Mark Zuckerberg says he’s still the best person to be Facebook CEO

Facebook
co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (C) leaves during a
break in a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in
the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 11, 2018
in Washington, DC.
Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images

• CEO Mark
  Zuckerberg insists he’s still the best person to run
  Facebook,
  despite all the company’s scandals.
• This week, a bombshell new report dropped about how
  company execs tried to downplay issues and smear
  critics.
• In a damage-control conference call with reporters,
  Zuckerberg insisted that fixing Facebook’s problems will take
  time.
• “I don’t think that me or anyone else could come in and
  snap our fingers and have these issues resolved in a quarter or
  half a year,” he said.
• Because of Facebook’s unconventional stock structure,
  Zuckerberg dominates the company, and no-one else can force him
  out.

Mark Zuckerberg still thinks he’s the best person to run Facebook.

On Wednesday,
The New York Times published a bombshell report into how
Facebook’s leadership attempted to manage mounting scandals by
playing down problems and trying to smear critics — and it’s just
the latest in a long line of crises for the beleaguered social
network.

The company leapt into damage control mode, and on Thursday
morning held a mammoth 80-minute conference call with reporters
in which Zuckerberg attempted to defend the company yet again.

The 34-year-old billionaire techie
has ignored previous calls to step down as CEO — so Business
Insider asked him why he thinks he’s still the best person for
the job.

“I think we’re doing the right things to fix the issues. I think,
unfortunately, when you’re building something of this scale,
oftentimes, putting in place the solutions can take a long
time,” Zuckerberg said. “And I don’t think that me or anyone else
could come in and snap our fingers and have these issues resolved
in a quarter or half a year. This is not the first time that
we’ve had to deal with big issues for the company.”

In other words: Fixing Facebook takes time, and he’s guided the
company through past upheavals before — including its shift from
desktop to mobile. 

He added: “This stuff is painful. I certainly don’t want to
be — don’t love that we’re in a position where we aren’t
delivering the quality that we want to be delivering every day.
But to some degree, you have to know that you’re on the path that
you’re doing the right things and then allow for some time for
the teams to actually execute and get the stuff working the way
that we all know that it needs to be and to the standard that
people expect.”

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The question remains though: At what point has Mark Zuckerberg
been given enough chances? 

This isn’t just one or two mistakes. The New York Times
investigation found that
Facebook was trying to discredit critics with smears that play
into anti-Semitic conspiracy tropes, and that its leadership
pushed to play down public disclosures about Russian election
meddling on its social network.

It comes after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which
tens of millions of users’ data was misappropriated by a shady
political research firm. And a hack that saw around 30 million
users’ sensitive data stolen. And Russia’s use of the social
network to spread fake news and propaganda, sowing dissent in a
campaign that started during the 2016 US election and continues
to this day. And allegations that the company provided misleading
information about video measurements for over year, with major
impacts for the advertising and media
industry. 
And the Myanmar humanitarian crisis,
where Facebook’s role spreading hate speech helped facilitate
genocide. The list goes on and on.

If Zuckerberg doesn’t want to go, then there’s little
anyone can do about it. Because of Facebook’s unconventional
stock structure, the founder and CEO holds the overwhelming
majority of the company’s voting power — leaving shareholders
powerless to kick him out, no matter what. 

The only person who can make Zuck budge is Zuck, and he’s
made it clear that he’s not going anywhere.

Well, I think we’re doing the right things to fix the issues. I
think, unfortunately, when you’re building something of this
scale, oftentimes, putting in place the solutions can take a
long time. And I don’t think that me or anyone else could come in
and snap our fingers and have these issues resolved in a quarter
or half a year. This is not the first time that we’ve had to deal
with big issues for the company.

I mean, certainly, when we — the issues are different
here, more around content and security type issues — but when we
had to pivot and build out the whole new technical platform on
mobile, that was a similar kind of existential set of issues that
we really had to deal with well. But it took a few years to
really get right, and get to a good place.

This stuff is painful. I certainly don’t want to be —
don’t love that we’re in a position where we aren’t delivering
the quality that we want to be delivering every day. But to some
degree, you have to know that you’re on the path that you’re
doing the right things and then allow for some time for the teams
to actually execute and get the stuff working the way that we all
know that it needs to be and to the standard that people
expect.

I’m very committed to this, I understand that this is a big
part of what will be – – this is just so important for the future
of the internet and a lot of these big issues that society is
facing. And I am just fully committed to getting this
right.