Mark Zuckerberg: I Donated to Diaspora project | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg: I Donated to Diaspora project

wired.com

60 pointsaj48 comments

So I don’t know, one thing that is personally a bit disheartening…. It bums me out that people immediately go to “You must be doing this to make money.” Because that’s just so different from the ethos of the company. It is so different from how we actually think about stuff that you feel so misunderstood.

It's pretty sad that people think that someone should or ever would run a huge operation without money being a major factor, and it's even more sad and also insidious that Mark is playing along with this fallacy himself.

Money can be a major concern to a huge operation without being its primary focus. Money is a big deal for the Red Cross, but the Red Cross doesn't exist to make money.

The Red Cross is a non-profit.

facebook has a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value:

   Whereas for-profit organizations exist to earn and
   re-distribute taxable wealth to employees and 
   shareholders, the nonprofit corporation exists solely to
   provide programs and services that are of self-benefit.

No, it has a legal obligation to do what (the majority of) its shareholders say. If they tell it to dance a jig and give all its assets to the Flat Earth Society, it’s obliged.

Maximizing shareholder value in the way that’s usually meant is a business school doctrine, not a legal doctrine. (Edit: on second thought, it is a legal doctrine, just not the legal doctrine.) See, for example, http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf :

“Dodge v. Ford is a mistake, a judicial “sport,” a doctrinal oddity largely irrelevant to corporate law and corporate practice. What is more, courts and legislatures alike treat it as irrelevant. […] Only laypersons and (more disturbingly) many law professors continue to rely on Dodge v. Ford.”

If they go public as expected, I'm doubting many equity holders will be interested in a jig.

I stand by my observation that a non-profit is poor evidence for the assertion "Money can be a major concern to a huge operation without being its primary focus"

So it's not legal for a for-profit organization to donate to charity?

Of course it's legal, it could be great PR.

But the money donated would likely generate better returns if reinvested in the business (or even just regular advertising), so it's not maximizing value.

Lots of companies exist to make money, sure, but it's possible for a company to exist where that's not the raison d'etre.

Not really, the goodwill can't be measured but it's likely to generate better returns in the long run.

This thread feels like the twilight zone. How do the actions of the red cross, a non-profit organization, provide any evidence that for-profit companies don't act in a profit-maximizing way?

I believe he's being honest. Money is important -- but there's a point at which you can buy anything you've ever wanted that it seems to become less so. I've seen it to a much lesser extent with an old boss of mine.

Think about Warren Buffet. He could buy anything he ever wanted decades ago. If he was doing it for the money, he would have quit a while ago. Instead he marches on, doing what he enjoys doing.

I agree that it is "sad that people think that someone should or ever would run a huge operation without money being a major factor" but if Mark did wrong or not is something else.

Reading his responses, he doesn't come off as the money-hungry psychopath that he was claimed to be. Either he knows how to hide his agenda very well, or, well, he's just your usual young founder.

No majorly successful founder-CEO is "in it for the money." If he wanted to just buy Lamborghinis and penthouses, he would have sold the company for $1 billion several years ago.

Anyone like Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Ellison, etc. are in it for the power, megalomania, and manifest destiny -- not for the money.

The 11 Companies That Tried To Buy Facebook

http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t...

Why does image 15 of the slide show have a picture of Shaq and Tim Duncan?

SHAQ ATTACK!

What annoys me about it is that this meglomaniac is actually defining how we communicate with eachother online. What effect does this have on people's mentality? .. my guess is at least some!

Psychopaths are great at hiding their agenda.

I think we have to be careful labeling people psychopaths.

That's just what I would expect a psychopath to say.

Seriously, though, there are plenty of words to describe people who are dishonest, manipulative, and so on, without casually diagnosing them with a profound psychological disorder. It's just prudent to use those instead of "psychopath".

And it's usually more accurate and constructive to label the behavior as manipulative, dishonest, etc. instead of the person.

He's probably been coached on what to say, I somehow doubt he just goes to these interviews and wings it.

As for being money-hungry, like qq66 said, he likely would have sold FB if he was just in it for the money. But then he'd be less of a celebrity and no one would remember him?

Also, I think a lot of this anti-FB/Zuckerberg stuff has been blown out of proportion and is exaggerated.

He's probably one of the people who donated 2k for a box, pre-installed, just to study it.

I like this move regardless. it's showing his personality, great PR story too.

Diaspora needs to be the Dropbox for Facebook (plus any other social network). They need to launch as the diaspora facebook app. P2P with just your friends. The abundance of legitimate uses provides a legal shield that will allow all kinds of files to be traded freely and you're carving out a niche that facebook can't compete with.

Just like how Apple's iAd initiative allowed Google to close the AdMob acquisition, Diaspora will inadvertently give an outlet for pundits looking for a privacy/open alternative to Facebook, giving them more flexibility to be aggressive in their growth strategy. Not to mention it makes him look generous.

It's a brilliant move.

That's great to hear, but I would be happier if he had said that he wants Facebook to be able to interoperate smoothly with Diaspora (assuming Diaspora goes well), and that he's willing to make that happen.

One page view of the whole article:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-interview/...

It all just sounds like:

"I'm not the bad guy; see? See? This donation proves it."

"I'm just like the Diaspora devs. I'm a hip young hacker too! I'm just like them! I'm a good guy too."

"Daww, aren't they the cutest things? Making either what I already found wouldn't work, or what did work but what I've already done better."

It is cool that he's donated to the project. That said, his responses in the interview just come across as posturing, self-promoting, and some light FUD apropos Diaspora. Not terribly convinced here.

I saw this and wondered if my nutty conspiracy theory might be true.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1345430

But reading the interview I don't get that kind of vibe. Which is really too bad because I thought he had real super-villain potential.

It's not that crazy. Some companies thrive with competition. Microsoft enjoys having apple as competition and vice-versa. Microsoft bailed apple out a little over a decade ago for that exact reason.

Zuckerberg is very competitive. I'm sure he wants the competition to step up and give him a run for his money.

Microsoft enjoys having apple as competition and vice-versa. Microsoft bailed apple out a little over a decade ago for that exact reason.

No, Microsoft "invested" in Apple to settle the potential multi-billion dollar lawsuit Apple was threatening to file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

Or if they come up with something innovative, he can quickly copy it into FB.

I guess it would be a public outcry if they came out and said it is in their interest to have lower privacy to compete in Twitter like real time search and with Google.

Even if it's true, stating it in an interview like this just comes off as trying to sound cool.

Not to me. He was explicitly asked what he thought about it. It's natural to say "I donated" if indeed he did.

Yeah, a better answer to the asked question would have been "Sorry, I'd really like to comment, but I can't without sounding cool."

http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1787331560

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