Dear Facebook Critics (aka the media): Back Off the Hoodie and Look at the Numbers
Should Albert Einstein have been attacked in the media over his hair? Is Adele any less of a singer because she doesn’t look like Katy Perry? Was Steve Jobs unfit for duty because he liked jeans and a turtleneck?
Can Mark Zuckerberg lead the biggest IPO in history from his hoodie?
Zuckerberg might not be as smart as Einstein (though some say he’s a genius) or as business-savvy as Jobs (though he built his business much faster than Apple), but he has accomplished what nobody else ever has – gotten the attention of the world with an IPO that will likely value the company near or above 12-digits right out of the gate.
As Chris Dixon eloquently noted, Wall Street likely isn’t focused on the CEO’s attire as much as the numbers behind the gargantuan company that he built.
Nearly 1 billion users.
Profitable.
Growing.
Upside.
These are the concepts that will determine whether or not the company is worth the money. We may look back and say the Facebook IPO was the worst investment in history, but it won’t be because of the hoodie. It won’t be because of some immaturity that the hoodie apparently represents.
Perhaps if he wore a gray executive pinstripe hoodie, he would get more respect from the media.
I won’t be investing in the Facebook IPO (even if I had that kind of cash to throw around) but it’s not because I fear that the man behind the machine doesn’t know what he’s doing. Two years ago, he didn’t and it showed. This is a different Mark Zuckerberg. Call it maturing. Call it great advice from people around him. Call it a temporary facade that will fade once the money is in the bank. Regardless of why, he seems focused on making this successful and very few people have been able to turn their focus into more success than Zuck.
To the media, please find something else to cover. We knew he had a hoodie well before they decided to go public. Making it an issue now seems like a scare tactic attempting to derail something that may be wonderful.
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+JD Rucker is Founder of Hasai, Inc, a Social Media Firm, Director of New Media for KPA, a Marketing firm that purchased Hasai, and Editor at Soshable, a Social Media Marketing Blog. Find him at Oklahoma City Dodge or on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Related articles
- Paging Mr. Zuckerberg: Pinstripe hoodie perfect for tech CEOs (news.cnet.com)
- An Overly-Close Analysis of Mark Zuckerberg’s Hoodie (esquire.com)
- Analyst: Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie is ‘a mark of immaturity’ (zdnet.com)
- Does Zuckerberg’s Hoodie Matter? (forbes.com)
- Would you (or Mark Zuckerberg) wear a pinstriped wool hoodie? (thelook.today.msnbc.msn.com)
- Zuckerberg’s Hoodie: the Next Facebook Revolution? (mashable.com)
- Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Angers Wall St. Bankers By Showing Up To A Meeting In A Hoodie (manolith.com)
- Apparently Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie is suddenly an issue… (shortformblog.com)
- Hey Wall Street, Make Room for the Hoodies (emmageraln.com)
- CEOs with Hoodies Immature? Add Pinstripes! (gadget.com)
- On Wall Street, it’s shaping up as hoodies vs. the suits (bottomline.msnbc.msn.com)
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