For those who have been watching Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg for years (as I have); each year Zuck creates a personal challenge for growth. Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 challenge is specifically focused on his company — very different from recent challenges – visit all 50 states, learn Mandarin, read lots of books. From Zuckerberg’s post:
For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands. (The first four words of Facebook’s mission have always been “give people the power”.) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force.
But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.
There are important counter-trends to this –like encryption and cryptocurrency — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.
Here is coverage of Zuckerberg’s challenge and its attempt to avoid government interference — from TechCrunch (Romain Dillet) and CNBC (Michelle Castillo).
Here is an article from Fast Company on some of Zuckerberg’s personal self improvement goals from the past.
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