In a YouTube video, Mark Zuckerberg revealed the unflattering but “affectionate” nickname given to him by some employees of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
During this recent interview with Tim Ferriss, a podcast host, the boss of Meta explained that his employees call him “the eye of Sauron”. “Some people I work with in the business, they say it fondly, but I think they sometimes associate my focus with the Eye of Sauron.”
Sauron is the name of the legendary antagonist of JRR Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. His flaming eye is devoid of eyelids, housed at the top of a tower, and peers relentlessly without escaping. Not flattering but the boss said he enjoyed the comparison.
An explanation? Meta teams would feel crushed by the heavy gaze of Mark Zuckerberg on a daily basis.
“I’m told, ‘You have this endless amount of energy to go to work on something, and if you direct that energy at any team, you’re just going to burn it'”, he explains. He then tempers this comparison by explaining that he favors a management method that goes straight to the point and allows immediate feedback.
