This text initially appeared on Enterprise Insider.
After a tough couple of years, Meta is flying: Income is rising once more, income are approach up after some painful belt-tightening, and its inventory is at a report excessive.
What may presumably go fallacious?
Nicely, perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, its CEO, may get damage, or worse, in a cage match?
That is what Meta is suggesting in a brand new Securities and Change Fee submitting out this week. Within the firm’s latest annual report, it advised traders that Zuckerberg routinely did dangerous stuff for enjoyable — and that it might be an actual drawback for the corporate if he received injured doing that.
From Meta’s 10-Okay, filed underneath “danger components”:
We presently rely upon the continued providers and efficiency of our key personnel, together with Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg and sure different members of administration take part in varied high-risk actions, corresponding to fight sports activities, excessive sports activities, and leisure aviation, which carry the danger of great damage and loss of life.
Meta is presumably referring to Zuckerberg’s well-documented embrace of all types of brotastic enjoyable, together with combined martial arts, hydrofoiling, and CrossFit. He has additionally been coaching to get his pilot license, The Data reported.
And he has gotten banged up alongside the best way: Final 12 months, he tore his ACL in a coaching battle.
Zuckerberg actually is not the one tech mogul who likes these things. His rival Elon Musk, for example, flies himself round on a regular basis, and he famously challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match (which some individuals insisted was going to be an actual factor however by no means panned out).
However he would be the solely Large Tech CEO who’s spelled that out as an issue for traders.
Musk’s Tesla, for example, merely factors out that the corporate is “extremely dependent” on his providers and does not point out the prospect of him crashing one in every of his Gulfstreams. (It does, nonetheless, say that Musk “doesn’t dedicate his full time and a spotlight to Tesla” as a result of he is additionally operating SpaceX, X, and different ventures.)
Friends corresponding to Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon both say that their CEOs are essential or do not even point out them.
Meta reps didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. However Zuckerberg principally did, by responding to a publish concerning the 10-Okay submitting on Threads:
It is value mentioning that whereas the “danger issue” part of any public firm will be helpful to scan, because it lays out all types of issues that might come up, it often is just not the sort of factor most traders care about. The purpose is to insulate the corporate from legal responsibility in case one thing does go fallacious: “See? We advised you this might occur. Now inform your legal professionals to cease bothering us.”
So whereas Meta does take Zuckerberg’s well-being very severely — in 2022, it spent $15 million on private safety for him and his household — it is unlikely it thinks he’ll get actually, actually damage. However they’re letting us it may occur, simply in case.