and all of their fabrications are coming to light.

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askafriend
Your comment is quite far off from reality.

To address your first point: he started the company deliberately. He had sold
a successful company before Facebook. He also turned down multi-billion dollar
acquisition offers because he knew exactly what he was doing and what the
opportunity was. Many of the funding rounds for FB were red hot and everyone
was trying to get in.

And to your second point: what he built is unprecedented. And because it is
unprecedented, there are a lot of questions that we as a society need to
answer collectively about the role a product like Facebook plays in our lives
(kinda just like with every other new, transformational technology, including
email). But to call his execution "In over his head" is laughable. I don't
think other leaders would have fared any better and many could have fared
much, much worse.

Now, are there questions and valid criticisms about his execution today or his
handling of the recent controversies? Of course! Does that mean he's a random
guy with a side-project that accidentally blew up and suddenly he's in over
his head? Absolutely not, your comment is more fantasy than reality.

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starik36
What business did he sell before Facebook?

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nostrademons
Probably referring to the Synapse Media Player, which had a million-dollar
buyout offer from Microsoft while Zuckerburg was in high school. IIRC he
didn't actually sell it though; it was still a going project under
Zuckerburg's control when he created FB, and just kinda died out because FB
held more potential.

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askafriend
This is exactly it, I misremembered a bit of the history.

I forgot that he didn't actually end up selling. He did come very close to
selling to Microsoft, though.

Here's a bit about it: [https://www.revealingthestuffs.com/mark-zuckerbergs-
synapse-...](https://www.revealingthestuffs.com/mark-zuckerbergs-synapse-
digging-the-tech-history/)

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writepub
The article seems to imply Sandberg approved of anti semetic attacks against
Soros, conveniently ignoring the fact that Sandberg (& Zuckerberg) is a Jew
herself.

I don't know what the editorial team at NYT thinks is happening, but I don't
think Sandberg would condone anti semetic attacks against anyone, even rivals.

~~~
casefields
That is such a weak defense. It didn't work for Edward Said and it won't work
for them.

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writepub
If you really think Soros' Jewish heritage, versus a plethora of political
actions, is more fodder for Sandberg, you've thoroughly underestimated her.

My statement doesn't constitute a defense, because the NYT has failed to prove
that Sanberg explicitly requested an anti-Semitic line of attack be launched
again Soros. You'd expect a paper of NYT's stature to not omit the fact that
Sandberg & Zuck are Jews themselves, and the likelihood of them conding
attacks that paint their own heritage in bad light, is low, if not impossible

~~~
ALittleLight
There's a difference between anti-Semitic attacks that are motivated out of
antisemitism and attacks that are motivated out of self interest. I don't
believe anybody thinks Zuckerberg and Sandberg implied anti-Semitic things
about Soros out of their genuine hatred of Jews. Instead, the idea is that
they tried to exploit antisemitism to obfuscate legitimate criticism of their
company.

