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Jul. 10, 2021 04:08PM EST
"An Ugly Truth" gives sneak peek as Zuckerberg becomes wartime leader
Mark Zuckerberg surprised a council of top Facebook executives in July 2018 by declaring: "Up until now, I’ve been a peacetime leader ... That’s going to change."
Driving the news: The account appears in a closely held book that'll be out Tuesday, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination," by the N.Y. Times' Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang.
The group, the authors write, "had endured eighteen months of one bad news cycle after another. They had been forced to defend Facebook to their friends, family, and angry employees. Most of them had little to do with the controversies over election disinformation and Cambridge Analytica."
- The book says Zuckerberg had been influenced by ideas in "What You Do Is Who You Are," by Ben Horowitz — who's half of Andreessen Horowitz, the VC firm that invested early in Facebook, along with Marc Andreessen, Zuckerberg’s friend and a Facebook board member:
Horowitz argues that at various stages of development, tech companies demand two kinds of CEOs: wartime and peacetime leaders. In periods of peace, he writes, a company can focus on expanding and reinforcing its strengths. In times of war, the threats are existential, and the company has to hunker down to fight for survival.
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From that day forward, Zuckerberg continued, he was taking on the role of wartime CEO. He would assume more direct control over all aspects of the business. He could no longer sequester himself to focus only on new products. More decisions would fall to him.
Facebook tells Axios that Zuckerberg instructed leaders they’d have to be more decisive, and would need to move forward even when there wasn't a clear consensus. His view was that it was wartime, and he needed to run the company as a wartime CEO.
Go deeper: Read a N.Y. Times adaptation.
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Aug. 22, 2021 02:05PM EST
Biden recess plan omits Afghanistan
The White House is downplaying Afghanistan in outside-the-Beltway events during the August congressional recess, hoping voters will pay more attention to President Biden's big spending plans.
Why it matters: Democrats privately fear political blowback, even though the White House insists voters aren't talking about the Kabul calamity.
What they're saying: White House senior adviser Neera Tanden didn't mention Afghanistan once when Axios asked her how much the events of the past week will affect what Biden can accomplish on the Hill.
- "We developed our plan around August recess in July," she said. "We planned for a cadence of multiple events a week around Build Back Better and infrastructure and we have been operationalizing that plan and will continue to do so."
- "So we’re going to continue that work, and this agenda is important to the public."
Between the lines: The Atlantic's Peter Nicholas argued in a piece published Friday titled, "Biden Is Betting Americans Will Forget About Afghanistan," that the White House is "relying on Americans’ notoriously short-term memory."
- The White House insists that Democratic lawmakers are excited to have Cabinet members hosting events in their districts around infrastructure, climate and energy, health care and the economy.
- But communications strategiescan only do so much amid the reality and images emerging from Afghanistan.
Behind the scenes: Since joining the White House in May as senior adviser to Biden, Tanden has kept a low profile. But her role, after losing a confirmation fight to be Biden's budget director, is setting her up to have outsized power in helping sell the president's agenda.
- When Tanden helped create the White House plan for selling Democrats' agenda during the August recess, Afghanistan wasn't among the policy priorities to discuss with voters. It still isn't.
Aides are tracking whether opposition surfaces at vulnerable House Democrats' town halls and district event this month.
- "There are numerous components of Build Back Better that are incredibly popular amongst Republicans," Tanden told Axios.
- "It’s challenging for them to create the kind of energy they did in past eras," she added, pointing out that the White House is seeing nothing like the emotionalism around the Affordable Care Act during former President Obama's first term.
According to internal White House documents obtained by Axios, aides have tracked 18 town halls or events with Democratic lawmakers this month.
- At least sixwere virtual or by phone. So while the White House says there's been "no organized opposition" from angry Republicans, as seen in past August recesses, that would be hard to know.
- An event with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) allowed only written questions — and those weren’t documented. Instead, a White House document notes that the senator "discussed infrastructure."
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