The Amazing Transformation of Mark Zuckerberg

I've never met the guy, but my mental construct of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or "Zuck" as I call him for short in my imagination) has gone through some wild transformations over the past decade.

Back in Facebook's early days, I saw him as a hoodie-clad college dropout on a quest to conquer the newly minted "social media" world with his beautifully minimalistic, hand-coded platform. Then, after suffering through some of the young CEO's awkward early public appearances, my admiration faltered, and I began to wonder if this kid stumbled into excellence.

A little later, the stories arose about his sketchy-ish early business dealings (which were even portrayed in a major Hollywood film. Perhaps you've seen it?). These tales, coupled with details of his (initial) devil-may-care approach to privacy, soured my portrait of Zuck. In my mind, he became just another ruthless Silicon Valley jerk driven by the pursuit of power.  A little later, Facebook's IPO would finally transfer Zuck into the multi-billionaire he dreamed of becoming, and as far as I could tell, he spent his free time and money pursuing completely unnecessary rich guy challenges.

I hope he had fun with all that.

But over the past year or so, my view of Zuck has taken yet another turn. I've been particularly intrigued by the public conversations Zuck has initiated that eschew the normal don't-rock-the-boat public face of most chief executives. Whether these proclamations of decency are calculated, genuine, or even self-initiated, my new view of Zuck is of a man who publicly advocates for human progress.

This advocacy streak was materialized most recently in Zuck's scolding of his overwhelmingly white staff about the repeated defacing of "Black Lives Matter" notes on a wall in the company's headquarters with the all-too-often spouted retort of "all lives matter."

In response, Zuck wrote an internal memo which stated, in part, how "I was very disappointed by this disrespectful behavior before, but after my communication I now consider this malicious as well." He went on to say "'Black lives matter' doesn't mean other lives don't—it's simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve."

Good on you, Zuck.

While this type of communication may, on its face, seem like a CEO attempting to save his company from potentially sticky HR problem, it also shows a genuine appreciation for the greater issue. This idea is further reinforced when taken in context of other recent public stances. You can start to appreciate a pattern.

One missive that particularly caught my attention was a note from December of last year published in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and the growing refugee crisis. The note was specifically targeted towards the Muslim community, which was facing a rhetorical (and occasionally violent) blowback throughout the West.

In the post, he wrote:

After the Paris attacks and hate this week, I can only imagine the fear Muslims feel that they will be persecuted for the actions of others.

As a Jew, my parents taught me that we must stand up against attacks on all communities. Even if an attack isn't against you today, in time attacks on freedom for anyone will hurt everyone.

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If you're a Muslim in this community, as the leader of Facebook I want you to know that you are always welcome here and that we will fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you.

Yet another recent Zuckism that caught my attention took place within the confines of a Facebook post detailing his latest annual challenge: to build "a simple AI to run my home." While that goal is a cool little billionaire hobby, I was personally touched by the conversation which occurred below the fold.

As he often does on his posts, Zuck takes a few minutes to respond to questions and comments in the reply section. One grandmother replied (sic) "I keep telling my grand daughters to Date the nerd in school, he may turn out to be a Mark Zuckerberg!..." In response, Zuck wrote "Even better would be to encourage them to 'be' the nerd in their school so they can be the next successful inventor!" The response spawned the ensuing hashtag #BeTheNerd.

It could be that these recent positions are strictly calculated business decisions meant to enhance the scope of a company that offers a product internationally. Profit by inclusion. I don't even know if these posts are penned by Zuckerberg himself or by a talented ghost writer he keeps on staff. For all I know, these positions could be the result of years of focus-grouping, designed to pinpoint things that will appeal to tech writers to inspire them to write positive stories.

Regardless of whether there's any smoke and mirrors involved, the result has been an evolution in my own personal imagining of Zuck. And for the first time in a while, I've become very interested in where he'll go next.