為什么扎克伯格不會下臺

A few weeks ago, after Facebook revealed that tens of millions of its users’ accounts had been exposed in a security breach, I began asking people in and around the tech industry a simple question: Should Mark Zuckerberg still be running Facebook?

幾周前，F(xiàn)acebook透露其數(shù)千萬用戶的賬戶暴露在一個安全漏洞之下，隨后我開始向科技行業(yè)內(nèi)外的人們提出一個簡單的問題：Facebook還應該由馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)來管理嗎?

I’ll spare you the suspense. Just about everyone thought Mr. Zuckerberg was still the right man for the job, if not the only man for the job. This included people who currently work at Facebook, people who used to work at Facebook, financial analysts, venture capitalists, tech-skeptic activists, ardent critics of the company and its giddiest supporters.

我就不賣關(guān)子了。幾乎所有人都認為扎克伯格仍然是這份工作的合適人選，甚至是唯一的人選。我問過的人包括目前在Facebook工作的人、曾在Facebook工作的人、金融分析師、風險資本家、技術(shù)懷疑論者、該公司的激烈批評者與最狂熱的支持者。

The consensus went like this: Even if Mr. Zuckerberg — as Facebook’s founder, chief executive, chairman and most powerful shareholder — bore most of the responsibility for the company’s cataclysmic recent history, he alone possessed the stature to fix it.

他們的共識是這樣的：作為Facebook的創(chuàng)始人、首席執(zhí)行官，董事長和最有權(quán)力的股東，扎克伯格要為公司近階段的災難承擔大部分責任，但也只有他擁有這個聲望，可以去彌補它們。

More than one of his supporters told me it was bad faith to even broach the subject — that Mr. Zuckerberg’s indispensability was so plain that the only reason I might have to ask whether he should still run the company was the clicks I would get on this article. But even critics were not that excited about the idea of Mr. Zuckerberg’s removal. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, an organization that fights monopoly power, argued that Facebook’s problems grew out of its business model and the legal and regulatory vacuum in which it has operated — not the man who runs it.

不止一個扎克伯格的支持者告訴我，甚至連提出這個問題都是居心不良的表現(xiàn)——扎克伯格就是不可或缺的，這一點實在太明顯了，我之所以會問出這種問題，唯一原因就是我想為這篇文章賺點擊率。但即便是批評者們，也不希望看到扎克伯格去職。打擊壟斷勢力的組織開放市場研究所(Open Markets Institute)總干事巴里·林恩(Barry Lynn)認為，F(xiàn)acebook的問題源于其商業(yè)模式，以及它的運營范疇處于法律和監(jiān)管的真空地帶——而不是運營它的人。

“To be blunt, if we took Mark Zuckerberg out and we replaced him with Mahatma Gandhi, I don’t think the corporation would change in any significant way,” Mr. Lynn said.

“坦白地說，如果我們把馬克·扎克伯格弄走，用圣雄甘地代替他，我認為這家公司不會有任何重大改變，”林恩說。

That few can imagine a Facebook without Mr. Zuckerberg, 34, underscores how unaccountable our largest tech companies have become. Mr. Zuckerberg, thanks to his own drive and brilliance, has become one of the most powerful unelected people in the world. Like an errant oil company or sugar-pumping food company, Facebook makes decisions that create huge consequences for society — and he has profited handsomely from the chaos.

扎克伯格今年34歲，很少有人可以想象沒有他的Facebook，這突顯出對我們最大的科技公司的行為進行問責已經(jīng)變得多么困難。扎克伯格憑借自己的動力和才華，已成為世界上非選舉產(chǎn)生的最有權(quán)力的人之一。正如一個行為不端的石油公司或大量使用食糖的食品公司，F(xiàn)acebook做出的決定會給社會帶來巨大后果——而他從混亂中獲取了豐厚利潤。

Yet because of Facebook’s ownership structure — in which Mr. Zuckerberg’s shares have 10 times the voting power of ordinary shares — he is omnipotent there, answering basically to no one.

