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Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

businessinsider.com

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Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#31

Post by chollida1 »

mingdingo wrote: post #7
dtap wrote: post #3

To me, this seems like the start of the decline of facebook. Gideon Yu's work has been stellar with Youtube and getting that $15B valuation. The reason may be the board and not Mark. That being said he doesn't have the it factor I see in a lot of successful CEOs.

I would strongly disagree with this. I used to feel this way about Mark Zuckerberg, but not anymore. Just consider these observations about facebook: 1) When it started, there were already many social networks 2) Because it positioned itself as a social network for college students, it got the early growth and adoption any "social" website needs to survive 3) They've grown REALLY fast since then, and have started to…

> 5) Mark Zuckerberg can't be removed from the CEO position, and probably holds more than 20% of the company

Really? I've never heard this. Is there a condition in the companies charter that forbids it?

Usually all you need is a majority of the board to vote the CEO out and since he only has one vote and there are more than 2 people on the facebook board it seems like he could be voted out.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#32

Post by wheels »

gnaritas wrote: post #26
mingdingo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would strongly disagree with this. I used to feel this way about Mark Zuckerberg, but not anymore. Just consider these observations about facebook: 1) When it started, there were already many social networks 2) Because it positioned itself as a social network for college students, it got the early growth and adoption any "social" website needs to survive 3) They've grown REALLY fast since then, and have started to…

> For someone who has consolidated power in a company that could rival Google You're out of your mind.

I'd have said the same about Google and Microsoft when Google was Microsoft's age. Google didn't get their business model (ads) until they were a year older than Facebook.

Looking at things now I wouldn't say that Facebook would rival Google, but it's definitely not out of their mind to imagine that they could.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#33

Post by ashot »

chris11 wrote: post #28
tokenadult wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still trivially easy and often very enticing to bail out of Facebook entirely. I still don't see anything that Facebook is doing that successfully locks in customers, not even in the way that Amazon locks in book-buyers and certainly not in the way that Google becomes most people's default approach to Web search. Moreover, if every user loses money for Facebook, what's the financial model of the company? Even if…

It is not as easy as it seems. I use facebook because it easily allows me to see what is going on in a lot of people's lives. There are no huge technical or design hurdles to beating Facebook. The problems are social. Only sites with a lot of users, like Myspace, could quickly become a threat to Myspace. Facebook has surpassed a critical mass of users, so they probably would have time to respond to any technical chal…

ala twitter, sf geek crowd

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#34

Post by bbuffone »

Contention brings integrity to the design process.

It's not the positive or critical things that are said in meetings that will harm a company. It's the things that aren't said that will eat away the core of a company.

When things that should be said aren't; there are typically a few reasons. 1.) the person isn't capable of leading 2.) the person is passive aggressive and will use there dissenting opinion in a private and undermine way. 3.) they already said the same thing many times and have had no luck in getting their opinion across.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#35

Post by banned_man »

zandorg wrote: post #25
banned_man wrote: post #19

This, uhh, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but does anyone know if there's a way (synthetically, perhaps) to short an IPO? I repeat this has, umm, nothing to do with any particular company. Yeah. Just so you don't try to copy my trading strategy. I repeat: nothing to do with, um, any particular stock. I'm just asking a technical question about shorting IPOs, now or in the future. Yeah...

It depends on volatility. I'd guess Facebook stock would shoot high and take months to come down. Google's hasn't come down. Your downside is unlimited. Just a warning!

Shorting an IPO is actually stupid regardless of volatility.

Investment banks tend to underprice IPOs by about 10-15% on average, and intentionally so. This makes allocation a favor, because of the obvious expectancy in being in on one. However, the company ends up being undercapitalized for the amount of equity given up. It's utterly sleazy, but it's business as usual on Wall Street.

This also means that if you're not on a bank's favorite clients list, you don't want to be involved with IPOs, because you're only going to be able to get in on the crappy ones.

The concept of shorting Facebook is somewhat of a joke, because of that. I'm no fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but I wouldn't actually claim to know better than the market what the company's worth. That said, if there were a way to have shorted some share of the company at $15B when Microsoft bought in, that would have been awesome.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#36

Post by patio11 »

banned_man wrote: post #19

This, uhh, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but does anyone know if there's a way (synthetically, perhaps) to short an IPO? I repeat this has, umm, nothing to do with any particular company. Yeah. Just so you don't try to copy my trading strategy. I repeat: nothing to do with, um, any particular stock. I'm just asking a technical question about shorting IPOs, now or in the future. Yeah...

short an IPO

Buy put options on the underlying stock. This gives you the right, but not the obligation, to force a sale of stock at the strike price.

