Zuckerberg Gets a Crash Course in Charm. Will Congress Care? (bgr.com) 165
An anonymous reader writes: It goes without saying that no tech CEO ever wants to make the trek down to Washington D.C. and appear before congress. And Zuckerberg -- at a surface level -- seems particularly ill-suited for the task. Though clearly an incredible mind, remember that Zuckerberg is a tech-minded programmer and far from a savvy and political operator. That being the case, many people are curious as to how the Facebook founder, who it's worth noting is just 33 years old, will fare when confronted with hard hitting questions from politicians.
In an effort to ensure that everything runs smoothly and that Zuckerberg's appearance goes off without a hitch, The New York Times is reporting that Facebook recently hired a team of experts and coaches tasked with ensuring that Zuckerberg has the tools to deftly navigate the potentially deep waters of Congress. Of particular interest is that Zuckerberg has been learning how to be charming and exhibit humility in the face of heavy-handed and probing questions. The report says, "It [ Facebook] has also hired a team of experts, including a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, to put Mr. Zuckerberg, 33, a cerebral coder who is uncomfortable speaking in public, through a crash course in humility and charm. The plan is that when he sits down before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg will have concrete changes to talk about, and no questions he can't handle."
In an effort to ensure that everything runs smoothly and that Zuckerberg's appearance goes off without a hitch, The New York Times is reporting that Facebook recently hired a team of experts and coaches tasked with ensuring that Zuckerberg has the tools to deftly navigate the potentially deep waters of Congress. Of particular interest is that Zuckerberg has been learning how to be charming and exhibit humility in the face of heavy-handed and probing questions. The report says, "It [ Facebook] has also hired a team of experts, including a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, to put Mr. Zuckerberg, 33, a cerebral coder who is uncomfortable speaking in public, through a crash course in humility and charm. The plan is that when he sits down before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg will have concrete changes to talk about, and no questions he can't handle."
Impact on voters (Score:3)
Question Facebook should be asking itself:
If the US government puts Facebook out of business, that will be bad for Facebook employees and investors. How many US congressional districts do Facebook employees live in? What percentage of Facebook employees are citizens eligible to vote in the US?
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Goodness, you're right. Let's also ease up on organised crime for the same reasons, eh?
Depends on how you're using the word "Charm" ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depends on how you're using the word "Charm" .. (Score:5, Informative)
If "Charm" is being used as a euphemism for donations, they'll care all right.
Well, he has already donated to 80% of the people "interogating" him. Then again if they actually wanted to know something they wouldn't invite a clueless CEO but someone with expertise, these hearings are always mostly show.
Re: Depends on how you're using the word "Charm" . (Score:3)
This is an opportunity for Congress to pretend to be mean to Zuck to show their voters that the bribe money means nothing. It will also ensure FB keeps the bribe money coming in.
Note: My phone keeps autocorrecting Zuck to Fuck.
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Note: My phone keeps autocorrecting Zuck to Fuck.
No wonder they call it a "Smart Phone".
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Congressional Theatre, enjoy the show!
Re:Depends on how you're using the word "Charm" .. (Score:4, Funny)
If "Charm" is being used as a euphemism for donations, they'll care all right.
I picture his appearance,
MZ walks in to testify, two huge bodyguards lugging multiple cases behind them.
As he is sworn in, MZ opens the cases and throws millions of dollars into the air, as congress critters scurry on their hands and knees, scooping up money and tucking it into their clothes, and interns pockets.
MZ does a mike drop and walk out, testimony ended.
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Though clearly an incredible mind, (Score:1)
"Though clearly an incredible mind,"?
I see no evidence of that.
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It takes an incredible mind, to turn around and have people in the company you operate go out of their way to violate HIPAA [cnbc.com], then try to claim that it was perfectly okay to do it.
At this point, I'm pretty sure that FB has some serious problems and I wouldn't be surprised if Zuckerburg tries to flee the US sometime in the near future.
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Have a little more kool-aid then.
Re: Though clearly an incredible mind, (Score:2)
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Agreed. He simply got extremely lucky doing what any competent programmer could do. He also clearly has more ambition than the average person -- after all, he insisted on being the CEO. Extreme luck + extreme ambition = extreme success.
Furthermore, anyone who is truly "uncomfortable with speaking in public" would NEVER have even considered becoming the CEO. What they actually mean is that he has the same general anxiety about public speaking that any average person does. He's not exactly breaking down in pa
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While Zuckerberg isn't particularly distinguished as a programmer, it takes a lot of drive, ambition, and skill to build the kind of company he has.
