Granted, it might be a concern that he would use his position to help his company, which is why officials usually have to put their assets in a blind trust.
He would still have to get elected first, though. So if you're basically expecting that he's going to be corrupt, then don't vote for him and encourage others not to.
And to put it in context, powerful businessmen with no prior gov't experience are now emboldened to run for the highest office (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-dimon-idUSKBN...) which, as an aside, doesn't require putting your assets in a blind trust.
At the end of the day, Facebook almost reaches 2 billion people. Good luck beating that and a net worth of $50 billion.
"Technically" it would be a massive conflict of interest and probably illegal.
Having someone own/control/influence a major chunk of the media establishment and also have public responsibility is a pretty serious problem.
5th estate needs to be separate from the others :)
No such obligation exists for most elected officials, though, of course, the perception of doing otherwise may make reelection less likely.
It's worth keeping in mind that some of America's founding fathers were also among the wealthiest people in the country (e.g. John Hancock).
So, the 'wealthy' was a significantly less elite group. Basically, the top 1,000 people back then where the equivalent of the top 100,000 people now, not the top 1,000.
I found the near deification of Internet/Tech entrepreneurs, like Musk, Zuckerberg and others deeply annoying at best.
Selling the idea they could be the providential leaders we "need", and that they could solve every single issue of our (quite complex) societies, is just disturbing...
Not to mention the latent conflicts of interest which can occur...
1) Reveals he is no longer an atheist (http://nypost.com/2017/01/02/mark-zuckerberg-reveals-hes-no-...) 2) 2017 New Years goal to meet people in every 50 state (http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-personal-goal...)
etc.
[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/09/mark-zuckerberg-may-be-eyeing...
It's pretty clear that the Trump election has changed the calculus quite a bit in this regard. I expect to see more celebrity candidates going forward, at least in the near term.
What's this based on?
I thought the complaint was if Trump had merely taken the 'small loan of one million dollars' and invested it in the S&P500, he would have made more money. That is, he is worse at growing wealth than the stock market average.
Seems like tech or internet balkanization is coming fast.
Why might it be bad? Why might it be good?
There are so many factors. For one, I'd rather have someone in government who understands technology. So many parts of government are lacking in basic technical capability.
On the other hand, I find Facebook's awareness of the social fabric to be somewhere between inchoate (that's charitable) and a convenient illusion that is fundamentally mostly marketing-driven. (I don't fault a company for being market-driven; however, such incentives are not structured to properly serve people and communities).
But I don't know too much about Facebook's social design as compared to Zuck's goals for possibly serving in government or where he would like Facebook to go.
Tech companies controlled directly by us politicians will probably make this existing backlash worse.
I don't think you concerns about balkanization are unfounded by I'm curious why you have that concern in the context of this specific story. Can you elaborate?
Basically he wants to retain control of facebook while running for office, I cant imagine this go over well with certain other countries. Especially ones sensitive to nsa leaks, it would just have incredibly poor optics, and just increase the balkanization occuring already.
Politicians have a lot of levers to shape media coverage without owning one of the largest sources of information in the modern world.
ZUCK 2020
The prospect of a global surveillance apparatus is chilling though, and Zuckerberg already has one of those - albeit with voluntary participation. Digital privacy is a major fault line in emerging politics, and Zuckerberg is one of my bete noires in this area.
IMO, Mark's setting himself up to be Hegemon of Earth: http://enderverse.wikia.com/wiki/Hegemony
[1] http://favobooks.com/enterpreneurs/90-zuckerberg.html
[2] https://qz.com/532834/mark-zuckerbergs-20-minute-speech-in-c...
Zuck is also setting himself up for President, which is a little egoist. That said, anyone thinking that is on some level ...