然而，由于Facebook的所有權(quán)結(jié)構(gòu)——扎克伯格持有股票的投票權(quán)是普通股的10倍——他在公司之中無所不能，基本上不需對任何人負責。

This fits a pattern. Over the last two decades, the largest tech companies have created a system in which executives suffer few personal or financial consequences for their mistakes. Big tech has turned founders into fixtures — when their companies are working well, they get all the credit, and when their companies are doing badly, they are the only heroes who can fix them.

這符合一種規(guī)律。在過去的20年中，那些最大的科技公司建立了一個系統(tǒng)，在這個系統(tǒng)中，高管們?nèi)绻噶隋e誤，幾乎不會承受個人或經(jīng)濟后果。大型科技公司把它們的創(chuàng)始人變成了固定裝置——當公司運作良好時，他們獲得了所有的贊譽，公司做得不好時，他們則是唯一可以修復它們的英雄。

There’s another way to put this: For better or worse, Mr. Zuckerberg has become too big to fail.

還有另一種說法來解釋：無論好壞，扎克伯格已經(jīng)大到不能倒。

In America, it’s not unusual for executives to escape punishment for how they steer their corporations (see Wall Street after the 2008 financial crisis). Still, when companies step in it badly, there are often at least calls for their leaders’ dismissal. The chief executives of Equifax and Target were pushed out after data breaches. The chief executive of Wells Fargo was ousted after a scandal involving sham accounts.

在美國，高管們因為控制公司的方式而逃避懲罰，這種事并不罕見(參見2008年金融危機之后的華爾街)。盡管如此，當公司陷入困境時，通常至少會有人呼吁解雇其領(lǐng)導人。艾貴發(fā)(Equifax)和塔吉特(Target)的首席執(zhí)行官在數(shù)據(jù)泄露后被迫離職。富國銀行(Wells Fargo)的首席執(zhí)行官在涉及虛假賬戶的丑聞曝光后下臺 。

Even in Silicon Valley, where company founders are revered as money-laying rainbow unicorns, there is some limit to corporate patience. In the 1980s, Apple fired Steve Jobs. Last year, Uber ousted Travis Kalanick, who was as closely aligned with his company’s culture as Mr. Zuckerberg is with his.

即使在創(chuàng)始人被視為會生錢的彩虹獨角獸的硅谷，公司的耐心也有一些限度。1980年代，蘋果公司解雇了史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)。去年，優(yōu)步(Uber)解雇了特拉維斯·卡蘭尼克(Travis Kalanick)，他和扎克伯格一樣，與自己的公司文化保持高度一致。

Facebook’s problems have not reached the level of lawlessness we saw at Uber, but they have been far more consequential. Besides the breach, Facebook has been implicated in a global breakdown of democracy, including its role as a vector for Russian disinformation during the 2016 American presidential election.

Facebook的問題還沒有達到優(yōu)步那種無法無天的程度，但同時它們卻又是更為重大的問題。除了違規(guī)行為外，F(xiàn)acebook還與全球民主的破壞有關(guān)聯(lián)，比如它在2016年美國總統(tǒng)大選期間，就成了俄羅斯傳播虛假信息的載體。

Investigators for the United Nations have said Facebook was instrumental to genocide in Myanmar; it has also been tied to violence in India, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. There have been privacy scandals (Cambridge Analytica most recently), advertising scandals (discriminatory ads, fishy metrics), multiple current federal inquiries, and an admission that using Facebook can be detrimental to your mental health.

聯(lián)合國調(diào)查人員表示，在緬甸的種族滅絕中，F(xiàn)acebook發(fā)揮了作用;它還同印度、南蘇丹和斯里蘭卡的暴力有關(guān)。此外還有隱私丑聞(最近的一起是劍橋分析[Cambridge Analytica])、廣告丑聞(歧視性廣告、可疑指標)，多起正在進行的聯(lián)邦調(diào)查，以及關(guān)于使用Facebook可能對心理健康有害的承認。

Even though Mr. Zuckerberg has apologized and vowed again and again and again to fix Facebook, the company’s fixes often need fixing. In the last week, reporters showed that the company’s recent move to clamp down on political ads has not worked — Vice News bought Facebook ads falsely stating that they were “paid for” by Vice President Mike Pence and ISIS.

