As Facebook stands set to file for its historic initial public giving, CEO Mark Zuckerberg faces some pretty monumental leadership demands. There are the interior ones: Retaining newly minted millionaires. Keeping workers centered on nice product, instead of simply high stock costs. Hanging on to a startup vibe and an entrepreneurial feel when the social network company balloons in size.
But Zuckerberg also will confront a bunch of tough challenges with customers, too. For one, the corporate has long infuriated its users when changes to its privacy policy are created with very little fanfare. as a result of Facebook was a young startup company, users were angry when such modifications passed off, however appeared willing to absolve the corporate and move on. If there’s a way that such moves are being created solely to extend profits, profit Wall Street and boost share costs at the expense of shoppers, however, users can be abundant less forgiving.
Second, Zuckerberg himself are faced with a shift in how he’s expected to manage external relations. this is often already an especially wealthy young man who doesn't precisely have a name for being heat and fuzzy. he's near to get exponentially wealthier. Yes, he created a colossal gift to education reform and appears alittle a lot of willing to open up concerning his life with the press. however joined of the few, if only, current public company CEOs to possess been the star of an unflattering Oscar-winning film concerning him and therefore the founding of his company, expect Zuckerberg to be asked to try to to a lot of reaching out to users and therefore the public to assist soften his image.
Finally, Zuckerberg might ruffle feathers with users if they’re not let in on the IPO action. When Google went public in 2004, the corporate held an uncommon Dutch auction vogue IPO that allowed the general public to participate, albeit the method itself wasn’t terribly swish. Some are speculating that Facebook might do constant, or a minimum of do thus for its 800 million users. this is often a corporation, after all, whose power is made on the very fact that every one those many folks are willing to post their baby footage, “like” their favorite businesses and share their most intimate thoughts so marketers will spin and advertise to them. you'll be able to see how they may wish to get one thing in come back.
Being the CEO of a public company may be a terribly completely different job than being an entrepreneur of a privately held startup. There are needs from the SEC, of course. however there also are heightened, if less scripted, expectations that you simply are a lot of open and clear along with your|along with your} customers currently that you simply should be thus with your public investors, too.
This is particularly the case with Facebook. The company’s power is in its users’ willingness to share, to open up, to inform the globe what they're thinking, doing and probably shopping for. If Facebook goes public and its CEO doesn’t give constant quite transparency with its customers it's currently expected to supply its investors, it can be even a lot of troublesome for a corporation essentially engineered on the premise of sharing.