Keller @ Large: Mark Zuckerberg's Impact Is Nothing To Brag About
BOSTON (CBS) - The weather wasn't the only thing that was miserable at Harvard's commencement Thursday.
Unfortunately, Harvard booked one of the more miserable public figures in American life today as its main speaker, Mark Zuckerberg, the altruistic but clueless billionaire Harvard dropout who turned a stolen idea for an online social network into the Facebook goldmine.
"I'm here to tell you finding your purpose isn't enough," Zuckerberg told the soggy graduates. "The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose…. To keep our society moving forward, we have a generational challenge -- to not only create new jobs, but create a renewed sense of purpose."
What does that mean?
I think it means Zuckerberg sees himself as a force for constructive social change. But the way he has run his company has instead modeled greed and carelessness.
Facebook's indifference to privacy concerns has been well-documented. They have experimented with manipulating their customers in some truly evil ways.
And they've rushed to squeeze profits out of their products without much thought given to the misuse of them by frauds, pornographers, murderers and rapists.
And then there's fake news, the massive manipulation of Facebook by purveyors of lies and slander, a reality Zuckerberg initially tried to deny rather than spend the money to fix the problem.
"My hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact," Zuckerberg said Thursday.
Yeah buddy, you've made an impact alright.
And it's really nothing to brag about.
Listen to Jon's commentary: