Having spent a couple of years at Facebook, I was honestly surprised by how different Zuckerberg is vs the outside perception. Now, I wasn't part of his inner circle or whatever, but in his weekly Q&As he came off very thoughtful, well-rounded, human, at times opinionated, and willing to engage on any topic. He fought to keep the weekly sessions going despite the leaks, something Google gave up on as I understand. Zuck has his faults, but a robotic, non-empathetic humanoid he is not. He struck me as a strong introvert that over time got comfortable communicating with his growing organization. I don't think he's ever gotten comfortable communicating with the rest of the world (and admitted as much). Ironic that he's in charge of a communication service.
I hate Facebook more than most people, but I have to admit that I can believe this.
I noticed that the news always seems to go out of its way to find inhuman-looking badly-tinted photos of him making strange expressions. Lately he's become something of a scapegoat IMO, probably because an introverted billionaire with some creepy tendencies/background makes such an easy target.
This is one of the heuristics I use to judge the trustworthiness of newspapers and magazines: do they choose photos of people that make them look like idiots? If so, their bias may show up in more subtle ways, too. Whatever you think about the possibility of objective journalism, an editor can do better than choosing a demeaning photo of someone they don't like.
It is a well known open secret in the newspaper industry that if you want to make sure they use a bad photo of you, just be a jerk to one of the journalists. They talk to the photographers.
The reaction from most was to call him lame or approval hungry, but my thought was, “That is SO cool and badass and I have misunderstood this man completely.”
