> That’s 50 times the initial price.

There is no limit of someone else's money i'd spend - repercussion free - to avoid the slightest bit of liability. I can imagine the same thing applies to Mark. tbh can't fault him for it.

The blame for this behavior lies in the FTC for brokering a deal (as if the US needed money? Was it for a big-number press cycle?) and for early stage investors in FB for allowing a business with such a brass stock agreement.

Oh in point of fact this was illegal if it's true, and I don't know how you ignore the law in who you can "fault" with respect to corporate officer conduct.

But he personally has a controlling stake in the company, it’s like at least half his money in some sense.

> Zuckerberg must have been really worried, or really, really unwilling to take any personal risk.

I’m not so sure. If you asked a random person if they could wash the dishes, or not do them but someone other person would have to pay 5 billion dollars, what would the result be?

Depends on whether or not they're psychopathic enough to be CEO material.

I feel like these figures -- 50x and $5B -- are good things for people to keep in mind next time their company asks them for uncompensated self-sacrifice.

I'm sorry guys - we're unable to offer a CoL adjustment or performance raises this year. We really wish we could but the CEO just mauled a few pedestrians in his lambo.

The marginal utility of $5b of facebook’s money to Zuck is very low, but the cost of even a low chance of serious personal liability is high.

Zuckerberg is worth $130 billion.

And this $5 billion isn't even his money; it's the company's.

or is just really rich. perspectives are different at that scale.

if he has the ability to make fb pay for it why not?

It's just like me not giving a second thought to getting in my car, driving down to the market that's 1.5 blocks away to pick up some eggs. When I didn't have money, didn't have a car, that was unbelievable to me. But now it's just second nature.

To people with wealth at that scale, hundred million vs single digit billion might not be such a big deal. (I mean it's one order of magnitude to go from x00 million to y billion, so it's not that far fetched for a rich person to take that as is)

The real discussion should be why the fine was so low and wasn't in the hundreds of billion to trillion range in the first place. That's the real steal.