Mark Zuckerberg Is Crowdsourcing His New Year’s Resolutions On Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s New Year’s resolutions have generally put most people’s to shame. In the past, he has vowed to do things like write a thank you note to someone who made the world better each day and to learn to speak Mandarin – which he did. He even held a Q&A session in Chinese this year. But this time around, the social network founder is crowdsourcing ideas about what “personal challenge” he should take on next via a public post on his Facebook profile.

Writes Zuckerberg, “for background, every year I take on a challenge to broaden my perspective and learn something about the world beyond my work at Facebook…At our last town hall Q&A, someone asked me what my challenge will be for the new year and I said I’d love ideas from our community,” he says. “I have an idea of what my next challenge might be, but I’m open to more ideas before the new year officially begins.”

Screen Shot 2014-12-31 at 10.37.51 AMAs of the time of writing, the post has over 99,200 Likes and over 39,511 comments. As you may imagine, not all the comments are helpful, and some took the opportunity to just leave jokes on snarky comments on the CEO’s Timeline. (Like the guy who suggested that Zuckerberg delete users who send Candy Crush requests, for example. Or the guy who thinks the exec should devote 2015 to learning to play the accordion. Um, what?)

But other respondents offered more interesting suggestions like challenging the CEO to open a mentoring center at Facebook for women entrepreneurs, or suggested that Facebook add new ways for those with special needs to access the service. Others asked Zuckerberg to host online session to share his insights with other startup founders, or said that Facebook should add a “Sorry” button, so people could express sympathy, when the “Like” button would seem rude. (Zuckerberg has for a long time said that he wouldn’t add a “Dislike” button to Facebook, though that request again popped up on the comment thread here, too.)

Many also suggested ways for Zuckerberg to donate his wealth, asking him to help the homeless and the poor, send underprivileged kids to school, buy up and preserve virgin rainforest, make over schools, feed the hungry, and more. But Zuckerberg has already signed the “Giving Pledge” – Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffet’s initiative which asks the world’s richest individuals to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. Zuckerberg has already donated $100 million to Newark Public Schools, and more recently gave $25 million to fight Ebola, among other things. He was also the top philanthropist in 2013, with $960 million in donations. In other words, he may not need too much help on the giving front.

Others posting in the comment section came up with various health-related ideas, like “learn to cook,” or “run a mile” daily, or “reduce the consumption of sugar,” etc., which are fine, but a bit too “general purpose” for Zuckerberg’s own personal challenge, we’d wager.

Of course, Zuckerberg may not choose to take on any of these suggestions – especially if he already has one in mind that’s he’s interested in pursuing. Or he may choose to do more than one challenge this year, if any of the new suggestions strike him. In any event, the post makes for a good read if you’re stumped and looking for New Year’s resolutions of your own.

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