I dont want that future.
Microsoft has a very very long way to rehabilitate their image for their long history of bad behaviour.
I have more faith in Microsoft than I do in any other big tech company. It's easy to forget that any commercial organisation's mission is to make money, which makes it inherently self-serving.
Microsoft, Red Hat, Google, Apple, Oracle, Facebook and so on all exist to make their shareholders rich. And yet we seem to think that they exist to make cool products, or to offer services we might find useful. Or to support us in any way. Not so.
Zuck specifically said this isn't true in his letter to shareholders. They make money so they can build, they don't build to make money.
If you simply observe his own lifestyle and the choices he's made with Facebook, it is pretty clear money means very little to him and that he absolutely loves running Facebook.
Given that he can veto anything anybody else ever says about the company for the rest of his life, I am inclined to believe him.
Wall Street seems to believe him too, thats why FB's stock is not doing so hot. They know FB's dictator despises them and doesn't care about making them money.
On the other hand since Zuckerberg's being an arrogant asshole preceded his wealth, one can argue that this sing and dance number that fools you is actually just history repeating itself.
I think I'll base my opinion on him from actions rather than what I read in a multi-billion dollar letter... as if he would realistically say anything else...
One thing is for certain though: his stock has underperformed because his company was considerably overvalued, not because he wasn't a kiss-ass to the street.
There are so many examples to the contrary of this that it'd be exhausting to list them all. IBM had lived many lives of men and was long past being a startup when it helped create the PC industry; seriously, that company was pivoting before "pivoting" was even a term in usage. Apple was a long-toothed public company when it reinvented portable music and, later, smartphones. We're still observing the fallout from the iPad, but it's safe to say that was a game-changer in tablet computing, too.
I'm not saying that to kiss these companies' asses, either; these products genuinely redefined the marketplace. And both companies were public and had a checkered history already when they reshaped these markets. I remember cellular phones before the introduction of the iPhone. So do you.
Saying that the only innovation happens over lattes in SoMa is just so blatantly wrong that I wish I could persuade you otherwise for your own well-being. (Before I forget, thank you for the compliment regarding my comment; though I still disagree with you, I do appreciate the nod.)
In the context of my comment, people in the orbit of world-changing startups are the ones that matter.
You make some interesting points though. Good post.