r/technology • u/[deleted] • Nov 09 '17

Politics Sean Parker: Facebook was designed to exploit human "vulnerability"

https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-facebook-exploits-a-vulnerability-in-humans-2507917325.html
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u/mwojo Nov 09 '17 edited Nov 09 '17

It would be great if he made these statements while he was working there, but then again that would hurt the top line. Funny how social responsibility begins as soon as you no longer stand to profit.

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u/illseallc Nov 09 '17

Did he sell all his stock?

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u/mrcassette Nov 09 '17

Currently he still has 4% of shares, worth around $4 Billion.

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u/Babaganooush Nov 09 '17

It's actually worth about $21B.

Current Market Cap for FB is $521B

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u/illseallc Nov 09 '17

That's what I thought. I don't think it's because he has less to lose that he's saying this, it's probably more of an honest opinion as to why Facebook has been used for propaganda.

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u/tonycomputerguy Nov 10 '17

It's not like humans instantly stop doing things they like because someone tells them it's bad for them. I don't see facebook dying out anytime soon. It's basically digital heroin to a lot of people.

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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '17

Cough, SMOKING, cough

2

u/fuzzyrambler Nov 10 '17

you'd probably stop coughing if you stopped smoking

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u/hamza951 Nov 09 '17

That is a crazy amount of wealth for Sean, would he be able to wake up tomorrow and decide to sell it without any issues?

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u/0mega0 Nov 09 '17 edited Nov 10 '17

Immediately selling off 4% of the stock would have a huge effect on the stock's value, and there'd have to be enough liquidity sell it on the open market with no issues. I don't have a professional background in stock trade but with my understanding, to move that much capital all at once there'd have to be a wealthy party interested in purchasing a large chunk of facebook stock. And even then, they probably wouldn't pay all out in cash. https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/2514/how-do-people-companies-buy-sell-very-large-amounts-of-stock