
Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO? - apress
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-zuckerberg-future-20120817,0,2667542.story
======
jerf
It is true a new CEO could potentially improve things, but it shouldn't be
taken for granted. Disclosure, I'm generally a Facebook skeptic, but I don't
think it can be denied that bringing in another CEO who focuses on money,
money, money could end up crashing Facebook ten times faster than Zuckerburg
could. There are a whole lot of very appealing money-making answers that boil
down to eating the seed corn, at wildly varying levels of subtlety. (In fact
the source of my skepticism is whether there is any way to make money that
doesn't fit this description, but who knows?)

~~~
apress
I agree 100% but there is, sadly, the issue of credibility on Wall Street. The
Google boys let Eric Schmidt have the CEO title for a while. Maybe Facebook
should hand Sheryl Sandberg the top title for a while.

------
taude
I think the fact that FB was over-priced and criminally IPO'd at ridiculous
valuations that aren't living up to the hype (in the near run) are more to
blame than anything MZ is doing in particular. As has been said, FB is a
fantastic 5 billion dollar company. The sooner they painfully get there, the
sooner they can start building...

~~~
wisty
I've submitted a Forbes article a couple of days before the IPO -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396500>

Basically, if you bought a company with a P/E of 90 and decreasing revenue (it
had dropped 6% in the quarter) then you shouldn't be playing with other
people's money. Everyone knew it was a massive risk.

~~~
cube13
According to Google Finance, 14% of FB's outstanding shares are
institutionally owned. I think the vast majority of the pension funds got the
message.

------
mmahemoff
"His behavior is what I would expect of someone his age — the hoodies and
everything else," said Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Tangent
Capital Partners in New York.

Those crazy 28-year olds with their hoodies are wrecking society! Has he heard
of Google?

Whatever Facebook does, they certainly shouldn't go pandering to ignorant
bankers like this guy NYT quoted. Being obsessed with quarterly financials is
the reason we had to wait for Apple to make a decent phone. Every other
company had to keep rolling out their incrementally polished turds in time for
Christmas sales.

~~~
bryans
It's going to be a great day when our society can finally move past imaginary
class systems based on the nonsensical belief that a cut of cloth can be a
sign of disrespect or weakness or, frankly, holds any relevance at all. That's
the same kind of backward, old world thinking that turns a NASA systems
engineer's mohawk into major national news; because apparently it's shocking
to find out that a person with uncommonly styled hair can be intelligent and
successful.

~~~
mmahemoff
I think we're already there for anyone who has at least one eye open. I mean
people talk about a Silicon Valley eco-chamber, but it sounds like some people
have been stuck in a Wall Street echo chamber if they haven't noticed the
enormous value that has been created in recent decades by people who are
comfortably dressed.

------
patdennis
I have no interest in judging a public company by its stock price over such a
short period of time.

Markets are fickle - on the short term they tend to react to emotion. Give it
a few years, though, and we'll have a much more reliable measure of whether
Zuck is creating real value.

------
revorad
Zuck should totally step down and hand over the reins to one of the many
seasoned executives from Myspace.

------
outside1234
Honestly, and sadly, I think this shows just how ready he is. He recognized
Facebook was at its peak and sold. That's good business. He's got a ton of
money to drive Facebook forward. What's the mismanagement I'm missing?

~~~
coliveira
The CEO supposed to be making money for the shareholders, not for himself.
Maybe someone forgot to tell him, but the level of success of a public company
is reflected in the share price.

~~~
_delirium
There is no requirement to maximize _short-term_ stock prices, though. He may
genuinely believe that his strategy is long-term the correct one, in which
case he'd be correct to pursue it. After all, the stock price has widely swung
in its evaluation of Facebook's value in a space of mere months, first pricing
FB very high and then pricing it much lower, with little intervening change of
fundamentals, so its credibility as an indicator of company performance is not
strong.

