Despite scandal after scandal befalling Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg thinks he should still be in charge of the company he started in his Harvard dorm room 14 years ago.
On a conference call with reporters April 4, the Facebook CEO was asked whether he was the right person to lead the tech giant going forward. His answer was unequivocal:
“Yes. I think life is about learning from the mistakes and figuring out what you need to do to move forward.” He added that “when you’re building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up.”
Zuckerberg also said that nobody is perfect, but that people should hold the company accountable for learning from its mistakes, and for recognizing what its responsibilities are; the latter is where he thinks Facebook has failed. But Zuckerberg said he is proud of the platform’s role in connecting people and building relationships.
When asked whether the board had considered removing him, Zuckerberg said, after a long pause, “Not that I’m aware of.” He was also asked whether anyone had been fired as a result of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, to which he answered: “I started this place, I run it, I’m responsible for what happened here.” (No one has been fired. “We’re still working through this,” he said.)
“I’m going to do the best job going forward, but I’m not looking to throw anyone else under the bus for mistakes that we’ve made here.”
It’s possible that today’s call was a test run for what Zuckerberg will face next week. The Facebook CEO is up against one of his toughest tests yet, testifying before the US House Energy and Commerce committee on April 11.