111 - Is Facebook Really That Bad? Roger McNamee and Antonio Garcia Martinez

Facebook is worth almost a half trillion dollars. It has more than 2 billion users who log in at least once a month. It has a famous CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, hailed in Silicon Valley as a Bill Gates for the Internet age – the suburban Harvard kid who dropped out of Harvard to start a company and change the world.  

Facebook also has problems. Its once non-controversial mission of connecting the world has taken a dark turn. Connecting the world to what, exactly? After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and controversies over how Facebook gave partners access to user data, there’s a question hanging out there. Is Facebook unwittingly connecting the world to too much misinformation, political manipulation, or worse? Or does the good that happens on Facebook outweigh the bad? 

With me this week: Roger McNamee. He’s an early investor in Facebook. He’s an early adviser to Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has made him a lot of money. And he’s the author of a new book out this week: “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.” He says Facebook is bad for America.  

Also with me: Antonio Garcia Martinez, former Facebook employee, and author of “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley.” He does not think Facebook is bad for America.