How have Facebook changes cost Mark Zuckerberg?

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent changes to Facebook have cost him $3.3 billion from his personal fortune. But this isn’t going to leave him strapped for cash as this only accounts for 4.4 per cent of his full net worth. That just shows how rich the man actually is.

So what actually caused all that money to be lost you may ask? Well, it’s down to the news feed changes implemented which prioritise family and friends Facebook posts over the ones made by a business. The fallout of this is that Facebook shares dropped by 4.4 per cent also taking them from $187.77 to $179.37. Why would he make these changes if he knew he was going to lose money?

The Motivation for the Changes

In an interview Mark recently said:

We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. But recently we’ve gotten feedback that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other. Based on this,” he added, “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.

However, it may not be all true. People are speculating that they just wish to encourage people to share more of their private data online. This is so that they can gain more profit from the data that Facebook sells to advertisers. Which, in the long run, may allow him to increase the value of his company and his own wealth.

The shares are beginning to recover already. Which means that the loss will most likely be regained as well as profit from selling the data. Mark Zuckerberg really is a genius. What do you think that Facebook should do with our data? Let me know in the comments!