Facebook Shareholders Urge Company To Replace Mark Zuckerberg With 'Independent' Board Chair (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader shares a VentureBeat report: Facebook is being pressured by a group of shareholders seeking the removal of company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg from the board of the directors. A proposal has been put forward claiming that an independent chairperson would be better able to "oversee the executives of the company, improve corporate governance, and set a more accountable, pro-shareholder agenda." The idea for Zuckerberg's board ousting comes from Facebook shareholders who are members of the consumer watchdog group SumOfUs. The organization bills itself as an online community that campaigns to hold corporations accountable on a variety of global issues such as climate change, workers' rights, discrimination, human rights, corruption, and corporate power grab.

Comments

Pro Shareholder Agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not anti-capitalist, but I am anti publicly traded companies as they exist today. Corporations should focus on their employees and their customers, not shareholders.

Re:Pro Shareholder Agenda

[rwven]

Yup. Any agenda put forth by share holders with political goals in mind should be shut down hard.

Being political with your business is a great way to win over the worst kinds of customers, tick off governments, and offend/lose your core user base.

How about Facebook sticks to being a social network?

Re:Shareholders are Powerless

[phantomfive]

I'm not sure it's a bad thing. The Wall Street Journal definitely agrees with you, but it essentially limits people like Mitt Romney and George Soros from buying companies, ripping them apart and selling them off in pieces. If you're a public company (that is not Apple or Google), and you have a reasonable amount of money in the bank for a rainy day, and own the property your offices are on, then you're going to be constantly fighting off 'activist' groups that will try to buy your company, take the money, sell the property, then dump the company. It adds huge operational risk to companies that are trying to do better.