Roger McNamee - Zucked

Thanks to growth hacking, Facebook made continuous improvements in its advertising tools, as well as growing its audience, increasing time on site, and gathering astonishing amounts of data. Progress against these metrics translated into explosive revenue growth. From one billion users at year-end 2012, Facebook grew to 1.2 billion in 2013, 1.4 billion in 2014, 1.6 billion in 2015, nearly 1.9 billion in 2016, 2.1 billion in 2017, 2.3 billion in 2018, and 2.4 billion in late 2019. From just more than $5 billion in sales in the IPO year of 2012, Facebook grew to $7.8 billion in 2013, $12.5 billion in 2014, $17.9 billion in 2015, $27.6 billion in 2016, $40.7 billion in 2017, and $55.8 billion in 2018. There were issues along the way. Advertisers complained about the lack of transparency relative to advertising, and Facebook has been sued for inflating some metrics, including ad views and video views. But Facebook had become a juggernaut. The customers that advertisers needed to reach were on Facebook. This gave Facebook enormous leverage. When advertisers complained, Facebook could get away with apologies and marginal fixes. With its customary laser focus on a handful of metrics, Facebook did not devote any energy to questioning its decisions. If there was any soul searching about the morality of intense surveillance and the manipulation of user attention, or about protecting users against unintended consequences, I have been able to find no evidence of it. If Zuck and the Facebook team noticed that usage of Facebook differed materially from their ideal, they showed no concern. If anyone noticed the increasingly extreme behavior inside some Facebook Groups, no one took action. The Russians exploited this to sow dissention among Americans and Western Europeans, beginning in 2014. When The Guardian newspaper in the UK broke the story in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had misappropriated profiles from at least fifty million Facebook users, it precipitated an intense but brief scandal. Facebook apologized and made Cambridge Analytica sign a piece of paper, certifying that it had destroyed the data set, but then quickly returned to business as usual. While always careful to protect itself from legal liability, Facebook seemed oblivious to signs of trouble. The benefits of growth—in terms of revenue, profits, and influence—were obvious, the problems easy to ignore. At Facebook, everyone remained focused on their metrics.

As 2016 began, Facebook was on a huge roll. Aside from a few PR headaches, the company had not skipped a beat since its IPO. Almost everything that mattered had changed since my days as a mentor to Zuck, and I knew only what had been publicly disclosed or what I had seen with my own eyes. Like its users, Facebook showed the public only the good news, which is why I was so surprised by what I saw during 2016. Bad actors using Facebook’s tools to harm innocent people did not compute for me, but I saw the evidence and could not let it go. It was only when I reengaged with Zuck and Sheryl just before the election that I began to appreciate that my view of Facebook was inaccurate. It took me longer than I would have liked to understand the problem. More than four years of relentless success at Facebook had bred overconfidence. The company was in a filter bubble of its own. Every day, there were more users, spending more time on the site, generating more revenue and earnings, which pushed the stock to new highs. The Midas Effect may have set in, causing Zuck and his team to believe that everything they did was right, always for the best, and uncontestably good for humanity. Humility went out the window. Facebook subordinated everything to growth. Eventually that would create problems it could not resolve with an apology and a promise to do better.

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