Research Note: Evil is in the DNA, Special Facebook Edition
"..."There are these small bands of people who are trying to take over the world," Yu said. " This is so much more fun than working at a hedge fund or an investment bank. ie, Gideon Yu, Facebook's CFO. — That's a really (really) important quote.
Context & Ripple Effects
The note lands two days after Facebook put its money machine on stage: Social Ads, Beacon, and Insights were unveiled at the company's Social Advertising Event in New York, with Mark Zuckerberg keynoting. Against that launch, CFO Gideon Yu's confirmed line — a small band trying to take over the world, more fun than a hedge fund or investment bank — reads less as bravado than as the internal logic of the ad push.
The timing is awkward because the same week's reporting shows the platform's goodwill fraying: independent developers have grown fearful, a sharp reversal from being the focus of Zuckerberg's attention at the last big event six months earlier, while users are actively seeking to block Beacon, which automatically publishes off-site activities like playing games on Kongregate to profiles without clear consent. A CFO celebrating world-taking ambition sits uneasily beside a user base installing blockers.
First-order effects
- Beacon's automatic publication of third-party browsing and gaming activity is driving users to block it, directly undercutting the reach of the Social Ads system announced November 6.
- Independent developers' fear marks a reversal from their favored standing six months earlier, straining the builder relationship the platform's application strategy depends on.
Second-order effects
- Partners whose sites feed Beacon, such as Kongregate, inherit the consent controversy, giving advertisers and publishers reason to weigh pulling out rather than wear the exposure.
- If the reported contrast between an opened Facebook API and Google's competing approach holds up — it remains unconfirmed — rivals have a ready-made pitch: openness versus a platform whose own developers are spooked.
Third-order effects
- A platform monetizing off-site behavior without explicit consent points toward consent and disclosure becoming the battleground policed by users and eventually regulators rather than by developers.
- Yu's finance-to-startup framing — small bands outbidding Wall Street on meaning — describes the talent-and-power concentration that lets a handful of platforms set terms for everyone building on top of them.
The trend: Social platforms are pivoting from courting developers to extracting advertising value from user behavior, making consent the fault line between growth and trust.