Facebook's Misplaced Balance

My kids love Scooby Doo. I love the typical refrain at the end, when the mystery is solved and the bad guy inevitably says, "those crazy kids" as he or she is hauled off. I read about how some of these Web 2.0 entrepreneurs are behaving and "those crazy kids" is right.

Facebook is back in the news, since evidently they are (once again) doing the mating dance. But in reading this post by Business 2.0's Erick Schonfeld (here) I am just appalled at the behavior of Facebook's CEO.

Check this out:

According to the WSJ, Facebook's 22-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg's late-sleeping habits kept him from one 8AM meeting with Microsoft during acquisition talks earlier this year. And in previous discussions with Yahoo, he pulled this college move:

Around March, Yahoo was weighing a roughly $1 billion offer ... . At one point in the Yahoo negotiations, the talks extended into the weekend, says a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, this account continues, said he couldn't take part because his girlfriend was in town.

Any wonder these deals fell apart? I get that this kid (and yes he's a kid) is anti-establishment since he had a business card with the title "I'm CEO, bitch" (here). I get that the "playing hard to get" game is perceived to drive up value. But this is ridiculous.

Now I'm all for balance. In fact, I got out of the corporate rat race so I could be more accessible to my family and happier as a person. But if I had $100 million on the line (if Zuckerberg owns just 10% of Facebook), I think my wife and kids would understand if I had to leave the house early for a meeting or work a Saturday or two.

I guess this guy's girlfriend is not the understanding type. Just imagine what she'll be like if they get married. Can you spell pre-nup?

Or maybe this guy is just a joke. I understand that Facebook has built a significant community. But the fact is, consumers (especially kids) are very fickle. In order to monetize the community (and make a $1 Billion dollar deal pay) they are going to need leadership for years to come. Taking off a weekend to get busy with your girlfriend, when you could be negotiating a life changing deal for many of the folks on your team is not leadership.