Troy Wolverton writes:

If Mark Zuckerberg were a normal CEO, he might — emphasis on might— be fearing for his job right now.

At a typical company, a scandal the likes of the one involving Cambridge Analytica’s illegitimate harvesting and possession of data on 50 million Facebook users might have directors asking some uncomfortable questions of the executive team. Those questions might be particularly pointed if that same company and executive team had already been at the center of a separate but related scandal regarding the 2016 election.

And a CEO who just saw $30 billion of his company’s market valuation get evaporated in one day as a result of the most recent scandal might be rushing to get out in front of the news to try to protect his company if not his position.

But Facebook’s not a typical company and Zuckerberg is not a normal CEO. No matter how bad the Cambridge Analytica scandal gets Zuckerberg is almost certainly staying put. That’s because when it comes to whether Zuckerberg stays or goes, he himself has the final say. There’s no way to appeal to the company’s board, because for all intents and purposes, the board works for him. [Continue reading…]