“WHEN YOU GET THAT WEALTHY, YOU START TO BUY YOUR OWN BULLSHIT”
November 30, 2018 9:56 AM Subscribe
How has someone with such sterling Establishment credentials—Harvard University, Harvard Business School, the Clinton administration—managed to find herself in such a pickle? Facebook’s leadership culture, as should be clear by now, has been anything but open, transparent, or authentic. A true leader would not have had to write a post defending herself in light of her company’s hiring of a P.R. firm, Definers, that leveraged anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros to deflect attention from Facebook’s own missteps. (“I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have,” wrote Sandberg, who was hired, in part, to manage Facebook’s Washington relationships.)
Where did we ever get the notion that credentials bestow a conscience?
Nothing discourages self-reflection like wild success.
posted by tclark at 10:18 AM on November 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
Nothing discourages self-reflection like wild success.
posted by tclark at 10:18 AM on November 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
I recently watched Ali Wong's standup special Baby Cobra, in whcih she references Sheryl Sandberg, and
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:18 AM on November 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
[Spoilers for Baby Cobra]
WONG: And, uh, two weeks into the escrow process, I discovered that my beautiful, Harvard-educated husband was $70,000 in debt. And me, with my hard-earned TV money, paid it all off. So, as it turns out, he’s the one who trapped me. How did he do it? How did he bamboozle me? Oh! Maybe because he went to Harvard Business School, the epicenter of white-collar crime. He Enron’d my ass. And now, if I don’t work, we die. Why else do you think I’m performing seven and a half months pregnant?posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:18 AM on November 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
To quote Frank Herbert:
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Swap in large corporations for government, greed for violence.
posted by KaizenSoze at 10:21 AM on November 30, 2018 [17 favorites]
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Swap in large corporations for government, greed for violence.
posted by KaizenSoze at 10:21 AM on November 30, 2018 [17 favorites]
It's frustrating seeing all this backlash aimed at Sandberg when Zuckerberg is even more responsible. But you can't fire Zuck, he owns all the voting rights.
posted by Nelson at 10:35 AM on November 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 10:35 AM on November 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Needs entitled white privilege tag.
posted by infini at 10:36 AM on November 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 10:36 AM on November 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Since the 'revelation' that FB hired the Definers Public Affairs firm for opposition PR against Soros, it's become public that Sandberg specifically requested staff to research Soros as a potential short-seller after his Davos speech.
Given “I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have,” wrote Sandberg sounded like a lot of bullshit (especially if, like me, you heard it from the horse's mouth on an NPR affiliate), this sure undermines Sandberg's credibility.
It would appear that FB treats any powerful or credible source of opposition as an enemy to be destroyed. Not that it feels like a shock. The club is bigger now, and they have better by-laws to use against the complete psychopaths, but the Wall Street managerial class has had this reputation for decades.
posted by cult_url_bias at 10:36 AM on November 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Given “I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have,” wrote Sandberg sounded like a lot of bullshit (especially if, like me, you heard it from the horse's mouth on an NPR affiliate), this sure undermines Sandberg's credibility.
It would appear that FB treats any powerful or credible source of opposition as an enemy to be destroyed. Not that it feels like a shock. The club is bigger now, and they have better by-laws to use against the complete psychopaths, but the Wall Street managerial class has had this reputation for decades.
posted by cult_url_bias at 10:36 AM on November 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
The American economic elite breeds sociopaths, and American business culture rewards them - it's not a head-scratcher.
But maybe it is if you think of leveraging Nazism for profit as "a pickle".
posted by ryanshepard at 10:39 AM on November 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
But maybe it is if you think of leveraging Nazism for profit as "a pickle".
posted by ryanshepard at 10:39 AM on November 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
As much as I love Herbert, he's really wrong here. It is that power corrupts. The idea that there are just Bad People out there is comforting because it lets us believe we're Good and would never do anything like they do, and that all we Goods have to do is eliminate the Bads. But history is full of truly well-intentioned people, or even just regular people, who get corrupted by power. You could say that they were all corruptible since they took power, but that's begging the question.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:40 AM on November 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
As much as I love Herbert, he's really wrong here. It is that power corrupts. The idea that there are just Bad People out there is comforting because it lets us believe we're Good and would never do anything like they do, and that all we Goods have to do is eliminate the Bads. But history is full of truly well-intentioned people, or even just regular people, who get corrupted by power. You could say that they were all corruptible since they took power, but that's begging the question.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:40 AM on November 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
It would appear that [all for-profit corporations and entrenched interests] treat any powerful or credible source of opposition as an enemy to be destroyed
posted by overeducated_alligator at 11:37 AM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 11:37 AM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's frustrating seeing all this backlash aimed at Sandberg when Zuckerberg is even more responsible.
