Perhaps realizing that the internal mutiny and mistrust of his leadership was spreading quickly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg brought back Chris Cox, a long term employee who had quit the company last year. Cox is now the chief product officer. Cox was well-loved among the rank-and-file, perhaps because he has better social skills than his master. A lot was made of the Cox comeback. For me, this is yet another example of the much-used strategy I call “the Zuck Doctrine.”
The Zuck Doctrine of management is pushing to the extreme, see what you can get away with, and then apologize and try to shift attention elsewhere.
Bringing back Cox won’t change the fact that Facebook’s entire strategy is based on targeting, monetizing, and advertising. And addiction to growth at any cost is the real challenge. Cox, now is head Tariq Aziz among a group of Tariq Azizs. Let’s not forget, there is but one king. And as a result, all the company’s issues lie at the feet of its supreme leader.
Joanna Hoffman, an early Apple employee who worked on the Macintosh with Steve Jobs (and later at his next company, NeXT) is succinct in her summation of what is the problem with Facebook — its leadership. The supreme commander doesn’t listen to anyone. If you read the transcript of his recent town hall with his employees it was clear that he was making his decisions.
“As I look at Facebook, for example, I keep thinking are they really that ignorant or is this motivated by something … darker than what appears?”… “destroying the very fabric of democracy, destroying the very fabric of human relationships and peddling in an addictive drug called anger.”
“You know it’s just like tobacco, it’s no different than the opioids …. We know anger is addictive, we know we can attract people to our platform and get engagement if we get them p—-d off enough. So therefore what, we should capitalize on that each and every time?”
“The question is, how flawed, how ignorant and how devious?” … “remarkably ignorant on what they are sowing in the world.”
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