Mark Zuckerberg: 20-Hour Days, Lockdowns, No Booty Shorts At Facebook — Antonio Garcia Martinez’s Tell-All Book Buzz
Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are both in the news in a big way after a former Facebook employee released a tell-all book about life behind Facebook’s walls. Antonio Garcia Martinez’s book, titled Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley, details Zuckerberg’s rule over Facebook, likening Mark to the leader of a cult or country like North Korea.
According to Antonio, women at Facebook faced extra scrutiny because of the strict Facebook dress code for females. Women who worked at Facebook would get an earful if their skirts were too short or if they wore distracting clothing to the men — such as booty shorts. An intern who looked about 16 years of age often came to Facebook wearing booty shorts, which became a problem.
As reported by the Daily Mail, male Facebook employees didn’t seem to face the same kind of treatment over what they wore.
Martinez was fired from Facebook two years ago, and the revelations about Facebook that Antonio includes in his book are indeed shocking. Antonio wrote that Zuckerberg once sent an email to all Facebook employees with the subject line, “Please resign!”
That was after Mark discovered that details about a new product launch had been leaked.
Rumors about a Facebook police group called “The Sec” who watched over troublesome Facebook employees make working at Facebook seem like worshipping at a Scientology center. In fact, plenty of faith-like celebrations take place at Facebook, such as when a new employee joins Facebook and receives their start-date, called a “Faceversary,” which is hailed and celebrated like being baptized. Leaving Facebook was likened to dying, with an old Facebook ID card being used as the person’s Facebook profile photo.
Martinez worked in the advertising sector of Facebook before being fired from Facebook in 2013. Antonio’s writings reveal that he has just as sexist of an attitude as Martinez claims some of his former Facebook employees had. Antonio called most Bay Area women “soft and weak, cosseted and naive.”
Martinez doesn’t always paint himself in the best light in the book, which makes his Facebook tell-all ring true. Antonio admits attempting to have sex in a Facebook closet.
Facebook employees were basically expected to dedicate their lives to Facebook, with workers expected to clock in 20 hours per day, according to Martinez. Antonio also called his former Facebook colleagues clueless in capitalizing off of the massive amounts of user data Facebook holds.
Martinez even writes that Zuckerberg put all of Facebook on lockdown, not letting anyone leave the building when Google Plus arrived. However, Google Plus turned out not to be the big threat that the Facebook leader assumed when it was discovered that Google claimed more usage than what was actually true, claims Antonio.
Antonio’s book joins another Facebook tell-all, The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network by Katherine Losse, that accuses Facebook of sexist behavior. Losse’s book even claimed women had to work as coat checkers at certain Facebook conferences. Facebook has yet to comment on Antonio’s book.
A portion of the description for the Facebook tell-all by Martinez reads as follows.
“Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO.
The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple:
Investors are people with more money than time.
Employees are people with more time than money.
Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between.
Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.”
The top photo above from February 5, 2007, shows Facebook.com founder Mark Zuckerberg smiling at Facebook headquarters.
[Photo by Paul Sakuma/AP Images]
