If Zuckerberg wants to rule the world, does he even need to be president?

The Facebook CEO's 5,700 word post advocated a strong civil society and ended quoting Lincoln. Is he pitching for office, or already an unofficial Potus?

It is not normal for a technology chief executive to announce a new product roadmap in the form of a 5,700 word blogpost that begins with a unified theory of history and ends by quoting Abraham Lincoln. But that's exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has done in his letter to the "Facebook community", published on Thursday.

The unusual aspects of the letter don't stop at its length. Zuckerberg rapidly alternates between lofty statements of social principle and minor product updates. One minute, he is discussing the necessity for a strong civil society existing between the government and the people, implicitly rebutting Margaret Thatcher; the next, he is discussing the need for the administrators of Facebook groups to be able to support "sub-communities", so that, for example, a Facebook group for a university can contain within it a sub-group for a particular accommodation block.