He's a wiz, just not a technical wiz.
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He simply got extremely lucky doing what any competent programmer could do
No. He got programmers to do the work and utilised other skills to become stupendously wealthy as a result of their work.
There was luck involved, but most programmers just aren't big enough cunts to become Zuckerberg.
"clearly an incredible mind"..."just 33 years old" (Score:2)
noting is just 33 years old, will fare when confronted with hard hitting questions from politicians.
So buaby is gonna be asked 'tough' questions by those mean adults.....?
Is he getting the right kind of prep? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is he getting the right kind of prep? (Score:5, Interesting)
I could imagine that 99% (ok. a little hyperbole admittedly) of his "training" will be focused very much on this. The whole point of the exercise is to grin-and-bear-it given that it will be a "barrage of vacuous, ideological grandstanding". That is a *very* hard thing to do, especially hour after hour, without melting down out of frustration. Especially when he very likely believes he's the smartest guy in the room.
The training will be a lot of how to sit quietly, take it, find one thing to comment on to get your narrative out, and then sit back and take it again without getting amped up.
My model is Loretta Lynch. She was just unflappable.
Watch some of her testimony before congress to get an idea of what they're trying to do with Zuckerberg.
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Well,
Although they don't seem to wield it well, the folks sitting up there do wield a lot of power. The last thing you want to do is start attempting to show them up.
Of course it would be normal to think and want to react that way, but it would politically unwise. Someone in the beltway might forever burn a bridge that could stymie their career/ambitions. Someone outside the beltway could easily be mired in all kinds of bureaucratic nonsense that trickles down from someone(s) in congress., or congress it
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Your model for what? How to cover up criminal activity on the part of a rogue, lawless administration?
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My model for how to manage congressional testimony, in the face of questions that rarely, if at all, mean anything other than an opportunity to self-agrandize, as the original poster mentioned.
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Also, Loretta Lynch is a fairly high level lawyer. Zuckerberg is not.
No Questions He Can't Handle? (Score:2)
"That doesn't look like anything to me."
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"Mr. Zuckerberg, can you explain this picture of yourself, with a USB cable connecting your right temple to a laptop and your eyes glowing green, while Vladimir Putin stands behind you high fiving a Russian data scientist?"
"Yes I can. Someone is very good with Photoshop."
Like any question-title post (Score:2)
....the answer is almost always "NO".
The value of such consultants is mostly to try to avert some sort of colossal fuck up in front of the cameras. It's only to avoid LOSING points, it will gain him nothing because congresscreatures *swim* the in cesspool of disingenuousness and smarmy, tv-polished bullshittery 24/7. If he's not up to their level of unctuousness he can only lose.
In fact, releasing that he's being coached like this (which is, clearly, a completely STANDARD practice for those not usually in
worth noting? (Score:2)
Depending on how you define worth, I think this is a better fit.
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I am not sure how is age is worth noting at all. He isn't the youngest person to ever testify before a Congressional committee, and he has been a public figure for quite some time, so should be used to public speaking, and being the center of attention. Younger people have argued cases before the Supreme Court, a far more demanding task, requiring that you actually know something about the subject matter. He is merely getting a crash course in deflecting questions, something you can probably pick up by w
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" who is worth nothing, is just 33 years old.. "
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I think "nothing" vastly overstates his value to society. "Massively negative" is probably more accurate.
He's been gearing up for a political career (Score:3)
Discount Congressional Coaching (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress critter: "Were you aware that user data was accessible by third parties and open to abuse?"
Zuckerberg: "I do not recall."
Congress critter: "How much of Facebook's income is derived from providing user data to third parties?"
Zuckerberg: "I do not recall."
Congress critter: "Does Facebook store or monetize deleted data, data from users that have deleted their accounts, or data collected on people who do not have Facebook accounts?"
Zuckerberg: "I do not recall."
Congress critter: "Was Facebook aware that foreign, state-sponsored actors were utilizing Facebook's data?"
Zuckerberg: "I do not recall."
Congress critter: "What steps are Facebook taking to ensure this doesn't happen again?"
Zuckerberg: "Here's $50,000 to each Committee member's reelection campaign."
Re:Discount Congressional Coaching (Score:5, Informative)
I think you have got mixed up there with Bill Gates deposition in 1998 when Microsoft was on trial. He came over as either having the memory powers of a goldfish, or otherwise as not having a clue what was going on in his own company. His deposition was described by one of the newspapers as "a comic masterpiece of evasion and obfuscation". At one point, like a schoolboy trying to sound clever, he demanded from the examining lawyer a definition of the word "definition".
