Mark Zuckerberg says that companies need more masculine energy.
Apparently we have gone too far adopting effeminate values such as diversity, inclusion, equality an work-life balance, and it is time to recover a healthy aggressiveness.
The proposal in principle would not deserve much discussion. Obviously there is no such thing as masculine energy or feminine energy. And, if there were, we would not need more of the former.
People are not just hormones, we are cultural beings. Education and decision, not only biology, drive our behaviour. If we want to see from a biologist’s point of view, aggression is a typical behaviour of the adolescent male primate and gets corrected with maturity. In the herds of great apes, the mature silverback male is protective and avoids for the group unnecessary battles. That is why he leads the herd. Gorillas know better than humans that testosterone out of control does not indicate masculinity, but only immaturity. On the other hand, if masculine means here cutting DEI programmes or announcing layoffs, as Meta has done, I don’t think we need any more. We have plenty.
What does deserve attention is the context that has invited these statements, as well as many others along the same lines. The plutocracy that entered the White House on 20 January brings new codes of behaviour. In the highschool corridor, the bad boys compete for the leader’s attention. How did we get here?
United States
On 20 January, a convicted criminal who denies climate change and vaccines and threatens his associates with annexations, was democratically elected president of the USA.
His predecessor is leaving with the Gaza tragedy on his shoulders. From a humanitarian point of view it will be impossible to miss someone who has tolerated, if not sponsored, such a violation of international law. But, from a purely economic and pragmatic point of view, many will miss him. Among others, European companies, when we begin to suffer the consequences of nationalist protectionism.
The popular enthusiasm generated by Trump cannot be explained without recognising the effective manipulation of public conversation carried out by Elon Musk since the purchase of Twitter. An operation that might seem a business disaster if you look only at the numbers, has been an absolute success when seen in perspective. The richest man in the world is now also the right-hand man of the most powerful man in the world.
Musk’s statements supporting the German AfD or interfering with hoaxes in UK politics show that his impact will spread all over the world, stirring up debate to create favourable conditions for his businesses.
Europe
In this scenario, Europe has to decide what will be its role. The messages from the other side of the Atlantic are clear: it is time for everyone to care for their own interests. Trump will have no problem to tax our products with tariffs, cancel participation in our defence or even annex territories from NATO countries like Denmark.
As many business experts have pointed out, a unified response is needed to regain industrial competitiveness. But calling for leadership in technological innovation is not enough. Many of us believe that Europe also has to exercise moral leadership. This means defending liberal democracy, social cohesion, human rights and the fight against climate change.
On the one hand, because it is a moral imperative. We have to do it because it is the right thing to do, and because if we don’t do it, nobody else will.
On the other hand, if we use a marketing language, we need a differentiating factor. We should not try to be China or the USA, we need to value what we are and attract talent and consumers to our economy and our culture.
China has built its strength in a capitalist world on the basis of a communist regime. It has combined its fierce determination to conquer international markets with strict centralized planning and no room for internal discrepancies. In a way, that is cheating at the game of capitalism. On the other side the United States seem gradually less concerned with defending liberal democracy or respecting the laws and signed treaties.
Competing with the two giants with their rules, without criticism, is not leadership. Europe has to defend its own rules of the game, which are the values of the continent that invented law, democracy and enlightenment. And those values, in the 21st century, necessarily imply leading the fight against the global warming caused human activity.
These values are threatened by the emergence of a misinformed ideology that believes global warming is a hoax, vaccines are a scam and immigrants eat pets. And this ignorance-based thought system, which plays on our primal emotions, does not come out of the blue. It is encouraged and manipulated by algorithms that follow a very clear strategy designed to serve the interests of the plutocracy.
While they think about how to mitigate the impact of the second Trump era on our exports and our security, EU authorities should also think about how they are going to protect the Union’s founding values from populist disinformation. Otherwise we could end up repeating the history of a hundred years ago.
And what about us?
So here we are at the start of 2025. With many uncertainties and one certainty: difficult times are coming for those who want to lead with values.
On the one hand, it is time to be more agile and innovative. On the other hand, it is important to do so without unlearning some of the valuable things we have learned over the last fifty years about how to do business while respecting people and the planet.
We learnt from Robert Greenleaf that leadership is at the service of people. From Muhammad Yunus that conscious capitalism is posible. From Jim Collins that work is more valuable than bravado. And, of course, from Xavier Marcet, to use common sense and put people at the centre of what we do. And from science we learnt that making growth compatible with decarbonisation is the only way fo rus to have a future.
There is a lot to do.
In this complex context, I believe that what our companies need is responsibility, cooperation, diversity and a lot of creativity, necessary to find ways to grow while with leaving a habitable world for the next generations. In other words, so that they understand it in Silicon Valley, what we need is more ‘feminine energy’.