Zuckerberg forced Facebook execs to switch to Android after being ‘infuriated’ by Tim Cook, report says

A new piece by The New York Times goes in-depth on how Facebook has handled its repeated breaches and blunders. But one detail in particular is fascinating relating to Apple, Mark Zuckerberg apparently forced his management team to give up iPhones and switch to Android after Tim Cook made some comments that “infuriated” the Facebook CEO.

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The NYT article titled Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis takes a close look at the social media company’s approach to all the disasters it’s seen.

But buried further in when discussing the Cambridge Analytica scandal is an interesting story about how mad Zuckerberg was about some of Tim Cook’s comments on the situation.

“We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.

The quote looks to be from Tim Cook’s interview with MSNBC hosted by Chris Hayes and Recode’s Kara Swisher from earlier this year. In addition to the quote above, Cook had another zinger for Zuckerberg:

To no surprise Swisher and Hayes brought up the Facebook controversy, and Cook had a sharp response to the question of what would he do if he was in Zuckerburg’s shoes, saying “I wouldn’t be in this situation,” to roaring audience laughter and applause.

Zuckerburg later responded with the following:

You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you, to be extremely glib – and not at all aligned with the truth.

If you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something people can afford. I think it’s important that we don’t all get Stockholm syndrome, and let the companies that work hard to charge you more, convince you that they actually care more about you, because that sounds ridiculous to me.

It’s fascinating to hear that behind the scenes Zuckerberg was allegedly so angry about Cook’s comments that he forced his management team to abandon their iPhones and pick up Android smartphones.

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