Am I crazy for thinking that this is completely reasonable in context?
Lighting up everyone's notifications with "From: Mark Zuckerberg Subject: Please resign" has a cost to everyone's quality of life, IMO.
If you change the subject line and cut the 3rd paragraph it comes across as pointless but standard corporate nonsense where they feel the need to reiterate common sense stuff and ignore the fact that most people work for money not ideals, but having such a petty line reeks of playground bullshit.
The real threat went unmentioned because it's illegal. It was "Quit or we'll find you and fire you and every other company/startup in SV will know why we fired you."
There are plenty of good reasons for companies to not honestly describe bad behavior of former employees, but I don't see that one of them is that it's illegal.
I think a number of people misunderstand that the reason why a lot of companies have a "Don't talk about why someone left" de-facto policy is because if there's any ambiguity it's probably not worth the cost of having to defend yourself from a possible libel lawsuit, and not that it's against any law.
The cost/benefit of that changes if there's no ambiguity, evidence of truth is after all a good defense against libel charges (in most sane jurisdictions...), and if the reason is "big" enough they may feel obliged to make it known.
Similarly, they leaked data but didn't or he lied and they were entering the phone market? Details wrong could be a long civil case, all the details right could still be a long case.. The only reason to engage in that kind of behavior is to sabotage yourself.
If you want to project power as a ceo you have the communication task delegated to someone who specializes in company communications and information security.
He has some extremely important message to pass to entire company (failed projects due to lost trust in mobile sector can easily shake company).
Why on earth delegate that and have yet another canned corporate email that will be forgotten 20 minutes later? You can always run content by someone experienced if you want to round up the edges, but if you have something to say to people usually it's best to just say it.
I hear on HN 99% of the time how folks don't like corporate speak and that they wish leaders were more forthcoming and honest, and here someone is arguing that they just want the corporate-speak version of it. It is completely baffling to me.
Corporate leaks are pretty serious, and maintaining a culture of no leaks is a CEO-level priority.
Handling these at the CEO level feels far more appropriate and effective than delegating it to a security specialist nobody's heard of before and whose e-mail will mostly just be ignored.
I don't see "insecure loser" at all, I see a CEO acting correctly to nip a problem in the bud.
Except for the "please resign" subject line which is a bit hyperbolic.
This is private enforcement of secrets with employees. If you leak company secrets, your in opposition to what you were hired for, and you get fired.
Nobody's arguing the journalist who published the story shouldn't have been legally permitted to.
Hell, I could sue companies before the supreme court determined they're people for election campaign fund purposes.
This email was famous, the clickbait subject gave some people a fright, but overwhelmingly people were strongly aligned with the sentiment and spoke about it in a positive way.
Now at another big tech co and I hear from my CEO and CVPs via mainstream news instead of internal channels. I feel very little connection to the culture and have no idea what our strategic direction is.
This was shared externally from our internal company meeting. I'd like to remind everyone that keeping the information shared in these meetings confidential allows us to be more open with all our employees. etc.
There may be times for the CEO to send the message but, especially at a high visibility company, it's probably inevitable it will become more of a personal thing.
(But I agree that this sort of communication, if not its exact wording, is more appropriate at a smaller company.)
They now have 70k, so they were 3% of the size back then.
I stand by my point.
The Facebook experience feels worse, but that's because the novelty wore off and people don't share anywhere as much as they did back in the heyday.
WhatApp came with 55 employees, instagram had 13. They introduced groups October 2010. No messenger or mobile app.
People have stopped sharing but many shares are suppressed and ads appear every 3rd post. Things haven't improved.. but I see they are selling verified profiles now I guess some people were looking forward to that product offering
Information that is false isn't a leak; it's rumor anyone could have started, pretending to be a Facebook insider. Someone could have forged an e-mail, which someone else believed and so it goes.
You can't simultaneously say that it's a fabrication, and imply that it's a real leak by calling for someone to be let go.
Everyone who received the e-mail would have first seen the subject line "Please Resign" and that it's from Zuckerberg, before seeing that it has many recipients. That doesn't seem very reasonable, even in case of an actual leak.
The CEO calling it 'an act of betrayal', appealing to the social good and appealing to building a company culture, is an admission to my ears that company structure and his authority is not his primary concern.
The CEO already has the authority to remove someone/everyone for this behaviour, so the appeals to the good and to not betray a personal relationship with Mark Zuckerberg himself or cultural connection that Mark wants, just ring hollow. If the leaker-employee sees benefit in revealing secrets to the public, losing the relationship to a billionaire he's never going to meet, or cutting down a company culture he is willing to lose, is not a deterrent.
Setting up a tone and example for future leakers, is better done by establishing the reaction authority will have to the behaviour in the future.
You're not crazy for thinking it's reasonable in context, but it's also not crazy to disagree with you.
It's like a teacher dressing down the entire class for something one student did. A single person at the company made this fireable offense. Why is he treating the rest of them like naughty children? Especially since he's so sure he'll be able to catch the guilty party. Catch the person who did it, send a professional email to the rest of the company reminding them that leaking confidential info will get you fired. Treat the adults in your company like adults.
It's a shitty, insensitive, email subject line though. Many people are going to see that and have a very negative reaction.
I think the snowflakes probably arrived, what 2015?
The signal Mark Zuckerberg is sending is that it is OK for a manager to be a bully "in the interest of the company".
No it is not.
The lack of professionalism, in this example, is the menacing email.
Of course there are rules to follow when working for a company, and some degree of loyalty is naturally expected.
But this kind of email is completely unwarranted, there is no need for this tone.
Sometimes corporations face tough intense competition, where margins are pressured and products need to be shipped or media/government/bad actors go on a propaganda. If you can't handle that please join a steady, stable electric company or join the government.
Last time I had an awful boss I triggered him on purpose to get fired.
As they used to say in the Mafia, the fish rots from the head, I think that Facebook/Meta is such an horrible company because of Zuck.