PUT YOUR VALUES TO WORK
WHEN FACEBOOK FOUNDER AND CEO MARK ZUCKERBERG RELEASED A NEARLY 5, 800-WORD OPEN LETTER ON FEBRUARY 16—THE LONGEST SINGLE POST HE HAD EVER SHARED ON HIS FACEBOOK TIMELINE—HE INTRODUCED IT WITH THIS SIMPLE PHRASE: “I KNOW A LOT OF US ARE THINKING ABOUT HOW WE CAN MAKE THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW.”
At that moment, many other businesses, from Google to Starbucks, were publicly fighting policies proposed by President Donald Trump, most notably in the area of immigration. But Zuckerberg didn’t mention the president or politics. Instead, he posed a broader question: “Are we building the world we all want?” Facebook, he argued, had a responsibility to help people.
It was a mission statement, shared just as discussion of business leadership’s relationship to government leadership was reaching a fever pitch. Facebook itself had been stung by critiques of its role in “fake news” and “filter bubbles.” Implicit in Zuckerberg’s letter was the idea that, despite Facebook’s vacuuming up of ever-larger piles of cash, its real purpose—its reason for existence—wasn’t to make money. It was to make the world a better place.
Such moralizing from a billionaire CEO can come across as disingenuous or naive. Zuckerberg devoted most of his letter to outlining how Facebook could be instrumental in “building a global community,” which of course isn’t too far from what the company’s business imperatives would dictate. Was it all just self-serving rationalization? Is Zuckerberg—and any business leader claiming that values matter more than dollars—simply a hypocrite? This is the tension underlying a rising movement across the business landscape. From automakers such as Ford and Audi to fashion houses like Gucci and Ralph Lauren, from health care firms to consumer-packaged-goods makers, companies are increasingly seeking to align their commercial activities with larger social and cultural values—not just because it makes them look good, but because employees and customers have started to insist on it. Some efforts are clearly reactions to the political environment and the divisiveness surrounding Trump; the impact of boycotts (witness #grabyourwallet) and buycotts can’t be ignored by CEOs or investors.
Yet whatever impetus the current political climate offers, the business community was moving in this direction well before a new president claimed the White House. An organization called the B Team, which includes the CEOs of major businesses such as Unilever and high-profile leaders like Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington, was launched several years ago “to catalyze a better way of doing business” (as its website puts it). Uber’s recent troubles are rooted in issues that long preceded its awkward dance with the Trump administration. Budweiser’s much-discussed Super Bowl TV ad about immigration had been planned for months; Audi’s Super Bowl spot highlighting the gender pay gap was almost two years in the making. Even Zuckerberg’s missive, it turns out, had been in the works for a year.
A practical question looms over this phenomenon: Does business have a higher responsibility to address social values, as Zuckerberg asserts about Facebook, or should the pursuit of profitability—maximizing shareholder value above all else—be the chief purpose of a company? Quickly chasing that question is another one, supported by many acolytes of this new movement: Is it possible that embracing values can actually help profits and share prices in the long run?
These issues are roiling executive leadership at enterprises large and small, and in no place more prominently than in Silicon Valley. Which makes techland—and firms like Facebook and Uber—an ideal canvas on which to explore how values and value creation are being balanced and integrated in
