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Comment by atourgates | Hacker News Reader

"Sitting by Mark’s side for these 14 years has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime. [...] In the critical moments of my life, in the highest highs and in the depths of true lows, I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there."

If this is an accurate reflection of her experience, I don't expect it's a side of Mark Zuckerberg most of us imagine exists.

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Having spent a couple of years at Facebook, I was honestly surprised by how different Zuckerberg is vs the outside perception. Now, I wasn't part of his inner circle or whatever, but in his weekly Q&As he came off very thoughtful, well-rounded, human, at times opinionated, and willing to engage on any topic. He fought to keep the weekly sessions going despite the leaks, something Google gave up on as I understand. Zuck has his faults, but a robotic, non-empathetic humanoid he is not. He struck me as a strong introvert that over time got comfortable communicating with his growing organization. I don't think he's ever gotten comfortable communicating with the rest of the world (and admitted as much). Ironic that he's in charge of a communication service.

I hate Facebook more than most people, but I have to admit that I can believe this.

I noticed that the news always seems to go out of its way to find inhuman-looking badly-tinted photos of him making strange expressions. Lately he's become something of a scapegoat IMO, probably because an introverted billionaire with some creepy tendencies/background makes such an easy target.

Well, and Facebook kind of hurt the media in a pretty big way with people getting their news from them, and other social media.

It reminds me of what we got from Hilary Clinton in 2016.

Whatever you think of the Clintons, the photos by the articles on the Fox News website or the New York post didn't show a human being.

It'd be an art gallery of photographic stills, to destroy someone's humanity.

A 1/100 second exposure, frozen in time, can make someone resemble something they're not.

It is a well known open secret in the newspaper industry that if you want to make sure they use a bad photo of you, just be a jerk to one of the journalists. They talk to the photographers.

This is one of the heuristics I use to judge the trustworthiness of newspapers and magazines: do they choose photos of people that make them look like idiots? If so, their bias may show up in more subtle ways, too. Whatever you think about the possibility of objective journalism, an editor can do better than choosing a demeaning photo of someone they don't like.

Completely agree with this, matches my experience as well.

I had the same reaction after listening to his interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast. He actually seems like a humble and thoughtful person.

I realized this was true when I saw the general reaction to the video of him holding an American flag on the 4th of July at sunset while wakeboarding.

https://youtu.be/8qPVhr2Gd1M

The reaction from most was to call him lame or approval hungry, but my thought was, “That is SO cool and badass and I have misunderstood this man completely.”

When you saw only one set of tracking cookies, it was then that Mark Zuckerberg was carrying you.

I feel like there needs to be a hyper-specific term for when the CEO of a social media company personally directs the ads targeted to you based off what he observes of your behavior by shoulder surfing your internet browsing.

BookFacing

God dammit you made me spit out my coffee.

Bravo

This needs to be printed on posters, made into cross stitch, and all of the other various ways people have this hanging in their homes. well played

For others who didn't get the reference, it's a Christian poem called "footprints in the sand":

> When you saw only one set of footprints,

> It was then that I carried you.

https://www.onlythebible.com/Poems/Footprints-in-the-Sand-Po...

When you saw only one set of footprints,

that's when I bailed because you wouldn't shut up about your keto diet.

You win today's Internet(tm).

It's curious how gentle the transition for many companies from powerhouse to irrelevance is in the common perception. To realize they're already at the point where intelligent ridicule supplants impassioned critique kinda blows my mind, and as far as I can tell you're not wrong.

Honestly, I just thought Sandberg was laying it on a little thick with "I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there."

But this is probably my most upvoted HN comment ever, which mostly just makes me ashamed.

My father is a pastor, so this story has always been plastered over our house in some kind of painting or other artifact. I'll print one with what you said and send him. He'll probably disown me.

I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but I imagine being in his inner circle is probably a very good experience.

I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with his goals and the effect Facebook has on the world, but (outside of the early years) I haven't heard anything toxic about him as an executive.

That's a surprisingly balanced position. When you say he's not toxic, do you mean that he doesn't yell or act sexist? Or that he's actually an honest, upfront businessperson? Because things like systematically lying about privacy policies, or gaslighting the world about net neutrality / "Free Basics' were neither early in his career nor deserving of any respect.

I mean specifically the way he acts toward people inside his company, especially those at the executive level.

> I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but I imagine being in his inner circle is probably a very good experience.

That experience is clearly taking its toll on Randi Zuckerberg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp0diaVLPrQ

I wonder about being the sibling of someone that successful. Do you expect your bro to buy you a yacht and just party? Do you feel the need to compete? How can you?

I've thought about this too. I think the only sane option is to maintain a quiet life where you occasionally privately name drop to help your own networking. Who'd begrudge a sibling getting ahead in life with a little help from you? But meanwhile there is this. Can't imagine the internal dynamic between them w.r.t. how this portrays his hard earned professional image, I imagine words have been spoken

Maybe I'm a bad networker because it would never occur to me to namedrop a famous relative. Nor do I know it would be that useful, unless you want to act as a second appointment secretary to your relative filtering out deals to bring them.

I imagine you could couchsurf to the various vacation properties off-season when they would otherwise be empty, which would be nice.

She should feature Razzlekhan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IUyltbbFZM

For context - https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/14/22933904/razzlekhan-heath...

I’ve worked directly for Mark and closely with Sheryl for nearly 14 years and this is very accurate.

