Facebook, the social media juggernaut, is worth over $100 billion — and today is just the first day of its presence on the public stock market. Can they keep up the momentum? And can they rely on the protection of their powerful allies in D.C.? Meet the men and women charged with hacking Washington on behalf of CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Joel Kaplan was George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff and an executive with a Texas energy giant — but in March 2011, he was named the head of Facebook’s D.C. office.
Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton’s former press secretary, is the great blue network’s VP of global communications and serves as the chief Democratic voice in the capital.
It doesn’t hurt to have Larry Summers on your side. The former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard did more than just call the Winklevoss twins “a**holes” — he also launched the career of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
The rest of Silicon Valley — not just Facebook — depends on Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren‘s advocacy to fight for their interests on Capitol Hill.
Erskine Bowles, the former Clinton chief of staff whose name is now associated with D.C. eminence and blue-ribbon deficit reduction commissions, was named to Facebook’s board last fall.
Zuckerberg and Washington Post Company CEO Donald Grahamhave been BFFs ever since Graham had a shot to own 10% of Facebook and missed. Weirdly enough, when Sandberg was at Google and looking for a new job, she came this close to joining the Post in an executive role.
