No, I’m not running for President in 2020: Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has taken up the personal challenge to visit every state in the United States, has written a new post confirmed that this isn’t about trying to be President in 2020 or any other elected office in the US, reports Indian Express.

In this blogpost, Zuckerberg wrote, “Some of you have asked if this challenge means I’m running for public office. I’m not. I’m doing it to get a broader perspective to make sure we’re best serving our community of almost 2 billion people at Facebook and doing the best work to promote equal opportunity at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.”

Zuckerberg in his post also gave details on what sort of experiences he’s had across America. Recently we’ve seen pictures of Zuckerberg visiting regular people all over the US. He wrote about how he met heroin addicts in the state of Ohio, and how they told him that the way to fight the addiction was detox and then finding a new set of friends.

In his post Zuckerberg wrote, “If you stay friends with the people you were using with - or even with people who are using on their own - you’re almost guaranteed to relapse. It’s tough when those people are your close friends and even tougher when they’re your family, but building new relationships is the most important predictor of staying clean.”

He also wrote about his experience at juvenile justice centre in Indiana, and how some of the children there had committed serious crimes like murder robbery, but there also others who had just “misbehaved in class.”

“The correctional system is building a negative and self-reinforcing social network,” he wrote pointing out society should helping these children “build positive relationships with role models.”

He also wrote about poverty in the Southern states, and how “few people move to seek better opportunities elsewhere,” even though research has shown that it does help fight economic inequality.

In his post, the Facebook CEO says, “There’s a widely held myth that if people in other places just had better information they’d make better decisions. I’ve found this is generally wrong and the people I’ve met are rational.

Now, it’s true we’re all missing some information that would help us make better decisions no matter where we live. But the people I’ve met have good reasons for the decisions they make based on their experiences and those of their friends and family.”

The post also talks about how Facebook helped people connect, but that more than just adding friends, people also need to “with people you should know - mentors and people outside your circle who care about you and can provide a new source of support and inspiration.”

Zuckerberg concludes his post by saying, “My hope is that we can help more people build positive relationships with people who expand their sense of possibility. I believe that if we do this, we will make progress on a lot of our greatest opportunities and challenges.”