Don't Like Facebook? Here's What the Author of "Zucked" Thinks

Can organizations cure society’s problems or just make them worse?

For Roger McNamee, the answer is clear regarding Facebook and other social media platforms.

Worse.

“This is a story about trust,” McNamee writes early in the pages of his new book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. “Technology platforms, including Facebook and Google, are the beneficiaries of trust and goodwill accumulated over fifty years by earlier generations of technology companies. They have taken advantage of our trust, using sophisticated techniques to prey on the weakest aspects of human psychology…”

A venture capitalist and angel investor, McNamee made crucial early investments in Facebook along with serving as a mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, who at the time was struggling to decide if he should sell the company or run it himself.

McNamee was also instrumental in introducing Zuckerberg to Sheryl Sandberg, who took the reins as Facebook's COO in 2008.

But his role as one of Facebook's champions changed when he saw a surge in vitriolic posts and images right before the U.S. presidential election of 2016 and realized the social media giant wasn't helping American democracy but contributing to its destruction.

"Facebook," he writes, "has managed to connect 2.2 billion people and drive them apart at the same time."

McNamee will discuss his new book on March 9 with Drucker School of Management Dean Jenny Darroch at this year's Drucker Day, an annual event celebrating the philosophy of the late Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.

This year's Drucker Day welcomes a distinguished group of speakers from the worlds of tech, entertainment, and healthcare.

In addition to McNamee, other Drucker Day participants will include:

• CNN contributor and global business executive Ryan Patel
• President/CEO of Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center Richard Yochum
• 20th Century Fox Senior Vice President of Consumer Insights and Innovation Bettina Sherick
• World Health Organization’s Walt Johnson
• and several others.

Drucker Day is open to the public, but registration is required. More than 300 people are expected to attend this year’s event, which will be held in the Bridges Hall of Music, 150 E. 4th Street, Claremont, CA 91711

More information can be found at:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drucker-day-2019-a-spotlight-on-organizationsand-their-leadersthat-contribute-to-a-functioning-tickets-53820094351