Facebook: King Mark's Court

Mark Zuckerberg is sitting smiling in front of a simulated meat cake – designed to look like a big piece of spare ribs, a three-pointed steak and a huge turkey leg – surrounded by smiles from his inner circle. The photo on Facebook, last May, shows the company's CEO celebrating with his closest lieutenants, including those with whom he worked for most of his adult life.

Chris Cox and Andrew Bosworth have been advising Zuckerberg on Facebook for just over a year. Then, his problems revolved around the registration of new users from the dorm room to the dorm room. Now, Facebook's biggest challenge is quite different: how to prevent it from damaging democracy.

It is to these insiders that Mr. Zuckerberg is turning again. The most powerful outsiders of the group were the founders of the largest companies he had acquired: Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. Since this week, all these executives are gone.

Mr. Zuckerberg has always been the king of the social network that he founded at the age of 19. He is president, general manager and majority shareholder of Facebook. But while the company is under pressure, whether because of slowing income growth or Russian interference, Zuckerberg is tightening his grip by transferring even more responsibility to his closest courtiers.

In the picture above, some of Mark Zuckerberg's birthday frames from last year, from left to right: 1 Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram who left Facebook this week; 2 Deborah Liu, Vice President, Marketplace; 3 Chris Cox, Director of Products; 4 David Marcus, vice president of messaging products; 5 Javier Olivan, Vice President, Growth; 6 Fiji Simo, vice president of video; 7 Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer; 8 Adam Mosseri, product manager; 9 Rob Goldman, Vice President of Advertising; and ten Andrew Bosworth, Vice President of Consumer Hardware

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"The evidence suggests that Mark Zuckerberg's absolute control over Facebook is only increasing," says David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook effect, "Which is difficult to imagine given its overwhelming character".

Although the stock has slipped after the announcement of the departure of the founders of Instagram, Facebook could now use its excellent control to increase the growth of the photo sharing application.

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the founders of Instagram, left Facebook on Monday, six years after selling their photo sharing app to the company for $ 1 billion. Adam Mosseri, a 10-year veteran on Facebook, had already been led to lead the Instagram product. And since May, Instagram has reported to Mr. Cox, the new Facebook product manager, who oversees all products, including WhatsApp, after the departure of its founders this year.

When Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, she pursued a "wallet" strategy. It made sense to preserve the independence of applications: they could use some centralized services while continuing to develop their own brands and serve complementary but different audiences: young Instagram users and emerging market users under WhatsApp.

But now, Facebook is gathering all applications under Mr. Cox and insists on greater integration. For example, Instagram Stories, the collection of photos that expire after 24 hours, can now be posted on Facebook.

WhatsApp is under pressure to start contributing to revenue. Brian Acton, his co-founder, told Forbes this week that he had failed in his battle to prevent Facebook from delivering targeted ads in the messaging app. He had offered users a small fee after publishing a number of messages – an idea that was rejected by Sheryl Sandberg, number two of Zuckerberg. The director of operations said it would not be "on the scale", which, according to Mr. Acton, would not save so much money.

Yet, on Instagram, turnover is skyrocketing. The photo sharing app, which has grown from 30 million users to 1 billion acquisitions today, is a true revenue engine for Facebook. Facebook mobile advertising revenue of 18% this year to 23% in 2019.

Instagram had to achieve ambitious goals while avoiding the suggestions of "suzerains" of Facebook, says a former Facebook executive. "Facebook puts it in the microwave. he [then] considerably speeds up cooking, "he adds. "But the disadvantage is to expose something to the radiation, which means that it could develop a third arm."

This process and the subsequent growth of Instagram have further increased its importance for Facebook, as investors worry about prospects for the core business. In July, he lost $ 120 billion of his market capitalization after regular business hours, as a result of a profit appeal, where he reported a lack of growth in the number of users in the states. And Europe, as well as a slowdown in turnover and margins.

Now, the former director says that Facebook's leadership is "everyone on the bridge" to back up the main Facebook platform.

