Mark Zuckerberg Should Tell the Public to Drop Dead

The takeaway from that exchange runs parallel to something Steve Jobs apparently told his marketing department at Apple: You worry about the back covers, I'll worry about the front covers.

In other words, you go by the book -- the way sports reporters will fall back on the "generalities" Cuban accuses Bayless of using -- and do what a "good" marketing person does. You make the phone call, purchase the ad space on the back of the magazine, make sure accounts payable gets the invoice and let me take care of the real marketing.

Like Cuban and, to a greater extent, his players and management who understand the ins and outs of basketball, the real expert, Jobs, knows how to get his mug on the front page of the magazine -- the only page that really matters.

It's not all that different at Facebook. What Zuckerberg accomplished, no matter how much the media and the general public wants to discount it, ranks right up there with how Jobs changed the world. Facebook absolutely transformed society across the globe.

While you can credit the smartphone with much of Facebook's (or Pandora's) success, flip that logic over. The popularity of social networks and discovery platforms helps keep smartphones not merely relevant, but increasingly necessary tools of everyday life.

Plenty of preparation goes into a quarterly conference call appearance. Zuck doesn't need that time drain. That's why, like Jobs, he hired a strong and more-than-capable COO. Like Tim Cook has done for some time, Sandberg will smile and act like the analyst from Piper Jaffray, or wherever, just asked the most insightful question ever. She will do a bang up of positioning Facebook the way Zuckerberg and his team want it positioned at this juncture.

Former Apple Employees: 'Thrilled to Be Gone'>>

You and I rarely get to see the Facebook (and Apple and Amazon and Pandora) pow-wows Zuckerberg likely leads. The meetings, impromptu gatherings and email exchanges that visionary CEOs like Zuckerberg control and direct on the way to achieving incredible things.

If the public has a problem with the way Facebook rolls, Zuckerberg should say "drop dead." You'll still log into your Facebook account to check for new friend requests or tally up your "likes." There's more work -- commissioned by Zuckerberg -- going on at Facebook than most of us could probably ever imagine.

Follow @RoccoPendola

This article is commentary by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.

At the time of publication, the author was long FB and P.

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