Zucherberg cannot do much worse than Gates did. Will we get to see his performance?
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Congress critter: "What steps are Facebook taking to ensure this doesn't happen again?"
Zuckerberg: "Here's $50,000 to each Committee member's reelection campaign."
You're missing a few zeroes there.
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Congress critter: "What steps are Facebook taking to ensure this doesn't happen again?"
Zuckerberg: "Here's $50,000 to each Committee member's reelection campaign."
You're missing a few zeroes there.
There's a lot of people on the committee. And you underestimate just how cheap it can really be to buy a Congressman
Matbe a crash course in ... (Score:2)
... telling the truth?
Zuck is a programmer and has no strength on the business side.
His dilemma is that he's been elevated to a position far above his competency level.
He's learning all this data leak shit at the same time we are.
Shareholders fon't give a flying rat's ass about anything except stock prices.
Congress has called upon the wrong Facebook rep.
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Zuck is a programmer and has no strength on the business side.
Yeah, imagine Facebook's market capitalisation if he had business skills.
Just think, he could've created a massive multinational advertising behemoth with a double-digit percentage of the world's population as users.
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Imagine Zuck with no support from people who know business and marketing.
That's why the motherfucker is taking a crash course.
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Crikey, you mean an individual human can't do everything on the planet all at once?
Fucking hell, if only he had the intelligence and business savvy to get himself access to people that know business, marketing and how to talk to Congress.
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Yeah, imagine Facebook's market capitalisation if HE had business skills.
Just think, HE could've created a massive multinational advertising behemoth with a double-digit percentage of the world's population as users.
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Congress has called upon the wrong Facebook rep.
It's Sheryl Sandberg who they should be talking to.
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Install uMatrix (Score:2)
Remember that you don't have to be on Facebook to be tracked by Facebook. All the websites that very helpfully add "Like" buttons to their articles and pages leave a solid trail, too.
That's why you install a browser plug-in like uMatrix, the Facebook cookies and scripts are blocked by default.
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Though clearly an incredible mind (Score:4, Insightful)
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A "mediocre PHP programmer" is somewhere in the middle of the very bottom selection, i.e. a really bad coder that is not too smart overall. Fits. It this messes up form of capitalism, even a nil-whit can get rich if he hits the right time and is aggressive enough.
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...A lot of it is luck, but it's also about taking advantage of luck when it comes your way. And it takes a long, long series of smart moves to get that far. Out of 10.000 "novice programmers" in college, there will only be a handful who'll get past step 3...
I completely agree with you, and I also apreciate the skill of oportunism in luck, but your argument for the handful of 10k novice programmers that achieve that combination: Just like success is not allways brilliance, i'd argue being in the minority isn't either, there are sometimes correlations, but they are not consistent or even exclusive to an "increadible mind".
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you can implement an existing idea, perhaps perfecting it and get all the credit. tell that to the guy that effectively got the mcdonald guys to actually shut down their burger restaurant
Facebook donated to 46 of 55 members of the comtte (Score:1)
Witch Hunt. (Score:3, Insightful)
When one is called to appear in front of congress. The Congress isn't interested in the Truth, they will just try to trick you into saying something criminal.
Their constituents are pissed about this. So I think both sides will be hard on him. The Democrats don't like the idea that Facebook slandered Clinton. The republicans like the fact they can distract the Russian meddling investigation to Facebook and away from the folks in the White House (Granted they are separate investigations) to a Liberal California man.
Politically both sides have interest in seeing Zuckerberg suffer. So it isn't much about any particular facts. Cambridge Analyitica paid Facebook a lot of money, Facebook didn't bother to dig into what they were doing with the data. Facebook put trust into an algorithm, that other people figured out and manipulated to their benefit.
Are we expected to get anything new? No, but congress can parade Zuckerberg around as the ultimate bad guy and make them look like they were standing up for their constituents.
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Cambridge Analyitica paid Facebook a lot of money
On this, and much about how you're characterizing this, you're simply incorrect. Get some basic facts:
https://medium.com/@CKava/why-... [medium.com]
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No, that's the FBI. Congress has very little teeth when it comes to criminality on the part of people who testify in front of Congress...or refuse to do so. Just ask Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, or Lois Lerner.
Camaign contributions? (Score:3)
Members of the House and Senate committees that will question Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about user privacy protection next week are also some of the biggest recipients of campaign contributions from Facebook employees directly and the political action committee funded by employees. The congressional panel that got the most Facebook contributions is the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which announced Wednesday morning it would question Zuckerberg on April 11.
