Programming Error: Mark Zuckerberg Thinks Facebook Employees Call Him the ‘Eye of Sauron’ Is a Compliment

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a recent interview that his employees have a nickname for him — “The Eye of Sauron.” Puzzingly, Zuckerberg considers the nickname something of a compliment, claiming his legions of workers associate him with the Lord of the Rings archvillain “lovingly.”

During a recent appearance on The Tim Ferriss Show, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that his employees at Facebook (now known as Meta) have a unique nickname for their CEO — The Eye of Sauron. The nickname reportedly refers to Zuckerberg’s intense focus on a single team or project, and is taken from the notorious villain in the Lord of the Rings books and movies.

Discussing how he manages his energy in the office while constantly under public scrutiny and studying news and information, Zuckerberg stated: “Maybe I’m not strong-willed enough or calm enough to do just straight-up meditation. I actually need to put myself in a situation where it’s difficult to not focus on that thing.”

Zuckerberg added: “Some of the folks I work with at the company — they say this lovingly — but I think that they sometimes refer to my attention as the Eye of Sauron. You have this unending amount of energy to go work on something, and if you point that at any given team, you will just burn them.”

For reference for readers that have not read the Lord of the Rings books or seen the popular movies, the Eye of Sauron is the manifestation of the primary antagonist of the series in the form of a huge glowing, fiery red eye. Comparisons to Sauron are almost universally negative, as any reasonable person would expect.

In the Lord of the Rings, Sauron’s focus on an individual is very clearly a negative thing with the primary protagonist Frodo appearing to experience pain when the eye was upon him — at least in the film adaptation of the story. It says quite a bit about Zuckerberg’s management style that his employees have identified the similarities between the Facebook CEO and the Dark Lord Sauron — and even more about Zuckerberg himself that he thinks they make the comparison “lovingly.”

Read more at Consequence.net here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com