I gotta say, seeing the Meta CTO / Senior Fellow pop up on HN is an unexpected treat! (Oddly, a relative and an ex-boss of mine both worked with you at CenterRun back in the day. Silicon Valley is a small place indeed)

Wow small world indeed!!! The team at CenterRun was amazing

I've gotta say... Changing the name of everything to Meta to try to change the perception was a bit absurd. Just stop requiring Facebook accounts to use VR devices.

Curious how a group of people that seem to care so much for each other could care so little for everyone else. That is the thing I just can't wrap my head around with Facebook... what did you/do you believe the mission is, before it was VR?

Hi schrep! Unrelated to the article, but I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to talk to me at the 'Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge' event in Nov 2010, back when I was just a 2nd year cs student! You not only motivated me to aim high and to apply to FB, but also actually submitted an internship referral! I didn't end up doing an internship that year (was my first ever coding interview and I did not do well!!), but partly because of this very positive interaction, I later on did end up joining Facebook right out of university! I spent seven years there from 2014 to 2021 working on messaging infra and had a great time (and i miss our infra stack)! Thanks again for talking to a clueless 2nd year student back then!

I'm usually skeptical of corporate BS, but I imagine they did have a strong relationship. 14-year stints are very rare, esp. for people that have plenty of options knocking on the door

I dont know if im interpretting this right, but this seems like she is leaving immediately just a few weeks after it was clear her next vesting tranches of options/equity etc. were heavily devalued or worthless as the impact on them from the privacy stuff was possibly outdone with the broader tech decline?

What I read was that she will be leaving in the fall, but they are immediately starting to transition her team, which is exactly what I'd expect.

Or it's a nice way of saying he's a micromanager.

For real, it almost read like a thinly veiled burn on Mark to me. Like, "give me some space Mark, you don't need to be up in my business constantly".

I think you're both choosing to believe the reality you want to be true, as opposed to the one that actually is. To interpret her comment they way both of you are doing seems like reaching at best, and malicious at worst. I am no fan of FB or Zuck, but come on.

Veiled comments in departure announcements are the way the executive class communicates about their peers to the outside world.

Malicious? I think Zuck will be fine, mentioning that a sentence about him sounded kind of passive aggressive isn't exactly my definition of malicious.

kind of reads like a stepford wife waking up

People at her level don't work for 14 years with someone they don't have a good relationship with.

Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Lex Fridman changed my perception about him. He seems really an empathetic person. Maybe he's too deep into his own dogma but he's definitely not robotic.

https://youtu.be/5zOHSysMmH0

I'll listen. I'm struggling to imagine how an empathetic person can be totally amoral and an ethical void.

Hearing Zuck pontificate about freedom of speech made me kick a puppy.

Listen to him talk about his daughters.

Thanks. I wouldn't have bothered had you not made the suggestion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOHSysMmH0

I've updated by opinion (judgement) of Zuckerberg.

Previously, I believe he's a moral cripple, quite skilled at discombobulation. Like giving long-winded non-answers to critical question to thwart deeper inquiry.

Now I think he's primarily a philosophical cripple, incapable of deep introspection. From this interview, Zuck was unable (or unwilling) to rise to Lex's challenge to steelman the arguments made in The Social Dilemma. That's just sad.

You're probably right that Zuck does not completely lack empathy. I now think it's more that he's just oblivious. Painfully, willfully, happily oblivious.

This is closer to Kara Swisher's position, which I hadn't really given much weight. (She knows all these unicorn neurodivergent wunderkind personally.) Like when talking about freedom of speech, Zuck blathers Just So platitudes, completely divorced from humanity's entire history wrestling with these kinds of problems. No nuance. No acknowlegement of paradox. No calculus for balancing mutually exclusive outcomes.

This interview does reinforce my view that having someones like Zuck, Dorsey, and others in full control over medias central to our culture and discourse is like giving flamethrowers to a bunch of young boys going thru their firebug stage.

At least Zuck's not (apparently) purposefully malicious, trying to burn down the whole world, like Murdoch. If intentions matter more than outcomes.

What a coincidence - wherever I go on the Internet, high or low, Mark Zuckerberg('s business) is already there.

> I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there

I've not read anything (else?) Mrs Sandberg has (or hasn't) written, but this turn of phrase has a "professional" feel & taste. It's contrived. It's not something you would say about someone truly dear to you, your best friend, your parents, etc.

Maybe your dog.

In fairness, high-level departure statements are carefully scrubbed to remove any genuine feeling or humanity.

Or the guy on your couch?

If you listen to Lex Friedman, he said the thing that surprised him the most about mark zuckerberg when he met him was his overwhelming humanity and compassion. He said that part of him never comes through the media, but when he interacted with him he said it was undeniable how humane and compassionate he was.

the constant ad hom against him is especially pernicious because it distracts from substantive critique of the company and related social phenomena

> If this is an accurate reflection of her experience, I don't expect it's a side of Mark Zuckerberg most of us imagine exists.

That's because CEOs aren't public figures such as actors or musicians. They should not be that and they should not be politicians. The fact that people know Mark Zuckerberg name or his face at all is in itself an anomaly.

CEOs are the ones who get to sign off the quality of life that their company provides. That's about it.

I don't know the name of Shell CEO but I know they are the person who get to sign off the quality of life which comes when I take a trip to Mexico or fill the tank of my Navigator and they also get the blame for externalities in lieu of me, which is nice...otherwise the green tree hugger loons such as extinction rebellion would attack my car.

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