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Mark Zuckerberg Votes To Keep Peter Thiel On Facebook Board (gizmodo.com)
Mark Zuckerberg has decided to keep billionaire VC Peter Thiel on Facebook's board of directors. The decision comes after weeks of controversy over whether it was appropriate for billionaire Thiel, who recently admitted to secretly funding a campaign of third-party lawsuits to bankrupt Gawker Media (more relevant but paywalled link, to remain on the board of a company that now plays such a powerful role in publishing. From a Gizmodo report: At Facebook's annual shareholders meeting today, every board member was up for re-election. The decision was made by shareholder vote, but ultimately fell to Zuckerberg, who controls more than 60 percent of the total voting power on the Facebook board.
Well then, it wasn't really up to a vote then was it?
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"who recently admitted to secretly funding a campaign of third-party lawsuits to bankrupt Gawker Media"
Peter Thiel never admitted that, according to the articles linked. It was Jay Rosen, media critic and a professor of journalism at New York University who stated that opinion.
Also, half the links are from Gawker, which is obviously not an impartial actor in this spectacle.
I guess reporting on board positions isn't that exciting without spicing it up with gossipy speculation of a person's motives.
Am I the only one who thinks it's wrong to scrutinize what people do during their own time, and then use that information to decide how they are to be treated on company time? If the shareholders are fine with the way Thiel is performing in his official Facebook role, that should be the only criteria. If he is doing a bad job and damaging Facebook in any way, he should be fired for that reason and only that reason.
I didn't like the way that prior Mozilla executive was treated either. His performance at Mozilla should have been his only employment criteria. What he did to be active in politics during his own time was no one else's business.
Anything else, and you get a very nasty "snitch" culture where conformity is everything and a tremendous chilling effect is applied to what really should be free expression.
So now we begin the purge of everyone with politics someone doesn't like? Is that how this is going to be? Decades of tolerance, but now we just throw that out the window for modern day purges?
The lawsuit only bankrupted Gawker because THEY DID WRONG AND IGNORED A COURT ORDER. They also basically admitted to being pedophiles that would publish sex tapes of anyone over FOUR. If they'd faced meritless suits, it'd be Thiel that would run out of money because yes, you can be declared a vexatious litigant and you can be liable for both court costs and reasonable attorneys fees depending on the judge's ruling and the specific type of lawsuit.
And... let's just ignore that this is exactly what the ACLU, etc. does. I don't see why "help the victims of Gawker" isn't a worthy cause as it fights to protect our privacy rights. But noooo, various scumbags in the media who love to sell out our privacy can't possibly support the idea that they might have to pay for their wrongdoing.
I hope he sues and bankrupts more scumbag, pedophile media outlets. The world would be a better place if more of them were in the unemployment line.
I love how all these guys sit on each others' boards of directors. A corporate board is supposed to put shareholders first. Instead, they vote each other huge raises, make sure the C-level execs are compensated like fucking Midas and have a big jerk-off circle when it comes to laying off employees.
Is there any reason why it should be legal to sit on the board of directors of more than one company?
You are welcome on my lawn.
It was a valid lawsuit. I could see hating on someone if they were funding a long, drug out, suit with lots of delay tactics over nothing to try and force a settlement or bankrupt the other side. However the Hogan suit went to trial, and Hogan won in short order.
I don't see anything bad with someone funding a legitimate suit.
It's not a democracy, it's a corporation that offered shares to the public on its own terms, and the public bought them.
Those shares were offered with full disclosure that there were multiple classes of shares with different voting powers. Anyone who bought Facebook shares thinking that they could outvote Zuckerberg, prior to him selling a sufficient number of control-voting shares third parties to lose his majority voting power, was simply fooling themselves.
It's Gawker who wanted to be able to get away with their crimes and hopes that nobody helps their victims get access to justice.
The fact that justice is so expensive is not really an excuse for their crimes.
I mean, they bragged about how they'd publish a sex tape of anyone over 4 in court. Frankly, they belong in jail as they're the types who believe they have some right to violate our privacy for money.