Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

pluralistic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 106 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#81

Post by mattbuilds »

shoeb00m wrote: post #67
mattbuilds wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a moral obligation, it is in fact the opposite. It is a lie that people tell themselves and the world to allow themselves to make immoral decisions for their own benefit. I’m not saying running a company is easy and I know that many gray areas exist in the decision making. I do think companies can exist, profit, and be a net good for the world. However, we need to remove the notion that the duty to shareh…

It is the fiduciary duty of the CEO to do what’s in the best interest of shareholders. In a working system it should be the governments responsibility to limit what a company can do

According to your logic, a CEO should attempt to destabilize and influence the government's responsibility so they can maximize shareholder value. And guess what, that is exactly what happens in reality. You can't just simplify reality into rules like this because it leads to people using those rules as an excuse to skirt responsibility and make actual difficult decisions.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#82

Post by navane »

Gud wrote: post #78
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

“Competition is for losers” - A talk from Peter Thiel hosted by Y combinator ( https://youtu.be/3Fx5Q8xGU8k?si=3anUMopHSJ4nKk2R ) Timestamp 13:50: “If you’re a startup, and you want to get to a monopoly, start with a really small market and you take over that whole market and then you find ways to expand that market in concentric circles” Last I checked Zuckerberg is doing precisely what Thiel taught him to and has d…

According to? What do they bring to the table? A dystopian future, greed and destruction. They are not my leaders. I look to individuals like Bill Joy, Linus Thorvalds and Theo de Raadt. People who roll up their sleeves and build amazing things. Parasites like Zuckerberg and Thiel can go to hell for all I care.

They are going there, but they have to build it first, here among us.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#83

Post by JKCalhoun »

nailer wrote: post #75
JKCalhoun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All publicly traded corporations are morally obligated by the Friedman Doctrine to do stuff like this. That's a strange way to put it. As though it is the Right and Good way to run a company — and also as though the Board's/CEO's hands are somehow tied.

But they are. You may consider it be terrible. There’s a good argument for that, the original Ford versus Dodge case we started by allegations from Dodge that Ford paying its workers more was not in the interest of Ford’s shareholders. But there is no rational reason to pretend the obligation doesn’t exist.

If I'm reading this correct, there is no law that says they have to do this, but they have to do this.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#84

Post by BlueTemplar »

mrcwinn wrote: post #60

I understand this case is about Facebook and not Instagram, but these quotes might offer another perspective. >they appear to be reaching critical mass as a place you go to share photos >[Instagram could] copy what we’re doing now … I view this as a big strategic risk for us if we don’t completely own the photos space. In a way, this is effectively saying that Instagram could itself become a monopoly (or put differen…

There's a natural tendency towards monopolization in companies in general. But competition is good, as the alternative is stagnation (especially once a company gets powerful enough to sway governments).

Likewise, platforms are evil, and social network platforms in particular probably shouldn't be allowed to exist. Protocols don't have this fragmentation issue that I guess you are aiming at but never stating directly.

Facebook shouldn't have engaged in anticompetitive practices.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#85

Post by BlueTemplar »

snovymgodym wrote: post #79
diyftw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason there's no M in FAANG. Unlike those "upstarts", Microsoft is more like the Lockheed Martin or GE of tech. There is so much Microsoft software in use in the gov't (especially the DoD) that it would be precarious to prosecute/regulate them.

> There's a reason there's no M in FAANG. Yeah, there's a very simple reason: the FAANG acronym was coined around 2013 when Microsoft was still in a rut, Ballmer was still CEO, and their stock was still down from its dot-com bubble peak.

I'm pretty sure that at least part of the reason is that Netflix (despite being much less relevant) is in the Silicon Valley, while Microsoft is not.

So this is specifically a Silicon Valley / Hacker News thing (notably relevant to lifestyle and employment issues).

The rest of the world has been using GAFAM instead, even before 2013. (I've also seen "the big 5" sometimes.)

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#86

Post by dazed_confused »

shoeb00m wrote: post #67
mattbuilds wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a moral obligation, it is in fact the opposite. It is a lie that people tell themselves and the world to allow themselves to make immoral decisions for their own benefit. I’m not saying running a company is easy and I know that many gray areas exist in the decision making. I do think companies can exist, profit, and be a net good for the world. However, we need to remove the notion that the duty to shareh…

It is the fiduciary duty of the CEO to do what’s in the best interest of shareholders. In a working system it should be the governments responsibility to limit what a company can do

I would recommend reading about the Friedman Doctrine and the time period where it came about. It is only a theory and not necessarily a good one.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#87

Post by dazed_confused »

p_l wrote: post #61
closewith wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be an obligation, but it's certainly not a moral one.

It's something untrue that people are told to believe - but it's in no way a real obligation, and isn't part of any fiduciary duty - it's just Friedman philosophying and selling it

Exactly! Unfortunately people lap it up as some ground truth when it is a dude providing a theory and as you said “selling it”

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#88

Post by nailer »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #83
nailer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are. You may consider it be terrible. There’s a good argument for that, the original Ford versus Dodge case we started by allegations from Dodge that Ford paying its workers more was not in the interest of Ford’s shareholders. But there is no rational reason to pretend the obligation doesn’t exist.

If I'm reading this correct, there is no law that says they have to do this, but they have to do this.

The law says they have to do this. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#89

Post by belter »

"...At this point, Zuck's CFO – one of the adults in the room, attempting to keep the boy king from tripping over his own dick – wrote to Zuck warning him that it was illegal to buy Insta in order to "neutralize a potential competitor."

Zuck replied that he was, indeed, solely contemplating buying Insta in order to neutralize a potential competitor. It's like this guy kept picking up his dictaphone, hitting "record," and barking, "Hey Bob, I am in receipt of your memo of the 25th, regarding the potential killing of Fred. You raise some interesting points, but I wanted to reiterate that this killing is to be a murder, and it must be as premeditated as possible. Yours very truly, Zuck...."

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#90

Post by BigGreenJorts »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #85
snovymgodym wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason there's no M in FAANG. Yeah, there's a very simple reason: the FAANG acronym was coined around 2013 when Microsoft was still in a rut, Ballmer was still CEO, and their stock was still down from its dot-com bubble peak.

I'm pretty sure that at least part of the reason is that Netflix (despite being much less relevant) is in the Silicon Valley, while Microsoft is not. So this is specifically a Silicon Valley / Hacker News thing (notably relevant to lifestyle and employment issues). The rest of the world has been using GAFAM instead, even before 2013. (I've also seen "the big 5" sometimes.)

But Amazon is also based in Washington
Post reply on HN