Mark Zuckerberg Manages to Turn His Frown Upside Down
A salvaged public image, strong new products and a recovered stock price have pulled the Meta founder out of the doldrums.
Mark Zuckerberg is having fun again.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Though the fines levied on Meta Platforms Inc. over the past few years have reached into the billions of dollars, I’ve long felt the greater punishment for Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg was the paralysis his company endured. A dorky engineer at heart, Zuckerberg appeared ill equipped and disinterested in playing the diplomatic role needed to pull the social network’s reputation up from the gutter.
It meant efforts to innovate collapsed under the weight of Meta’s lousy reputation. Consider the company’s Portal video chat device. Released in 2018, it was a well-priced, extremely user-friendly product. It was met with howls of laughter: Facebook wants to put a camera in my house now? Are they serious?