In a root-cause sense, this is correct, but did you miss the part where Sandberg said she knew nothing about Definers, but then she kinda did, and then she kinda told people specifically to look into Soros? Sounds like she deserves plenty of backlash.
posted by tclark at 11:44 AM on November 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
In a root-cause sense, this is correct, but did you miss the part where Sandberg said she knew nothing about Definers, but then she kinda did, and then she kinda told people specifically to look into Soros? Sounds like she deserves plenty of backlash.
posted by tclark at 11:44 AM on November 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
America’s esteemed managerial class
Ahahahahahahaha
posted by enn at 11:57 AM on November 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Ahahahahahahaha
posted by enn at 11:57 AM on November 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Power attracts pathological personalities.
It is that power corrupts.
Little of Column A, little of Column B. Some frameworks for choosing those who exercise authority are accidentally vulnerable to exploitation by pathological personalities; some frameworks are more or less designed to corrupt everyone who enters them, or at least to socialize them into protecting the status quo rather than reforming it. Many are both.
Sometimes I'm very open to the idea of universal sortition.
posted by Iridic at 12:09 PM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
It is that power corrupts.
Little of Column A, little of Column B. Some frameworks for choosing those who exercise authority are accidentally vulnerable to exploitation by pathological personalities; some frameworks are more or less designed to corrupt everyone who enters them, or at least to socialize them into protecting the status quo rather than reforming it. Many are both.
Sometimes I'm very open to the idea of universal sortition.
posted by Iridic at 12:09 PM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was disgusted with Lean In and remember thinking 'Is there anything this lady won't monetize?' when she published the book about her husband dying. Great to have my irrational dislike justified!
posted by orrnyereg at 12:21 PM on November 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by orrnyereg at 12:21 PM on November 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
There's the third option: that many if not all power hierarchies active select for those who are willing to do whatever is required to stay there. Whatever is required, whether it's House of Cards level ruthless or Veep level pathetic. The people who have a limit drop out, and that leaves those who don't have one in charge.
posted by AdamCSnider at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by AdamCSnider at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
So two thoughts about this. I got my MBA from a school that wasn't Harvard, but we certainly used a lot of their case studies. I recall them as being fairly informative and educational. Some of them were designed to have single right answers (especially in finance) while others were meant to generate discussion about how to make a decision. Maybe my school used them differently than Harvard, but the description of case studies in this article was nothing like what I recall.
Now leadership, on the other hand, was always something I was deeply skeptical about. The entire field lacked any kind of rigor, and the people espousing it always seemed like they were naive, selling something, or sociopaths. Even now in my career, where I actually lead teams of people, I see leadership as it was discussed in business school as a weird fiction.
posted by fremen at 4:31 PM on November 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Now leadership, on the other hand, was always something I was deeply skeptical about. The entire field lacked any kind of rigor, and the people espousing it always seemed like they were naive, selling something, or sociopaths. Even now in my career, where I actually lead teams of people, I see leadership as it was discussed in business school as a weird fiction.
posted by fremen at 4:31 PM on November 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
When I read that Zuckerberg had nicknamed FaceBook headquarters "The Bunker", I thought it was merely a joke in bad taste, not a business plan.
posted by jamjam at 5:21 PM on November 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 5:21 PM on November 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Now leadership, on the other hand, was always something I was deeply skeptical about.
And you should be, because the whole thing isn't that hard. I can distill more than an entire decade's worth of study and application, including one graduate degree, into two four-word statements: Don't be a dick. Be nice to people.
That is literally it. If you are not a dick, meaning you aren't trying to dick people over, which generally means trying to get anyone to do anything that is obviously against their own best interests, you will build trust. People will follow you, and do what you want them to do, if they trust you. That's like 80% of leadership in literally any situation. The other 20% is covered by being nice to people, which includes acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations as well as your own, not having unrealistic expectations, and forgiving people for their mistakes.
That there is an entire industry built around "leadership" is, in my opinion and after much consideration, largely because there are so many people in positions of power who are absolutely incapable of doing this sort of stuff naturally, or really at all, without a huge amount of coaching and hand-holding and coating it in all sorts of explanations so their fragile egos aren't shattered by the realization that their leadership failures are largely due to the fact that they're gigantic suppurating assholes.
Now, I have not worked with Cheryl Sandberg, and I believe pretty firmly that the people best positioned to judge anyone's ability to lead are the people who have to follow them. But one does get a lot of bad vibes. Blaming your subordinates for doing something without your knowledge, when you clearly should have known—and therefore are responsible regardless, so why cast shade on your own people?—is generally a huge red flag that you're dealing with an asshole that's grown legs and arms and a head. Not conclusive, but the index of suspicion starts to go up.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:24 PM on November 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
And you should be, because the whole thing isn't that hard. I can distill more than an entire decade's worth of study and application, including one graduate degree, into two four-word statements: Don't be a dick. Be nice to people.
