Reasons Why Mark Zuckerberg is Hated

Mark Zuckerberg has been undergoing a metamorphosis. Over the past few years, Zuckerberg shed the skin of his former, dorky self to become a cooler version of himself, to become Zuck.

Zuckerberg never veered off script, conversing exclusively in PR-friendly corporate speak. He wore the same plain denim and navy blue shirt every day. He was completely unrelatable. Not Zuck, though.

Zuck hits the gym, does martial arts, walks UFC fighters to the octagon, spars with beloved athletes, surfs with the American flag on July 4, hangs out with Joe Rogan and wears a chain to the cookout. He isn’t Zuckerberg, he is cool.

But this rebrand is unlikely to soothe the disappointment of thousands of Meta employees who were just informed their equity-based compensation will be slashed by 10%, according to the Financial Times.

Every year, Meta employees receive equity refreshers which comprise a big chunk of their total remuneration, alongside base salary and bonuses. But this year, most employees have been told their equity refreshers have been bumped down by 10 points.

At the same time, Meta has reportedly approved a new executive bonus structure that entitles leadership to bonuses of up to 200% of their base salary — a significant increase to the 75% they earned previously.

The move comes on the back of mass layoffs at Meta, nixing thousands of “low performers” to free up resources for its planned $60 billlion AI expansion.

Everybody Hates Zuckerberg And The Tech Overlords

Despite the emperor’s new clothes, most Americans still have a strong dislike for Zuckerberg, according to Pew Research. The data shows that 67% of surveyees held negative opinions of the Meta chief.

It’s not just Zuckerberg, though. Pew Research found that 54% of those polled felt the same way about Tesla chief Elon Musk.

Unlike Musk, who scored favorably among right-leaning individuals, animosity towards Zuckerberg crossed party lines, with 60% of those with a right-ward slant viewing him in a negative light along with an overwhelming majority of 76% on the left.

It’s a nuanced topic. There are plenty of reasons to be critical of corporate America and its kingpins — some more justified than others. The ever-growing chasm between the rich and the poor and the vanishing of the middle class haven’t exactly helped either.

Then there’s all of the economic uncertainty amidst the AI revolution. With news of layoffs left, right and center, people are in constant fear for their jobs. In the meantime, tech luminaries are waxing poetic about the virtues of AI and living on the brink of an unprecedented technological wonder.

“People will lose jobs,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview with Fox Business last December. “Not everyone’s going to like all of the impacts, but this is coming.”

“This is a scientific achievement of humanity that is going to get embedded in everything we do,” he continued, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Altman is probably right, on both counts. AI is likely to shake up the job market and not everyone is going to be happy. But being right doesn’t necessarily make you more likeable.

Those driving the so-called AI revolution won’t be the ones staving off economic anxiety, it’ll be the white-collar class that’ll take the brunt of it — and economic anxiety leads to anger.

Animus isn’t always rational or personal, but it has a predictable mechanism: it often points outwards and locks in on a convenient target.

With their airy techno-utopianism, detached idealism and cold, hyper-capitalist pragmatism, tech overlords are a walking, talking bull’s eye. That’s where widespread disdain for prominent tech chiefs and billionaires like Musk, Altman and Zuckerberg comes from, too.

New image or not, people still hate Zuckerberg. But more than the individual, they hate the idea of Zuckerberg.