An email from Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg reveals his anger at a leak from a staffer.
The leak resulted in false news reporting about a project the company was developing.
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The subject of the Sept. 22, 2010 email was "Please Resign." It was posted to Twitter by Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails) on March 19.
The leaked information involved a 2010 company Q&A in which Zuckerberg discussed a new initiative Facebook was working on.
Techcrunch had reported on Sept. 19, 2010 that Facebook was building a phone, with a third party creating the hardware, citing "a source who has knowledge of the project."
But Zuckerberg insisted the company was simply developing software to make phones and apps "more social."
"It is frustrating and destructive that anyone here thought is was okay to say this to anyone outside the company," Zucker wrote in the email to staff. "This was an act of betrayal. The fact that the story was inaccurate doesn't make it any better."
In Zuckerberg's email, he was very direct about his feelings on what it was the employee who leaked the information should do.
"So I'm asking whoever leaked this to resign immediately," he wrote. "If you believe that it's ever appropriate to leak internal information, you should leave. If you don't resign, we will almost certainly find out who you are anyway."
Below is the full text of the 2010 email.
Subject: Please Resign, From: Mark Zuckerberg, To: Facebook staff, Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 11:44 a.m.
Confidential -- Do Not Share
Hey everyone,
Lots of you saw the TechCrunch story over the weekend claiming that were building a mobile phone. We're not building a phone and I spoke at length at the Q&A on Friday about what were actually doing -- building ways to make all phones and apps more social.
It is frustrating and destructive that anyone here thought is was okay to say this to anyone outside the company. This was an act of betrayal. The fact that the story was inaccurate doesn't make it any better. I've had to personally spend a lot of time over the last few days—as have a lot of other people -- cleaning up the damage from this mess. Even now, were in a more precarious position with companies in the mobile space who should be our partners because they now think were competitors. They think were building a phone to compete with them rather than building integrations to make their phones better.
So I'm asking whoever leaked this to resign immediately. If you believe that its ever appropriate to leak internal information, you should leave. If you don't resign, we will almost certainly find out who you are anyway.
We are a company that promotes openness and transparency, both in the world at large and here internally at Facebook. That's culturally important to us and I'm committed to keeping it. But the cost of an open culture is that we all have to protect the confidential information we share internally. If we don't, we screw over everyone working their asses off to change the world. And leaks like this make everyone a little less willing to share information more broadly and undermine the culture were fighting to build, especially as we grow. I want people to continue to be able to ask difficult questions at our Q&As and have a strong dialog because they're confident those discussions will be kept within Facebook.
Let's commit to maintaining complete confidentiality about the company -- no exceptions. If you can't handle that, then just leave. We have too much social good to build to have to deal with this.
Mark
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