~~~
polyfractal
Indeed. Bezos is famous for destroying short term profits because he likes to
reinvest in Amazon (growing logistics, distribution, etc) which has so far
profited investors handsomely in the long term.

~~~
cube13
But the major difference between Bezos' strategy with Amazon and Zuckerberg's
apparent strategy with Facebook is that Amazon was absolutely up front that
they're willing to sacrifice short term profits for long term stability.

Amazon's initial shareholder letters were basically "Yes, we know we're not
turning a profit right now, but that's because we believe in our long term
plan". They also detailed what they were doing to make sure that their short-
term spending was going to result in long-term returns. Amazon's letters and
SEC filings were focused almost completely on this message: That we're
spending money now to make a LOT more money in the future.

Facebook, perhaps due to the competitive space that they're in, really haven't
done anything like that. Their filings have more of a "Deer in the Headlights"
feeling than anything else, with mobile revenue being basically 0, and not
adequately explaining the massive expense increases for Q2 2012. Those are red
flags for investors. It's a completely different message from Amazon's.

------
veyron
Dumb article. The underlying assumption here is that a management shift is a
panacea but that's far from the case. People forgot to ask how Facebook could
effectively monetize, and I think MZ has a much better shot at figuring it out
compared to external management.

------
VSerge
The markets are fickle... And the suits complaining over sneakers are just
plain ridiculous. Think what you may of Zuckerberg, he's ensured continued
control of the company, and whoever's complaining should have done their
research ahead instead of jumping in and then acting surprised. Research could
have started with notorious early business cards reading "I'm the CEO, bitch".

------
mikeF11
It seems what they mean when they say "improvement" is merely the stock price
increasing. As that data-point is set by investors, I don't see why Zuckerberg
could be at fault for this. I also don't see how a CEO who goes around
projecting his self confidence to worried investors but without a good
technical background would be an "improvement" over Zuckerberg, who despite
all malaise towards him is a better programmer than most. Just my thoughts.

edit: I was reading the comments of the article and one of them notes that by
selling the IPO at 4x of what it should have been priced, Zuck showed that he
is a brilliant CEO.

~~~
nlz1
> by selling the IPO at 4x of what it should have been priced, Zuck showed
> that he is a brilliant CEO

Keep telling yourself that.

------
savrajsingh
Remember that Zuck is the guy that didn't sell Facebook at a number of
junctures, when all his advisors/investors were telling him to sell. He wants
to build great tech -- which is at odds with what today's shareholders want --
quick returns.

On second thought, he could pull a Jobs and get pushed out, only to save the
company from death and then take it to stratospheric heights decades later.

~~~
derwiki
He's got a controlling share; he'd have to push himself out.

------
duiker101
I do not really care about Facebook. But I love how he actually did not step
down in front of these people who believe to rule the world. The way the get
angry at his hoodies makes me always laugh.

------
jasonzemos
I can't possibly understand why people thought a $38 IPO wasn't going to
implode. It's practically tongue-in-cheek. You're not really buying a piece of
the new silicon valley when you do it on the old New York stock market.
Suckers.

------
rm999
It's no secret that Mark Zuckerberg has always intended to keep control of the
company and that his vision is a long-term one. So, investors got into
facebook thinking something else would happen, and overvalued it in the
process. But Zuckerberg doesn't really owe them anything other than to
continue running the company with his vision (which would certainly pass good
faith legal tests if it ever came to that).

What I'm getting at is that Zuckerberg has the ability stay, and he probably
wants to stay. We can mock him all we want for what I consider wall street's
mistakes, but what's his motivation to care?

------
kmfrk
This article is why I sometimes prefer blogs to newspapers. Articles whose
titles are questions with lead-ins saying "some people say" make them sound
like planted snipe pieces and desperate linkbait.

The language probably reflects that the writers in question are representing
the newspaper instead of their own opinion, but the wishy-washy nature of the
way it is phrased makes the entire argument diffuse to me.

------
dr_
Every banker on Wall Street was in over their suits and ties when the mortgage
debacle hit but many still have their jobs. So, quite frankly, who cares what
Wall Street thinks. It's largely been taken over by investors looking for
quick profits, which is in contrast sometimes to growing a company that's
sustainable.

~~~
nlz1
Growing company?

[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-07/tech/31602869...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-07/tech/31602869_1_zynga-
facebook-linkedin)

------
peloton
If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer. You’re the product being
sold.

This saying applies to management teams/financial markets as well.

~~~
tartuffe78
I thought this was a really good point, especially in all of the other
Facebook / Google threads where people parroted it.

------
prodigal_erik
His legitimate goal is to improve the fundamentals (which have not declined
50%). To ask him to put on a suit and glad-hand the Street is to expect him to
groom greater fools for the speculators who want to fold after just one
quarter. Not only should he not waste his time on this type of investor
relations (surely there are minions for that), neither should investors pay
attention to it.

------
k-mcgrady
Facebook's problem is that it hit the market way over valued. It's possible
that it could be worth $100bn someday but it isn't right now or within the
next 12 months.

------
jopt
Betteridge's, anyone?

------
majani
Is there any possible situation where Zuck gets pushed out? Or have his
controlling shares insulated him from any kind of ouster?

------
TimGebhardt
Will people stop referring to share price when talking about company value?
Share price isn't comparable over time due to stock splits and buy outs and
other shenanigans. Please refer to market capitalization instead.

------
indiecore
Quick, cut out the tech guy who made this possible, get the suits in here
post-haste we've got to MARKET.

~~~
Drakim
Indeed. One really has to question how this sort of thinking affects humanity
in the long term. Modern business has become too meta to the point where it
hurts the actual product and market.