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"Incredible mind"? Whatever gave you that idea? (Score:3)
This guy is aggressive, has no morals and is somewhat business-savvy. For an "incredible mind", you need a bit more. Next you will claim that the current president is an "intellectual giant"...
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Ah, sorry, "Intellectual giant and stable genius", and apparently also some other things...
Incredible mind? Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
There were MANY social media sites BEFORE and AFTER facebook.
Social Media Timeline [bitrebels.com]
Mark has/had an arrogant attitude [businessinsider.com] towards his users:
Will Congress care? (Score:2)
It depends...how much is Zuckerberg paying them?
Incredible (Score:2)
Zuckerberg... Though clearly an incredible mind...
I'm not buying it. He probably falls into the category of "competent" at programming, somewhat ruthless garden-variety sociopath, and IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME.
Save the dick-sucking for someone better.
"Hard hitting questions from politicians" (Score:2)
The question Zuckerberg sould face (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. Zuckerberg will have concrete changes to talk about, and no questions he can't handle.
Ah, Mr.... Zuckerberg. Is it not the case that Facebook's business model is founded on the premise that social interaction is a crack-like activity that can be used to lure users into providing personal information that you can relentlessly monetize?
Though clearly an incredible mind... (Score:3)
If Zuck had an incredible mind he would have baked abuse prevention into the system from the get-go, his underlying idea of Facebook from the beginning is that nothing should be private; yeah really incredible thinking there...
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He didn't even build Facebook himself.
Charm doesn't matter (Score:2)
The majority of the congress critters he's talking to are on his payroll... I mean, receive campaign contributions from his company.
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The submitter, though, is an expert at polishing Zuck’s knob.
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you cant polish a turd
Incorrect, sir. You can polish a turd. Evidence: Mythbusters Polishing a Turd [youtube.com]
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I've seen that video. I call bullshit.
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No bullshit. Just ostrich shit and lion shit.
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Is it the one where they bury the turd for 20 million years in hot magma and then polish the resulting diamond?
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As Morrissey said, some magmas are hotter than others.
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I agreed. You can polish a turd, but when you are done it's still a turd. It's like putting lipstick on a pig.
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2021: After watching The Circle [imdb.com], president Zuckerberg makes having a Facebook account mandatory for everyone in the country.
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And he may be able to get it considering the amount of people paid off one way or another by Facebook.
Is Facebook "Too big to fail" on the internet?
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Twitter hashtag. Ironic.
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2018: Mark Zuckerberg makes first address to Congress.
2020: Mark Zuckerberg is installed as next president.
Well, he's already putting politicians in his pocket to get there...
Of the 55 members on the Energy and Commerce Committee this year, all but nine have received Facebook contributions in the past decade.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-big-contributor-to-committees-in-congress-questioning-zuckerberg.html
45 out of 55 congress members got FB donations (Score:5, Informative)
Remains to be see how "hard hitting" the questioning is when the members of congress received substantial donations from Facebook and associates.
Re:45 out of 55 congress members got FB donations (Score:5, Funny)
Remains to be see how "hard hitting" the questioning is when the members of congress received substantial donations from Facebook and associates.
So the "charm" has already been working for a while.
Re:45 out of 55 congress members got FB donations (Score:5, Interesting)
You to be human to be president (Score:1)
Zuck needs more programming first.
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You do know that Zuckerberg is Jewish, right?
How did someone as stupid as you find its way to slashdot?
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Faglabamba isn't even a state, it's just a local concentration of inbreeding.
Re: Zuckerberg for President in 2020 (Score:3)
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2024: Mark Zuckerberg is installed as God.
Quote (Score:1)
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Re:Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you call a person who learns to interact socially but doesn't feel the emotions and empathy that drive normal people to be sociable? The ones who have to study social interaction like they study coding, sometimes with people to teach them, rather than intuiting it...
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Re:Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you call a person who learns to interact socially but doesn't feel the emotions and empathy that drive normal people to be sociable? The ones who have to study social interaction like they study coding, sometimes with people to teach them, rather than intuiting it...
The sociopaths I've known have been glib and charming. They didn't have a particular problem engaging in convincing social interactions, and I'm pretty sure nobody taught them how to do it. Zuckerberg isn't necessarily a sociopath / psychopath. He may have Asperger's Syndrome, or a mild form of some other Autism Spectrum Disorder that prevents him from gauging and expressing emotions and empathy.
Re: Quote (Score:1)
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He didn't even do it himself, did he? I thought he pinched it from Claudia Winkleman.
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Who the hell still stereotype in 2018 anyway? If anything, they should be surroundtyping.
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