Quickfacts

Early Life
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, into a
comfortable, well-educated family, and raised in the nearby village of Dobbs Ferry. His father,
Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice attached to the family's home. His mother, Karen,
worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple's four childrenMark, Randi, Donna and
Arielle.
Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when he was about 12, he used
Atari BASIC to create a messaging program he named "Zucknet." His father used the program in
his dental office, so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient without yelling across
the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the house. Together with his
friends, he also created computer games just for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were artists,"
he said. "They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it."
To keep up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents hired private computer
tutor David Newman to come to the house once a week and work with Mark. Newman later told
reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the prodigy, who began taking graduate courses at
nearby Mercy College around this same time.
Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New
Hampshire. There he showed talent in fencing, becoming the captain of the school's team. He
also excelled in literature, earning a diploma in classics. Yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by
computers, and continued to work on developing new programs. While still in high school, he
created an early version of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. Several
companiesincluding AOL and Microsoftexpressed an interest in buying the software, and
hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the offers.

Time at Harvard
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After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. By his
sophomore year at the ivy league institution, he had developed a reputation as the go-to software
developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a program called CourseMatch, which
helped students choose their classes based on the course selections of other users. He also
invented Facemash, which compared the pictures of two students on campus and allowed users
to vote on which one was more attractive. The program became wildly popular, but was later
shut down by the school administration after it was deemed inappropriate.
Based on the buzz of his previous projects, three of his fellow studentsDivya Narendra, and
twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevosssought him out to work on an idea for a social
networking site they called Harvard Connection. This site was designed to use information from
Harvard's student networks in order to create a dating site for the Harvard elite. Zuckerberg
agreed to help with the project, but soon dropped out to work on his own social networking site
with friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.
Zuckerberg and his friends created a site that allowed users to create their own profiles, upload
photos, and communicate with other users. The group ran the sitefirst called The Facebook
out of a dorm room at Harvard until June 2004. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped
out of college to devote himself to Facebook full time, moving the company to Palo Alto,
California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users.

The Rise of Facebook

In 2005, Zuckerberg's enterprise received a huge boost from the venture capital firm Accel
Partners. Accel invested $12.7 million into the network, which at the time was open only to ivy
league students. Zuckerberg's company then granted access to other colleges, high school and
international schools, pushing the site's membership to more than 5.5 million users by December
2005. The site then began attracting the interest of other companies, who wanted to advertize
with the popular social hub. Not wanting to sell out, Zuckerberg turned down offers from
companies such as Yahoo! and MTV Networks. Instead, he focused on expanding the site,
opening up his project to outside developers and adding more features.
Zuckerberg seemed to be going nowhere but up, however in 2006, the business mogul faced his
first big hurdle. The creators of Harvard Connection claimed that Zuckerberg stole their idea, and
insisted the software developer needed to pay for their business losses. Zuckerberg maintained
that the ideas were based on two very different types of social networks but, after lawyers
searched Zuckerberg's records, incriminating Instant Messages revealed that Zuckerberg may
have intentionally stolen the intellectual property of Harvard Connection and offered Facebook
users' private information to his friends.
Zuckerberg later apologized for the incriminating messages, saying he regretted them. "If you're
going to go on to build a service that is influential and that a lot of people rely on, then you need
to be mature, right?" he said in an interview with The New Yorker. "I think I've grown and
learned a lot."
Although an initial settlement of $65 million was reached between the two parties, the legal
dispute over the matter continued well into 2011, after Narendra and the Winklevosses claimed
they were misled in regards to the value of their stock.
Zuckerberg faced yet another personal challenge when the 2009 book The Accidental
Billionaires, by writer Ben Mezrich, hit stores. Mezrich was heavily criticized for his re-telling
of Zuckerberg's story, which used invented scenes, re-imagined dialogue and fictional characters.
Regardless of how true-to-life the story was, Mezrich managed to sell the rights of the tale to
screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and the critically acclaimed film The Social Network received eight
Academy Award nominations.

Zuckerberg objected strongly to the film's narrative, and later told a reporter atThe New
Yorker that many of the details in the film were inaccurate. For example, Zuckerberg has been
dating longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan, a Chinese-American medical student he met at
Harvard, since 2003. He also said he never had interest in joining any of the final clubs. "It's
interesting what stuff they focused on getting right; like, every single shirt and fleece that I had
in that movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own," Zuckerberg told a reporter at a start-up
conference in 2010. "So there's all this stuff that they got wrong and a bunch of random details
that they got right."
Yet Zuckerberg and Facebook continued to succeed, in spite of the criticism.Time magazine
named him Person of the Year in 2010, and Vanity Fairplaced him at the top of their New
Establishment list. Forbes also ranked Zuckerberg at No. 35beating out Apple CEO Steve Jobs
on its "400" list, estimating his net worth to be $6.9 billion.