"Everyone on the management team needs to be associated with the winning child," he says, suggesting that to boost Facebook's growth, the company would try to requisition audiences from other apps, which could be damaging for long term. "This mentality is to kill and eat your other children in order to save your prized child."

Investors remain uncertain about whether application matching is the right strategy. Shares on Facebook fell 3.2% early in the session after the company confirmed the departure of the co-founders of Instagram.

Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research, says their departure is considered a "loss" because they did well what they did. He thinks that Facebook will probably keep Instagram on the same path, just with more central control. "It's hard to say if it will help or hurt," he adds.

However, the dominance of Zuckerberg's restricted circle – and allies internally called "Foss" or "Friends of Sheryl Sandberg" – could pose a more serious problem. Despite nearly two years of political pressure, since the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook has recruited no external expertise from its management team and has not eliminated its existing bosses either.

Concerns over false news and misinformation skyrocketed after Donald Trump's election, and privacy concerns resumed after the March revelations of a massive data leak on Cambridge Analytica.

No departure has been announced to take responsibility for the scandals. Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Politics and Communications, has revealed his intention to leave. Dan Rose, Veteran and Vice President of Partnerships, and Colin Stretch, General Counsel, both left for personal reasons.

There are new faces outside the restricted circle: Antonio Lucio joined as Hewlett-Packard's marketing director; John Devine joined Oath, the Verizon unit that combined AOL and Yahoo, to lead community operations; and Ajit Mohan, former Managing Director of the Hotstar streaming platform in India, has been appointed Managing Director of this country.

But so far, there have been no major external meetings to show that Facebook is looking for new minds to help him understand his problems from a stranger's point of view. "It's the same cast of characters. It's funny that nothing in the executive suite has really changed, "says the former Facebook executive.

A second ex-Facebook executive describes how this insularity unfolds in a crisis, which has been multiple. "Mark has a small circle of people involved in almost every urgent problem," he says. "Many of these people have been with him for eight years or more, and entering this circle is almost impossible for executives hired or acquired from outside."

Go down the hierarchy, Many senior executives have experience in their field: Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management, joined the US Department of Justice six years ago; Brian Fishman, Chief Anti-Terrorist Policy, was Director of Research at the West Point Military Academy Counter Terrorism Center; and Samidh Chakrabarti, who leads civic engagement, had a similar role at Google.

But at the top, Zuckerberg appreciates loyalty. Kate Losse, former Facebook employee and author of The Kings Boys, says he's looking for a long-term commitment within the company, a belief in Facebook, a certain stoicism and familiarity among his lieutenants.

"As Facebook gets bigger and the isolation between Zuckerberg and the outside world increases, it's understandable to maintain largely conciliatory relationships for such a powerful character, but it can also lead to a lack of perspective."

The long-standing Facebook team could be considered an advantage, as some companies are criticized for their excessive turnover. Rival Snap, the owner of Snapchat, lost several key executives this year, as his shares slipped way below the price of his initial public offering.

Facebook has recognized the need to hear external voices on certain issues: open up its data to researchers as part of a new project called Social Science One and launch two surveys by outsiders: the impact of business on rights civilians, in particular represented the communities, and another on allegations of anti-conservative bias.

Mr. Zuckerberg clearly believes in education: his tour through America in 2017 has allowed him to meet all kinds of Facebook users, to visit churches, sports teams and dairy farms . Much less publicly, he has also organized dinners with experts in areas such as content moderation, with participants bound by non-disclosure agreements.

But Mr Kirkpatrick thinks that Mr Zuckerberg needs to go much further. Facebook has become an "extraordinary threat to democracy on a global scale," he said. "If you look at the variety of challenges it's facing right now, it's extremely difficult for me to imagine that an all-powerful individual could have a sufficient understanding and base to make the right decisions." he adds.

Facebook shareholders should be worried about Zuckerberg's insularity, he added. "The absolute control of Zuckerberg can increasingly be considered as Facebook's Achilles' heel."

Additional report by Tim Bradshaw in Los Angeles