盡管扎克伯格一次又一次地道歉并發(fā)誓要修復Facebook，但公司的修復措施往往也需要調(diào)整。在上周，記者表明，該公司最近采取的打擊政治廣告行動并沒有奏效——Vice新聞在謊稱是由邁克·彭斯(Mike Pence)副總統(tǒng)和伊斯蘭國(ISIS)“出資”的情況下買到了Facebook的廣告。

So given such failures, another question might be: Why haven’t any heads rolled at Facebook? Although there have been some high-profile defections — the co-founders of WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus, all companies bought by Facebook, left in the last few months — Mr. Zuckerberg’s most loyal executives have been with him through thick and thin, many for more than a decade.

所以，考慮到這樣的失敗，另一個問題可能是：為什么Facebook沒有任何人負責任?雖然有一些引人注目的叛逃——所有被Facebook收購的公司，WhatsApp、Instagram和Oculus的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，都在過去幾個月里離開了——然而扎克伯格最忠誠的高管一直與他在一起，很多人都為他效力了十幾年。

If Facebook admits now that its problems were caused by a too-idealistic, move-fast culture, and if it is conceding now that its culture must change, how can we be sure that’s happening if most of the people who run Facebook remain the same?

如果Facebook現(xiàn)在承認其問題是由一種過于理想化的、快速發(fā)展的文化引起的，如果它現(xiàn)在承認它的文化必須改變，那么在大多數(shù)運營Facebook的人還保持不變，我們怎么能確定會有改變?

When I asked Facebook about this, the company argued that things were changing. It just hired Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain, as head of global affairs — a move that the company said imbued it with a serious outsider’s perspective. 當我向Facebook詢問此事時，公司認為改變正在發(fā)生。它剛剛聘請前英國副首相尼克·克萊格(Nick Clegg)來擔任全球事務(wù)負責人——公司表示此舉為公司帶來了嚴肅的局外人視角。

The social network also put me on the phone with a top executive who argued boisterously for Mr. Zuckerberg’s leadership, but declined to do so on the record. The executive explained that fixing Facebook would involve deep costs. The company is hiring more people to review content, for example, and it might have to slow down some of its most ambitious projects to address its impact on the world. The executive argued that Mr. Zuckerberg’s total domination of Facebook’s equity, plus the reverence in which employees hold him, allowed him to weather the financial consequences of these changes better than any other leader.

這家社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司還讓我與一位高管通電話，此人不遺余力地為扎克伯格的領(lǐng)導力辯護，但拒絕我使用這些話。該高管解釋說，修復Facebook將涉及深度成本。例如，該公司正在雇用更多人來審查內(nèi)容，并且可能不得不放慢一些最雄心勃勃的項目，以解決其對世界的影響。該高管認為，扎克伯格對Facebook股權(quán)的全面支配，加上員工對他的崇敬，使他能夠比其他任何領(lǐng)導者更好地經(jīng)受這些變化帶來的財務(wù)后果。

Facebook’s stock price plunged nearly 20 percent on a single day this summer after it reported slowing revenue growth and increased operational costs. This week, Facebook repeated its slower-growth warning. A “professional C.E.O.,” one without such a huge stake in the company, would be tempted to try the easy way out, the executive suggested. But Mr. Zuckerberg was free to do what’s right.

今年夏天，在公布營收增長放緩和運營成本增加后，F(xiàn)acebook股價在一天內(nèi)暴跌近20%。本周，F(xiàn)acebook再次發(fā)出了增長放緩的警告。一名在公司里沒有那么多切身利益的“職業(yè)CEO”會希望找一條簡易的出路，該高管表示。但扎克伯格可以自如地去做正確事情。

Mr. Zuckerberg’s supporters also argued that he has shown a deep capacity to understand and address Facebook’s problems. After the company went public in 2012, its stock price languished for months because it had no plan to make money from consumers’ shift to mobile devices.

扎克伯格的支持者也提出，對于Facebook的問題，他已經(jīng)表現(xiàn)出了極大的理解力和解決意愿。在該公司2012年上市后，由于沒有從消費者轉(zhuǎn)向移動設(shè)備的趨勢中賺錢的計劃，其股價停止上漲了好幾個月。

“Mark would tell you that he was too late in understanding the importance of mobile — but when that became apparent, Mark understood its gravity and he understood how to fix it,” said Don Graham, a former Facebook board member and former publisher of The Washington Post. “He changed the direction of that company incredibly fast, in detail, not by one action but by 20 actions — and if you looked at the quarter-by-quarter numbers of what percentage of Facebook’s revenue was coming from mobile, I couldn’t believe how fast it changed.”

