June 3, 2010

Mark Zuckerberg on Privacy and the Stupid Things He Did in College

Yesterday, Steve Jobs took the stage and was hit hard with questions on Adobe Flash, the lost next-generation iPhone and Facebook’s increasing competition with Google.

AllThingsD producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher definitely didn’t let up the 26-year-old founder. They questioned him on the recent privacy fiasco, instant personalization, his past at Harvard, and his future as CEO of the web’s most important companies.
The Privacy Backlash

Swisher and Mossberg wasted no time digging into the big issue: Facebook and privacy. Zuckerberg started by making it clear that “privacy is very important to us.” He says that Facebook isn’t out to make all of their users’ information public — that’s a misperception. In fact, he drilled deeper, saying that they never changed people’s privacy settings, they just suggested settings where some information is left public.

It didn’t take long for Mossberg and Swisher to turn up the heat, though. Mossberg asked Facebook’s CEO why he’s making people take extra steps to protect their information. Zuckerberg eventually responded that people still have control over their Facebook information, and more than half of the userbase has changed privacy settings at one point, demonstrating that most users understand the privacy tools.

That wasn’t the end of the privacy discussion, though. Much of the conversation became Mossberg and Swisher trying to get answers to one question, but Zuckerberg finding ways to dodge. There was no straight answer from Zuckerberg about why Facebook Instant Personalization was opt-out instead of opt-in. Most likely, we’ll never get one.
Zuckerberg the Kid, Zuckerberg the CEO

There was a lot of focus on Zuckerberg himself during his time on stage. Swisher asked Facebook’s CEO how he felt about the backlash against him and whether he has been accurately portrayed to the rest of the world. His response began with his telling Swisher that he “did a lot of stupid things” when he was in college, and that he doesn’t intend to make excuses for it. He was likely referring to IMs that recently surfaced that took a less-than-serious attitude towards privacy.

More of the focus was on Zuckerberg as the 26-year-old CEO of Facebook. He discussed how it is his job not to make the same mistakes of his competitors, although he once again dodged the actual question (“Who are your competitors in this space?”). He reiterated that he intends to be CEO of Facebook when it goes public, although he wouldn’t reveal when that would happen. Given his tight control over the Facebook Board of Directors, it’s tough to find a scenario where he would be forced out.

As with many of his interviews, Zuckerberg focused less on himself and more on generalities, such as his focus on building a great team and having a clear direction for the company. He didn’t seem to think of himself as the CEO of one of the world’s most important companies, but just the leader of a team that shares his values.

Overall, Zuckerberg likes to talk about the topics that interest him — the social graph, building great products, etc. — and he avoided answering the uncomfortable questions about privacy, controversies, and IPOs. Still, we give him credit for going on the stage of D8 at all.

Share

0 comments:

Blogger template 'PlainFish' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008