Say you have a hot Internet IPO which debuts at $10. People assume it will follow the Google trajectory and be worth hundreds within a few years. You can buy puts at $10 for a year from now -- this would entitle you to sell any shares you held at $10, regardless of what the price is. If a hypothetical counterparty believes that the price is going to increase, writing this option (promising to buy X shares from you at the price of $10 from you a year from now if you ask for it, in return for cash money today) is like printing free money: you'll probably let the option expire without acting on it, and otherwise they get the stock they want anyhow.

Now examine what happens if the stock tanks to, say, $2 over the year: your options entitled you to sell X shares at $10 apiece, regardless of the market price of the stock. You can thus buy the stock on the open market ($2 per share) and exercise the option (selling at $10 per share), netting $8 a share minus commissions minus the premium you paid for the option in the first place. (In actual practice, since you can SELL the put option and it has high "intrinsic value" near expiration in that scenario, you don't actually have to ever become an owner of the underlying stock.)

But what if the price balloons to $20? Clearly, you don't want to buy at $20 and then sell the same day at $10. That's the beauty of puts, though: you don't have to. You just walk away from your options, which expire worthless. You are never at risk, in this strategy, of losing more money than you spent on acquiring the puts in the first place. This contrasts favorably to the standard short sale, which has unlimited downside risk.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#38

Post by bigboote »

banned_man wrote: post #21
unalone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a video/notes of that talk? What did he talk about?

His 2007 talk was awful. He basically said: hire young people only.

It was a little more nuanced than that. The point was that young people were willing to take risks because they had little to lose and no responsibilities. He mentioned that (at the time) he slept on a mattress on the floor, so he wouldn't be trapped by possessions and paralyzed by fear of losing everything. People with mortgages and retirement plans are (rationally) conservative, and they won't take big gambles with the company. You have to admire his commitment.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#39

Post by seunosewa »

unalone wrote: post #12
dtap wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is a complete recluse. Part of being a great CEO is being a cheerleader. You can't do that being hidden. There are many different types of leadership, some of which Zuckerberg has. Making Facebook into the culture mainstay it is has been a huge accomplishment. I am sure a lot of this is due to him. But he needs to be an effective communicator both internally and externally in order to succeed. He can have awe…

He's the best cheerleader Facebook could have. He gives speeches, but hides personal information. If you're a spokesperson for a company whose number-one selling point is privacy, the best marketing move you can make is to stay hidden. When I was younger I wrote him a friend request and a little message, which he promptly ignored, and my respect for him swelled for that. In a Silicon Valley that's becoming infamous f…

You respect him because he ignored you? Not the ideal reason to respect a person, imho. You don't have to be great to be an asshole.

Re: Dissent Is Dead At Facebook, Employees Complain

#40

Post by patio11 »

patio11 wrote: post #36
banned_man wrote: post #19

This, uhh, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but does anyone know if there's a way (synthetically, perhaps) to short an IPO? I repeat this has, umm, nothing to do with any particular company. Yeah. Just so you don't try to copy my trading strategy. I repeat: nothing to do with, um, any particular stock. I'm just asking a technical question about shorting IPOs, now or in the future. Yeah...

short an IPO Buy put options on the underlying stock. This gives you the right, but not the obligation, to force a sale of stock at the strike price. Say you have a hot Internet IPO which debuts at $10. People assume it will follow the Google trajectory and be worth hundreds within a few years. You can buy puts at $10 for a year from now -- this would entitle you to sell any shares you held at $10, regardless of what…

Incidentally, and this goes for all investing: know what you're doing before you take any advice from the Internet. For example, if you don't know whether I was talking about American or European options (and what the difference is), you should probably not touch options trading.

On considered reflection I'm 75% invested in index funds, after reading Bogle et al and figuring that no matter how smart you are its impossible to reliably beat the market. The other 25% is mentally accounted for as "World of Warcraft except with a higher monthly fee and the slim possibility of better loot". (I bought a nice chunk of BAC back in the fifties, among other brilliant ideas, and am very, very glad I mentally waved adieu to all money invested prior to actually waving adieu to it.)

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