Mark Zuckerberg says control over Facebook prevented him being fired
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has admitted he would have been fired on several occasions were it not for his total control over the company.
“So one of the things that I’ve been lucky about in building this company is, you know, I kind of have voting control of the company, and that’s something I focused on early on,” Zuckerberg told employees, according to transcripts obtained by The Verge.
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“And it was important because, without that, there were several points where I would’ve been fired.”
The chief executive cited the example of his decision to turn down Yahoo’s $1bn (£814m) offer for Facebook in 2006.
At the time, the social media site had just 10m users, compared to Myspace’s 100m, and was on the brink of launching its News Feed, Zuckerberg said.
The tech billionaire said his decision upset the company’s board and led to the departure of most of its management team.
“So once you can get through that… that leaves you with a lot of confidence that you can make long-term decisions and that they can work out over time,” he added.
Zuckerberg also referred to a quarterly earnings report in 2018 that saw Facebook lose $100m from its value in a single day. “So again, would I have been able to do that if I didn’t control the company?” he said.
Zuckerberg has come under increased scrutiny from shareholders in recent months amid concerns about his iron grip on the company. The founder holds roughly 60 per cent of voting rights.
During the internal meeting with staff, Zuckerberg, who has ignored requests to appear in front of parliament, also attacked plans to break up his social media empire.
Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren earlier this year called for the breaking up of Amazon, Facebook and Google in order to clamp down on anti-competitive practices.
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But Zuckerberg said his firm would “go to the mat” to defeat Warren’s plan if she were elected.
He added that breaking up big tech companies would make election interference “more likely because now the companies can’t coordinate and work together”.
Main image credit: Getty