Facebook and Its Hall of the Slain

May 7, 2012

I am no psychologist. I am not a brilliant MBA. I am not much more than an addled goose in Harrod’s Creek. However, I do know that when I read the New York Magazine’s article about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook had arrived. (To read the story, I had to endure a number of annoying pop ups. You may be spared these intrusions, but “real” journalistic endeavors have to do their annoying thing.)

“The Maturation of the Billionaire Boy-Man.” Zowie. I can anticipate the joy among the Facebook faithful. I can only imagine how the story will be greeted among the Googlers. Here’s the first paragraph:

If all goes as planned, Facebook will finally pull the trigger later this month on its long-salivated-over IPO. The deal could value the company in the neighborhood of $100 billion, making founder and CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg’s own unusually large stake worth $25 billion. It is a huge sum, even in context. Zuckerberg’s impending fortune is more money than Wal-Mart’s 10,000-plus stores made last year. It’s more than Wall Street paid in bonuses to New Yorkers last year. And it has been amassed in only eight years by a 27-year-old who not long ago passed out business cards reading “I’m CEO, bitch.”

I urge you to read the full article. It is important for three reasons:

From my point of view, Facebook is the new focal point of what one can do with technical skill, a good idea, and lots of money.
Facebook is a business school case study of “managing better”—certainly better than most of the Silicon Valley start ups outfits. The praise for Shryl Sandberg’s contributions is put in terms of increasing revenue from $150 million to $4 billion. One cannot forget the “our dream is to save lives” notion.
Google is history in the eyes of some. The difference is the impossible dream of “all the world’s information” to the “social mission.” Both are grandiose, but the Facebook angle is backed up with 900 million “members”, not users.

So what hurts more? Google is in pain. Facebook is feeling good. Pivot point in the mythology of running an Internet company? You bet. Will it last? Nah, but for now, the Googlers have to cope with Zuckerberg as the company that marginalized Google as the management and technical Valhalla. Is there a Hall of the Slain in Mountain View for victims of public relations?

Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2012

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.