Say what you will about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all, at least Zuckerberg is clearly reading from a well-prepared speech. Winging it would have been, er, inadvisable.
According to the Lobbying Disclosure Reports[0], if you add up outside council for Facebook, they're paying about $156,000 PER MONTH on lobbyists. You'll want to look at 2017 Q4 reports, as Q1 is not yet due and they don't file until it's absolutely due.
At less than $2,000,000/year, that's pocket change to FB ($30B in annual profit). Facebook probably spends more money on flavored seltzer water than that.
>about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all,
If MZ didn't voluntarily offer himself to testify, Congress could proceed to formally subpoena him. MZ could then ignore the subpoena but then he could theoretically go to jail for "contempt of Congress".
That is how these proceedings go at this point (when you posted).
Prepared Statements from the Chairperson, then members of the committee, then the "witness" are read then open questioning is where the "winging it" happens.
Of course i would. I'd also probably throw up beforehand, at least three times
I'm pretty worried and sour about monolithic things existing that are too big to fail, especially Facebook. It seems suboptimal, but I feel powerless. It mostly felt good to write 'glib leech'.
