Put Your Values To Work

How commerce and conscience intertwine at Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Salesforce, and more.

- Robert Safian

When Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a nearly 5,800-word open letter on February 16—the longest single post he had ever shared on his Facebook timeline—he introduced it with this simple phrase: “I know a lot of us are thinking about how we can make the most positive impact in the world right now.”

At that moment, many other businesses, from Google to Starbucks, were publicly fighting policies proposed by President Donald Trump, most notably in the area of immigration. But Zuckerberg didn’t mention the president or politics. Instead, he posed a broader question: “Are we building the world we all want?” Facebook, he argued, had a responsibility to help people.

It was a mission statement, shared just as discussion of business leadership’s relationship to government leadership was reaching a fever pitch. Facebook itself had been stung by critiques of its role in “fake news” and “filter bubbles.” Implicit in Zuckerberg’s letter was the idea that, despite Facebook’s vacuuming up of ever-larger piles of cash, its real purpose—its reason for existence—wasn’t to make money. It was to make the world a better place.