That is literally it. If you are not a dick, meaning you aren't trying to dick people over, which generally means trying to get anyone to do anything that is obviously against their own best interests, you will build trust. People will follow you, and do what you want them to do, if they trust you. That's like 80% of leadership in literally any situation. The other 20% is covered by being nice to people, which includes acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations as well as your own, not having unrealistic expectations, and forgiving people for their mistakes.
That there is an entire industry built around "leadership" is, in my opinion and after much consideration, largely because there are so many people in positions of power who are absolutely incapable of doing this sort of stuff naturally, or really at all, without a huge amount of coaching and hand-holding and coating it in all sorts of explanations so their fragile egos aren't shattered by the realization that their leadership failures are largely due to the fact that they're gigantic suppurating assholes.
Now, I have not worked with Cheryl Sandberg, and I believe pretty firmly that the people best positioned to judge anyone's ability to lead are the people who have to follow them. But one does get a lot of bad vibes. Blaming your subordinates for doing something without your knowledge, when you clearly should have known—and therefore are responsible regardless, so why cast shade on your own people?—is generally a huge red flag that you're dealing with an asshole that's grown legs and arms and a head. Not conclusive, but the index of suspicion starts to go up.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:24 PM on November 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
CEOs have never been more idolized. 5 experts explain why that’s a problem.
5 Scientific Reasons Powerful People Will Always Suck
Power turns you into an asshole. It just does. It gets you HIGH and nobody will stop you and you can do what you want. How can anyone get any power and not turn into an asshole? I don't think too many people can withstand that high.
On a related note, I randomly came across this video yesterday (warning: mentions of astrology if that cheeses you off) about how good people should try to seek out power to do good things, and I was thinking, but how do you get power and STAY good?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:26 PM on November 30, 2018
5 Scientific Reasons Powerful People Will Always Suck
Power turns you into an asshole. It just does. It gets you HIGH and nobody will stop you and you can do what you want. How can anyone get any power and not turn into an asshole? I don't think too many people can withstand that high.
On a related note, I randomly came across this video yesterday (warning: mentions of astrology if that cheeses you off) about how good people should try to seek out power to do good things, and I was thinking, but how do you get power and STAY good?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:26 PM on November 30, 2018
Ian Bogost:
Sandberg has an impossible task. She was hired to be “the adult in the room,” that much is true. But that epithet has been interpreted too literally and without guile. It was never really meant to involve deepening the sophistication with which Facebook understands “community” or “connecting people.” Her job was to make the company profitable, and she did.
But a public that would be so shocked and confused that a top executive at a top-five global corporation would do whatever it takes to develop and preserve wealth and power for her firm and herself betrays a naïveté no less embarrassing than Zuckerberg’s idealism and optimism.
posted by mecran01 at 12:17 AM on December 1, 2018
Sandberg has an impossible task. She was hired to be “the adult in the room,” that much is true. But that epithet has been interpreted too literally and without guile. It was never really meant to involve deepening the sophistication with which Facebook understands “community” or “connecting people.” Her job was to make the company profitable, and she did.
But a public that would be so shocked and confused that a top executive at a top-five global corporation would do whatever it takes to develop and preserve wealth and power for her firm and herself betrays a naïveté no less embarrassing than Zuckerberg’s idealism and optimism.
posted by mecran01 at 12:17 AM on December 1, 2018
a public that would be so shocked and confused that a top executive at a top-five global corporation would [engage in villainy] betrays a naïveté no less embarrassing than Zuckerberg’s idealism and optimism
Sometimes expressing 'shock' and 'dismay' is part of delineating and reinforcing the norms of what counts as acceptable conduct. But Bogost's argument, that it should be taken for granted that corruption will happen if there's potential gain from it, is right (as long as it is accompanied by the conclusion that therefore regulatory steps need to be taken to preempt corruption and outweigh incentives for it).
posted by trig at 4:41 AM on December 1, 2018
Sometimes expressing 'shock' and 'dismay' is part of delineating and reinforcing the norms of what counts as acceptable conduct. But Bogost's argument, that it should be taken for granted that corruption will happen if there's potential gain from it, is right (as long as it is accompanied by the conclusion that therefore regulatory steps need to be taken to preempt corruption and outweigh incentives for it).
posted by trig at 4:41 AM on December 1, 2018
UK Parliament releases Six4Three documents
Possibly FPP-worthy, but this thread was still open.
posted by rhizome at 11:08 AM on December 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Possibly FPP-worthy, but this thread was still open.
posted by rhizome at 11:08 AM on December 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
« Older Rectangle after Rectangle | Nora K. Jemisin wants to talk about cities Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Sangermaine at 10:17 AM on November 30, 2018 [9 favorites]