Facebook on 60 Minutes
January 14, 2008
60 Minutes’s Lesley Stahl profiled Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Dave Ambrose suggests the ‘entire discussion was controlled and filtered by his PR machine.’ Dave would have asked:
- Does DataPortability.org ring any bells?
- How do you and Steve Ballmer get a long? “Steve and Zuck kissing in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g…”
- What’s the progress like for fbFund?
- Do you feel your company is heading down the road AOL before the first bubble burst?
- Lastly, can I come over for some keg parties on Thursday in the office?
Of course I wrote about Mark in March. I would have asked him about his statements contrary to to the ADEA:
What do you get when you are smart, technical, twenty-two and run a startup? If you are Mark Zuckerberg it is likely you are going to get sued. Why? Some call it ‘foot-in-mouth disease’ while others call it inexperience. More than a couple of lawyers are lining up to find clients willing to sign up to class action lawsuits against Mark and his wildly successful startup, Facebook.
This week entrepreneurs from across the country attended Startup School and heard Mark Zuckerberg suggest that founders should violate the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). For some reason Mark felt comfortable giving this advice. Mark Coker at VentureBeat suggested, “Judging from whispers among the audience, while people love the service and admire his accomplishments, many find Zuckerberg arrogant. A Google search on “mark zuckerberg” and “arrogant” yields about 675 results, but surely, there must be other Mark Zuckerbergs in the world. Or maybe not.”
Standing on the stage wearing Adidas sandals Master Zuckerberg implored the audience to, “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,” he stated. “If you want to found a successful company, you should only hire young people with technical expertise.”
Several jaws dropped as he continued his advice, “Young people are just smarter,” he said with a straight face. “Why are most chess masters under 30?” he asked. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family.” In the absence of those distractions, he says, you can focus on big ideologies. He added, “I only own a mattress.” Later: “Simplicity in life allows you to focus on what’s important.”
Obviously, following Mark’s sage advice would cause you to run afoul of the ADEA, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his/her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training. I wonder if David Sze would agree with Mark? (Oh, and I was even dumberer when I was 22)