“馬克會告訴你，在明白移動設(shè)備的重要性方面，他做的太晚了——但當這個問題變得明顯起來，馬克就明白了它的重要性，也明白了該如何解決這個問題，”Facebook前董事會成員、《華盛頓郵報》(The Washington Post)前出版人唐·格雷厄姆(Don Graham)說。“他以令人難以置信的速度，從細節(jié)入手，改變了該公司的方向，這不是用一個行動作出的，而是以20個行動——而且如果你逐季度去看看Facebook利潤里百分之多少是來自移動端的，我簡直不敢相信它改變的速度這么快。”

The question at Facebook now is whether Mr. Zuckerberg has similarly seen the light on its current problems. He has said fixing Facebook was his personal challenge for 2018. But there are signs that its culture remains the same.

如今，F(xiàn)acebook的問題在于，扎克伯格是否對目前的情況持類似看法。他已經(jīng)表示過，解決Facebook的問題是他個人在2018年面對的挑戰(zhàn)。但仍有跡象表明，公司文化依舊沒有改變。

Consider its promise that a new home-hub device, Portal, which it unveiled this month, would not collect information on users that could be used in ads. It had to swiftly walk back that promise because Facebook’s data-collection system is so pervasive that even some of its employees don’t seem to understand it.

比如Facebook本月剛剛推出了新的家庭中心設(shè)備Portal，并且承諾不會收集可被用在廣告中的用戶信息。然而由于Facebook的數(shù)據(jù)收集系統(tǒng)已經(jīng)遍布于每個角落，就連公司的一些員工都不能理解它，F(xiàn)acebook只好迅速收回這個承諾。

“I think he has demonstrably failed over the last two years, and the reason he’s failed is because he’s unaccountable,” said Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook employee who is now chief strategy officer for the Center of Humane Technology, an activist organization. “Given a scenario where shareholders and board members had more influence, it’s hard to imagine that there would not have been changes faster.”

“過去兩年來，他明顯失敗了，而他失敗的原因在于他不需要負責，”前Facebook員工、如今在活動組織人道技術(shù)中心(Center of Humane Technology)擔任首席策略官的桑迪·帕拉吉拉斯(Sandy Parakilas)說。“假設(shè)在股東和董事會成員有更多影響力的情況下，很難想象變化不會更快一些。”

One fix for Facebook might be to give the board greater power over the company. Trillium Asset Management, an investment firm, recently put forward a shareholder resolution supported by several state funds that would require Mr. Zuckerberg to step down as Facebook’s chairman, though he would still maintain majority voting control of the company.

Facebook的一個解決方案可能是賦予董事會更多對公司的權(quán)力。投資公司延齡草資產(chǎn)管理公司(Trillium Asset Management)近期提出了一個股東會決議，得到了多個國家基金的支持，該決議要求扎克伯格辭去董事長職務(wù)，盡管他仍將保有對公司的多數(shù)表決控制權(quán)。

“I think by taking the step to relinquish the position of the board chair, it’s a very important structural change so that he would not have a completely free hand to muscle his way through decisions,” said Jonas Kron, a Trillium senior vice president.

“我認為，通過放棄董事長職務(wù)這個舉措，會帶來一個非常重要的結(jié)構(gòu)性改變，這么一來，他就不能對許多決策作出全權(quán)決定了，”延齡草高級副總裁約納·克龍(Jonas Kron)說。

A Facebook spokesman said the company had not yet taken a position on the resolution. In the past, similar measures have been voted down by Mr. Zuckerberg and his allies.

一名Facebook發(fā)言人表示，公司尚未對該決議作出表態(tài)。過去，類似措施都被扎克伯格及其盟友通過表決擊退。

Which leaves us here: Either Mr. Zuckerberg fixes Facebook, or no one does. That’s the choice we face, like it or not.

現(xiàn)在情況就是：要么扎克伯格解決Facebook的問題，要么就誰都解決不了。無論你喜不喜歡，這都是我們面臨的選擇。