While I would agree the truth lies somewhere between pure evil and evil as a side effect[1] the comments Mark makes don't give me any indication that he appreciates that if someone thinks you're evil, they aren't wrong in their thinking, as CEO it is your job to figure out how they got there and see how many other people think that way.
So whether or not Facebook is actually evil, this perception appears to be wide spread enough to result in material harm to the company through overt regulation of their actions and choices.
Mark's job includes "owning the problem." It is not his job to argue persuasively that it isn't really a problem.
While it was perhaps not as effective as Bill Gates would like, the "We have to fix security" memo was a response to Bill owning the problem of the perception of security of Windows. It actually acknowledges the perception, and identifies what is going to be done to change that perception. Mark would do well to study that event in history as this seems like a repeat.
[1] Note that I accept that you can have really good things in the middle of a bunch of evil things, so for me (and I accept that this may be a unique and nonsensical statement to some) there is a balance of evil things and good things and if the evil is 50.1% then your a little bit evil with a lot of non-evil stuff. And if you're 80% evil you're mostly evil with a bit of non-evil stuff.
While I would agree the truth lies somewhere between pure evil and evil as a side effect[1] the comments Mark makes don't give me any indication that he appreciates that if someone thinks you're evil, they aren't wrong in their thinking, as CEO it is your job to figure out how they got there and see how many other people think that way.
So whether or not Facebook is actually evil, this perception appears to be wide spread enough to result in material harm to the company through overt regulation of their actions and choices.
Mark's job includes "owning the problem." It is not his job to argue persuasively that it isn't really a problem.
While it was perhaps not as effective as Bill Gates would like, the "We have to fix security" memo was a response to Bill owning the problem of the perception of security of Windows. It actually acknowledges the perception, and identifies what is going to be done to change that perception. Mark would do well to study that event in history as this seems like a repeat.
[1] Note that I accept that you can have really good things in the middle of a bunch of evil things, so for me (and I accept that this may be a unique and nonsensical statement to some) there is a balance of evil things and good things and if the evil is 50.1% then your a little bit evil with a lot of non-evil stuff. And if you're 80% evil you're mostly evil with a bit of non-evil stuff.