Potential Presidency for Zuckerberg? | Hacker News Reader

Potential Presidency for Zuckerberg?

wsj.com

17 pointsBrahamMehta38 comments

Last sentence of the article, which is improperly titled for some reason:

>As Mr. Zuckerberg was leaving, he made one request, Mr. Moore said.

>“He said, ‘If there are any news reporters that call you, just make sure you tell them I’m not running for president.’”

The majority of the article is just about how Zuck's entourage worked to try and make his encounters feel more spontaneous. I felt bad for both the tokenized middle Americans and for Zuck, for whom the construction of his social encounters was necessary for security (and lets not kid ourselves, probably PR) reasons. I don't know if he'll run for President but I think for as tacky and PR-related as the trip is, I think he does genuinely want to learn more about the rest of the country, if only to improve Facebook's UX.

That's not an endorsement though. I think he would get crushed in a Presidential campaign.

I will spend every time I have against Zuckerberg becoming President. I do not trust him, and I do not want Facebook or him running this country; Sadly, in many ways, they already do.

He is Hillary 2.0 and would be a disaster for Democrats.

I wouldn't say Hillary 2.0 ... I like Mark, I hate Hillary... I don't think Hillary would be quick to jump on single-payer healthcare and guaranteed basic income trains... but I'm not really sure he's cut out to be a politician, personally I'd much rather it be Bernie Sanders, he was born for the job.

I hope he sticks to running facebook and his... charitable endeavors.

From my perspective the current inhabitant of the White House provides a fine illustration that "success" in the world of business does not necessarily translate into success or effectiveness in the world of public service and politics. This feeling has only been compounded by the likes and conduct of members of the current administration like Tillerson and Mnuchin.

Zuckerberg's demand not to be quoted after meeting and talking with people is a huge red flag to me, for example.

To be honest, I'm no fan of oil company CEOs, but I have yet to see anything bad from Tillerson as secretary of state. He seems like a pretty normal secretary of state, and almost like the only sane guy in the administration.

His treatment of the press corps has been more or less abysmal, but he does seem to be one of the less destructive cabinet members.

Could you link to something? Would be interested in reading more, since I haven't seen this in the news.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/323205-...

First link I found.

Oh geez, thanks for the link. I'd cut him some slack. I feel like if I was working under Trump I wouldn't be eagerly jumping in the middle of a crowd of reporters and telling them to throw questions at me in my first 2 months either. "One of the less destructive cabinet members" is quite an exaggeration for someone who's literally only had 2 months and the only bad thing you can think of is that he's run away from a few reporters. I'd be scrambling to get my crap together and figuring out what I'm supposed to do before worrying about answering to reporters about a job I just started. If there's any actual destructiveness on his part that he's refusing to talk about with reporters, that'd be much fairer of an assessment...

> From my perspective the current inhabitant of the White House provides a fine illustration that "success" in the world of business does not necessarily translate into success or effectiveness in the world of public service and politics.

The effect is the opposite. The current inhabitant of the White House proves to a whole slew of people that they too could become president, qualifications being irrelevant and the general feeling that they wouldn't do an even worse job of it.

I would see Zuckerberg rise to power by first becoming a California Governor. Maybe he could swing by getting the Republican Nomination without experience .

He's doing this because he thinks he's a competent politician who could make the world better? Or because he's looking at Trump and eyeing the throne, realizing everything a billionaire president could get away with?

Trump seems to have proven that wealth is now considered enough of a virtue in its own right to qualify you for the highest office in the country, regardless of lack of political (or any elected) experience, policy ideas, general principles, or character.

Its people like you who are the problem. What an idiotic statement. Youve clearly never watched a single campaign speech from trump. Youve never investigated or even contemplated how his campaign really worked or the issues of his voter base. You dont understand anything because youve never attempted to view the whole thing objectively. Please just shut up.

We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. Would you please not create accounts to do that with?

Or maybe it's a bit of that, but also a lot of being part of the establishment is now considered enough of a vice.

The core question I have is... How much advantage is there skewing Facebook in favour of a candidate? Could it translate to a 3% improvement in the polls?

Even if it could help, it'd probably be wiser for him to back a candidate that shares his vision than run himself. It only makes sense if he can't find someone he would endorse (publicly or otherwise), or if he just wants the job for himself.

Can't read the article thanks to the paywall, but I'm not a fan of the underlying idea. If you think Trump's words of admiration for Putin are scary, then what is Zuckerberg's blatant fanboyism for Xi Jinping?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-x...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabetheconomy/2014/12/09/zuc...

I have a hard time imagining Zuckerberg going along with letting someone else run Facebook for four years while he was doing something else.

He's already doing it with Sheryl Sandberg.

Paywall, so I can't read before commenting, but the main question: would he need to divest himself of FB shares before running and/or if he wins?

Maybe he'll hold a press conference with a stack of blank sheets of paper claiming they prove he's completely divested from his businesses, all while refusing to allow anyone to inspect the documents.

I believe glaring conflicts of interests are a requirement at this point.

Not necessarily. Past presidents used blind trusts to put their assets and investments aside so that in theory they wouldn't be motivated by personal profit while president. It's not illegal for a president to conduct personal business while being president. It's unethical for the president to use his office for personal gain. And it is unconstitutional for the president to take money from representatives of foreign governments.

That wouldn't work here, though. Whether he holds them directly or through a blind trust, he'll know he has FB. Just because he can't sell doesn't matter, he could make decisions as POTUS that would greatly benefit FB.

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