this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Facebook employees still remember an infamous game of Catan from 9 years ago (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 3 days ago by AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works to c/boardgames@sopuli.xyz
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Business Insider published an article today titled "An ex-Facebook exec said staff let Zuckerberg win at board games. But now the plot thickens."

TLDR for the article:

  • In her new book "Careless People", a former Facebook executive recalls a SPECIFIC game of Catan played on an Indonesia trip in October 2014. She writes that other Facebook employees let Mark Zuckerberg win at Catan by never stealing from him and failing to block his victory.
  • Another player at that game is refuting her assessment and saying that it's actually WORSE - that Zuckerberg enlisted the other players to gang up on him in order to secure the win.

What's funny to me about this article is that I'm sure we've all had at least one game session that has gone down in infamy due to it's contentiousness. It seems this specific session of Catan in Indonesia was THAT game for the players at the table that night. Over nine years later, they still recall the details of what went down. Excerpts from the article:

  • She called out at one point when she saw one "particularly egregious" move and others flashed her looks.
  • When she asked Zuckerberg if he really wanted to win that way [i.e. by others letting him win], he seemed "perplexed"
  • "I feel the dynamics in the room shift and not in a good way."
  • Hunter-Torrick said his tactic was to eliminate weaker players so he could then go after Zuckerberg, "who was the toughest player." But then something "more interesting" happened. "Zuckerberg said he was tired and wanted to sleep, and convinced the others to gang up on me so he could win! That's actually a much better story showing his ruthlessness," 

It's nice to see that I'm not the only one that doesn't let these things go! (kidding/not kidding)

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Credit u/UlisKromwell

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[–] pleasegoaway@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

What a small, small man.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 31 points 3 days ago

This seems to be endemic to billionaires. Robotman forces people to lose to him in a board game. Ketamine Kiddie pays people to play his video games for him so he can seem "elite". What are we going to find out about Bezos next? That he forces people to play poker with him with the card faces turned his way?

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is why I stopped playing Catan.

[–] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 days ago

I've been playing off and on for 20+ years, mostly with the same people, and just recently got someone new into it. I've known a few people that got pissy for losing. I just stopped playing with them. And not just Catan, but any adversarial game. It's not worth the hassle. Much easier to move to a co-op game with those people.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Catan convinced me that any game involving politics is not fun for me.