Mark Zuckerberg’s nickname at Facebook is the ‘Eye of Sauron’ - but founder founder insists it is ‘loving’

The Lord of the Rings villain is depicted as a flaming eye that watches over Middle Earth

(Getty Images)

Employees at the social media giant Meta reportedly refer to founder Mark Zuckerberg as the ‘Eye of Sauron.’

Mark Zuckerberg revealed the nickname in an interview with podcast host Tim Ferriss. “Some of the folks who I work with at the company say this lovingly, but I think that they sometimes refer to my attention as the Eye of Sauron," said Mr Zuckerberg, referring to the Lord of the Rings villain usually depicted as a flaming eye that sees all and is the source of evil in Middle Earth.

Mr Zuckerberg said that the term referred to the amount of energy he has to work on projects.

"They’re like, ‘You have this unending amount of energy to go work on something. And if you point that at any given team, you will just burn them,’" Mr Zuckerberg said.

"I just think the engagement that you get of having, like, an immediate feedback loop around thinking about something and then getting to go talk to the people who are working on this is so much better than going and scheduling a meeting that you’ll have three weeks later."

Mr Zuckerberg’s reputation as an odd individual, one that might enjoy a comparison to an evil entity, has been commented on before.

During his announcement that he was creating a “metaverse”, a digital parallel to the real world, viewers of the Facebook Live video noticed that a BBQ sauce bottle was being used as a bookend.

“To show that he is a normal human who loves normal human things, like BBQ sauce”, a Twitter user wrote.

“Zuck using sweet baby ray’s BBQ sauce as a bookend is the most normal thing he’s ever done”, another said. The same sauce bottle had been seen in a video in 2016.

In the interview with Mr Ferriss, Mark Zuckerberg said he was unconcerned by external criticism now – with his main focus now being the metaverse.

"At this point, I kind of feel like if people fully feel like they understand what we are as a company and what we’re doing, then I’m not pushing it hard enough," he said.