For these past few months, CEO and co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has spent quite a lot of time in presidential primary states, speculating that he might run for office. A lot of people are wondering as to whether Zuckerberg actually wants to run for President of the country.
In 2017 alone, Zuckerberg visited New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Ohio. Before Trump's inauguration, Zuckerberg announced that he plans to visit all 50 states. This was taken from a Facebook post in January.
It is entirely possible that the CEO of Facebook is traveling across the country for reasons that are unrelated to a political ambition. He even described his plan without using political terms:
"I consider this as a personal challenge to learn new things and grow outside my office."
However, when you start uploading an image with a praise as a caption to the deep-fried food the Hawkeye State has to offer, then people will inevitably start wondering if there is actually a political agendum behind Zuckerberg's travels. This is definitely not our fault because we are already used to seeing presidentiables start their campaigns this way: increasing the presence by speaking in each state of the country. If there is a playbook for starting presidential campaigns, then this move of Zuckerberg’s is sure to be listed amongst the top rules.
So, the question still remains if Zuckerberg is really running? He is NOT according to Ticketmaster's former CEO, Nathan Hubbard. In a tweetstorm that Hubbard initiated over the weekend, an alternative theory was given to us as to why Zuckerberg is looking like a potential political candidate by traveling across the US.
Hubbard said Zuckerberg is only acting like a product-focused CEO, which he definitely is. Also, Hubbard believes that Facebook's CEO did not understand the social media network's role during the presidential election last year, as well as the political discourse. This is why he is trying to understand how his massive company contributed to the election of Pres. Donald Trump. He is allegedly doing this because he is a product tester.
It is well known that Hubbard is a fan of Facebook and Zuckerberg. He even called the moves of Zuckerberg's company as "probably the generation's greatest biz execution."
Hubbard made quite a number of interesting points. Here is his theory:
"Zuck is not running for President. What he is trying to do is understand his product's role in the election of the current US President, Donald Trump. In Facebook's history, it has undergone a number of major evolutionary events. All of them were driven by existential threats as how Zuckerberg saw them."
"On the 9th of November last year, Zuck woke up acutely aware of a shift that he did not understand or foresee; this must have been terrifying for him as a founder. He is the head of Facebook. This is why he is now venturing outside his bubble and doing field research."
