If Zuckerberg undermines the leadership of his operators some of them will move on to other companies.
It's not feasible to run an enterprise as large as Facebook as 1 person at the top, so you need leaders with mutual trust to execute in their department.
In Facebook's case, Zuck already has control of the company but "asserts control" through strategic moves at the board level by "firing" Hastings and Bowles (who both disagreed with his fumbling on political ads). Outside the company he "asserts control" thanks to his increased acrimony towards regulators while appeasing the Trump circle.
A board member who goes after Zuckerberg not only risks getting fired from the board but also getting heat from the White House. This is a very unusual situation for a company in a democracy and in the tech sector.
If some of these board members are well connected to lobbyists in Washington, they can change the balance of power.
Facebook's dominance is completely dependent on cheap fiat currency issued by banks at low interest rates. If the economic and political environment changes, Facebook may not survive.
Facebook was founded on an unsound economy where popularity is valued much more highly than profits. In a sound economic environment, popularity by itself is a fickle thing which cannot be relied upon (without it being supported by real net value), but in our new economic age with massive fiat money printing, companies like Facebook have found a way to monopolize user attention and control it in a predictable way.
I’d say FB reaching 1/3 of the worlds population, allowing advertisers to target very specifically whom they spend money on and giving metrics that are more understandable and ROI-relatable than TV/print make them pretty strong.
Oh, and a 30% or so operating margin, 20% YOY growth are generally kind a strong and beyond most business performance...
See: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-q1-earnings-2020-4?...