A new book written by tech journalist Stephen Levy claims that Facebook founder and director, Mark Zuckerberg, used to shout "Domination!" at the end of company staff meetings, according to the Times.
The book, published Tuesday, reportedly claims that the young entrepreneur once stated in Latin that “Google must be destroyed” in reference to the Roman leader Cato the Elder, who ended his Senate speeches by calling for Rome’s nemesis to be destroyed, saying “Carthago delenda est”.
The book, which includes hundreds of interviews from former and current insiders, as well as an earlier private journal of Zuckerberg's that he titled the 'Book of Change', sheds light on the rise of Facebook, which now boasts over 2.9 billion users, a number that includes users of subsidiary companies WhatsApp and Instagram.
Levy, in his book, claims that the 35-year-old billionaire used to shout "Domination!" as a way to help him overcome his fear of speaking to large groups of people. The author suggested that the use of the rallying cry was intended to be "in the spirit of the ancient leaders who had so long ago captured [Zuckerberg’s] imagination", according to The Times.
"It was tongue in cheek but he also meant it. And it was inspiring," Katie Geminder, a former engineering manager for Facebook in its early days, reportedly told the author.
Sean Parker, one of the company’s first investors, reportedly advised Zuckerberg at least once to be careful using the word 'domination', as it could be cited in a competition lawsuit.
Zuckerberg is known to be obsessed with the Roman emperor Augustus, Julius Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted son, and has named one of his children August.
The author cited insiders who claimed that when Google launched its rival Google Plus social network in 2011, the Zuckerberg held a general staff meeting in which he stated that “Google must be destroyed”. Following that meeting, staff reportedly produced posters to be displayed in company offices proclaiming the Latin slogan.
Levy also claims that Zuckerberg told him that as a child he used to create societies with Ninja Turtles toys and “kind of model out how they’d interact with each other and things like that. I was just very interested in how systems worked like that”.
As part of his obsession with Roman emperors, the young billionaire developed a unique ‘Roman version’ of the world-conquest strategy game ‘Risk’. “Zuckerberg’s digital version was set in the age of the Roman Empire. You’d try to beat Julius Caesar. Zuckerberg always won,” the book reads.
