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Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

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Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#41
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why being a billionaire should be functionally illegal. Tax away all of that wealth. It is immoral that we allow people to control that much wealth. Vast wealth should be under democratic control.

Tax away… all the Meta stock? We’re talking about ownership of assets, not about income. What do we do when we take his stock - do we sell it back on the market crashing the price or do we establish government ownership of every large company? How did you come up with 1 billion as the appropriate number? Do we get to decide that part democratically?

You are presupposing that Meta should be allowed to exist at its present scale and market share. I am not.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you consider being held accountable? Sure, resigning is an atomic option, for a CEO, founder, board member and person having controlling amount of votes. Is there anything else that you'd consider as true to that statement?

Well he do something meaningful - say pay a full years wages for everyone laid off from his personal funds

You think he should donate $1,000,000,000+ to the employees his company needs the least?

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#43
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax away… all the Meta stock? We’re talking about ownership of assets, not about income. What do we do when we take his stock - do we sell it back on the market crashing the price or do we establish government ownership of every large company? How did you come up with 1 billion as the appropriate number? Do we get to decide that part democratically?

You are presupposing that Meta should be allowed to exist at its present scale and market share. I am not.

Then what are you proposing? You didn't answer a single one of GPs questions about the details of what you're proposing. You're just throwing out vague one-liners and expecting everyone else to see how this plan of yours is supposed to work.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#44

Him saying he's accountable and not actually being held accountable is not really being "accountable".

If he does nothing, then eventually none of his employees will have a job.

Being accountable could look like taking a hit himself - dropping his pay or stock option grants or a portion of his golden parachute, etc.

If this isn't happening, he's not being held accountable.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he do something meaningful - say pay a full years wages for everyone laid off from his personal funds

You think he should donate $1,000,000,000+ to the employees his company needs the least?

If the layoffs are indeed his fault (and not his employees, as he says in his announcements), why not?

Call it an "punitive fine" to stop him from making this same mistake.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#46

Him saying he's accountable and not actually being held accountable is not really being "accountable".

What would you consider being held accountable? Sure, resigning is an atomic option, for a CEO, founder, board member and person having controlling amount of votes. Is there anything else that you'd consider as true to that statement?

Think of it another way: accountability is answering to someone. As the majority shareholder and CEO, who is Zuckerberg accountable to? Nobody, really. He might say "I am accountable to the billions of Facebook users", but of course that's lip service: try scheduling a meeting with him to review his performance and put him on an improvement plan.

He has arranged the company so that he is not accountable to anybody, so him saying he is accountable is either a lie, or a misuse of that term.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#47
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is immoral that we allow people to control that much wealth In my mind, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. Maybe you don't share this view, but quite a few people do.

Is being a billionaire necessary for any of those or even related? Possibly on the liberty angle but someone controlling that much wealth is decreasing the liberty of everyone else in the economy

It's the pursuit of happiness. Zuckerberg is pursuing his own happiness. You claim we, as a society, have to curtail that at a given level. I for one don't subscribe to that theory.

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#48

Him saying he's accountable and not actually being held accountable is not really being "accountable".

If he does nothing, then eventually none of his employees will have a job.

sure, but nobody forced him to hire 87,000 people in the first place, to work on bullshit projects. That's what he's "holding himself accountable" for. That's a lot of friggin people!!

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#49
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being a billionaire necessary for any of those or even related? Possibly on the liberty angle but someone controlling that much wealth is decreasing the liberty of everyone else in the economy

It's the pursuit of happiness. Zuckerberg is pursuing his own happiness. You claim we, as a society, have to curtail that at a given level. I for one don't subscribe to that theory.

I’ll be very frank on the fact that if your pursuit of happiness requires millions to billions of others to suffer, I will ascribe zero importance to what makes you happy.

Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose and all that. I’m also gonna quickly cut ahead on your libertarian style argument here and ask you how you think negative externalities generated by individuals should be handled. If your opinion is to ignore them because you should be allowed to do whatever you want, then I will treat you the same way you treat others and completely ignore your political opinions.

I legitimately hope you surprise me

Re: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs

#50
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the pursuit of happiness. Zuckerberg is pursuing his own happiness. You claim we, as a society, have to curtail that at a given level. I for one don't subscribe to that theory.

I’ll be very frank on the fact that if your pursuit of happiness requires millions to billions of others to suffer, I will ascribe zero importance to what makes you happy. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose and all that. I’m also gonna quickly cut ahead on your libertarian style argument here and ask you how you think negative externalities generated by individuals should be handled. If your opinion is to…

> I will ascribe zero importance to what makes you happy.

You are saying zero, but it appears to me you ascribe quite a lot of importance. Enough to propose to put limits on what he is allowed to do.

Externalities and tip of the nose? I fully concur with you here. If he's hurting anyone, he should be punished. But the externality you are talking about here is a very vague one, that him being rich makes the life of other people in some sense harder.

And that may be so.

But then, maybe not. The way you are saying it, all rich people are guilty. I'm against blanket statements like that. Maybe some rich people are guilty, and some are not. How will you tell which?

How do you account for positive externalities? Musk did more for the advancement of electric vehicles than any other person on Earth. And even more for the space exploration renaissance. Does he get any brownie points for that?

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