These Tech Leaders Hate Facebook

Dhir Acharya - Jul 19, 2019


These Tech Leaders Hate Facebook

Facebook has had a bad 2018 and 2019. And tech leaders hate the company so much they either regret their contribution to it or want to break it up.

2018 was a terrible year for Facebook and 2019 hasn’t been better up to now. And it’s no one’s fault, the social giant has done all this to itself, or more specific – Mark Zuckerberg. It appears that tech icons don’t hesitate to express their thoughts at all.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO

And the following are those who recently publicly criticized the company for the addictiveness, privacy violations, its failure to limit fake news, etc.

Steve Wozniak

Just over a week ago, the co-founder of Apple criticized Facebook for making profits from user data. Additionally, he advised people to stop using the platform if they care about their privacy.

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Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder

Brian Acton

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year, the co-founder of WhatsApp urged everyone to delete Facebook. Months later, during an interview, Acton said that he left the social giant due to Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s pressure as the two wanted to reduce the strength of the app’s encryption to make money from it.

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Brian Acton, WhatsApp's co-founder

Jan Koum

Also a co-founder of WhatsApp, it took Koum just a few months to leave the company after Acton did. Although he was cordial in front of the public during the split, rumors said that he resigned for the same reason with the other co-founder.

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Jan Koum, WhatsApp's co-founder

Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom

These two are the co-founders of Instagram, who left the app in late 2018 without revealing their reasons. Nevertheless, based on the timing as well as Acton’s previous comments, the reasons were assumed to be round Facebook’s intention to take advantage of user data.

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Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Instagram's co-founders

Tim Cook

He recently said that it’s offensive just to think about someone profiling you and everyone else. The Apple CEO said:

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Tim Cook, Apple's CEO

Roger McNamee

This is one of Facebook’s early investors, who also told Zuckerberg not to accept the $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo at the time. Initially considering himself a mentor to Zuckerberg, McNamee became among the first to talk with Zuckerberg and Sandberg about his concern over potential election interference. However, they ignored him.

In January 2019, he wrote in Time magazine that:

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Roger McNamee, Facebook's early investor

Chris Hughes

This is one of the most important insiders of Facebook that turned on the company. Hughes was not only Zuckerberg’s university roommate, but he was also there when the firm was founded and became its spokesman in its early years. However, since then, he has stated that the company needs breaking up for everyone’s good.

Earlier this year, Hughes wrote:

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Chris Hughes, former Facebook's spokesperson

Sean Parker

Parker is the founding president of Facebook, and just a couple of years ago, he admitted that they designed the platform to be addictive. He left the firm and has since regretted contributing to its success. Parker said:

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Sean Parker, Facebook's founding president

Chamath Palihapitiya

Joining Facebook in 2007 and tasked with overseeing its first growth team, Palihapitiya left the company in 2011. He has since expressed his “tremendous regret” about being involved in the company. Palihapitiya said:

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Chamath Palihapitiya, the lead of Facebook's first growth team

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

The father of the Internet was concerned about the increasing complexity of industrial data of big companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. He even declared war with these firms with the aim of giving back data control to users.

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the Internet

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