How Facebook Makes Money

In 2013, the turnover of Facebook, Inc. reached $7.87 billion and net income $1.5 billion. The
growth rates are also impressive: three years turnover has increased six-fold.
The basic earnings of Facebook come from contextual ads on the pages of the social network.
Growing number of users and the time they spend on the site is converted into advertising
revenues. 85% percent of cash-flow that went through the company last year was earned through
contextual advertising.
The most of the rest 15% are deductions from purchases made through the Facebook payment
system. These are mostly not real, but virtual goods. For example seeds, fruits and vegetables,
purchased by fans of the popular game Farmville developed by Zynga.

Despite the apparent frivolity, virtual goods is a serious business, and the Facebook report
confirms that. The company estimated that in 2010 the global market turnover for virtual goods
reached $7 billion, and by 2014, it rose to $15 billion.
At the beginning of January 2013, Facebook Inc. started testing the service of paid private
messaging. Facebook charges $1.00 for a private message that you can send to the users who are
not in your friend list. And the message goes directly to their Inbox folder, instead of Other one.
But Facebook went further and realized that some users are worth more than a $1. If you want to
send a message to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and get into his inbox, you might have to
pay $100 for this exclusive option. This is another very simple way to generate additional
revenue.

Acquisition of Instagram, Oculus Rift, and WhatsApp

Mark Zuckerberg is a great strategist, and he keeps acquiring companies that continue their
operation as independent entities under Facebooks umbrella.

Co-founders of Instagram Mike

Krieger (left) and Kevin Systrom (right)
In April 2012, acquired mobile photo sharing app Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock.
Initially, it was an iOS application developed by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. Now the
Instagram application is available on Android OS as well.
In March 2014, Facebook closed the acquisition of Oculus Rift for $2 billion. Oculus Rift is a
virtual reality hardware engineered by Oculus VR Company headed by Palmer Freeman Luckey.
Facebook paid $400 million in cash plus

Palmer Freeman Luckey,

founder of Oculus VR
23.1m Facebook shares, with a further $300 million in incentives if it hits certain milestones in
the future.

In October 2014, Mark Zuckerberg completed the purchase of WhatsApp for $22 billion.
Facebook

paid

$4.59

billion

in

cash

and

177,760,669

shares

in

the

company.

WhatsApp Co-Founders Brian Acton (left) and Jan Koum (right)

WhatsApp is an instant messaging application founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009.

Politics
In 2002, Zuckerberg registered to vote in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up, but
did not cast a ballot until November 2008. Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters
Spokeswoman, Elma Rosas, told Bloomberg that Zuckerberg is listed as no preference on
voter rolls, and he voted in the past two general elections, in 2008 and 2012. On Zuckerberg's
Facebook page, he has Chris Christie, Cory Booker, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Barack Obama in his
likes section.
Mark Zuckerberg has never specified his own political views: some consider him a conservative,
while others consider him liberal.In 2013, numerous liberal and progressive groups, such as The
League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, Democracy for America, CREDO,
Daily Kos, 350.org, and Presente and Progressives United agreed to either pull their Facebook ad
buys or not buy Facebook ads for at least two weeks, in protest of Zuckerberg ads funded by
FWD.us that were in support of oil drilling and the Keystone XL pipeline, and in opposition to
Obamacare among Republican US senators who back immigration reform.

On February 13, 2013, Zuckerberg hosted his first ever fundraising event for New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie. Zuckerberg's particular interest on this occasion was education reform,
and Christie's education reform work focused on teachers unions and the expansion of charter
schools. Later that year, Zuckerberg would host a campaign fundraiser for Newark mayor Cory
Booker, who was running in the 2013 New Jersey special Senate election.In September 2010,
with the support of Governor Chris Christie, Booker obtained a $100 million pledge from
Zuckerberg to Newark Public Schools. In December 2012, Zuckerberg donated 18 million shares
to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a community organization that includes education
in its list of grant-making areas.
On April 11, 2013, Zuckerberg led the launch of a 501(c)(4) lobbying group called FWD.us. The
founders and contributors to the group were primarily Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors,
and its president was Joe Green, a close friend of Zuckerberg. The goals of the group include
immigration reform, improving the state of education in the US, and enabling more technological
breakthroughs that benefit the public, yet it has also been criticized for financing ads advocating
a variety of oil and gas development initiatives, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge and the Keystone XL pipeline.
A media report on June 20, 2013 revealed that Zuckerberg actively engaged with Facebook users
on his own profile page after the online publication of a FWD.us video. In response to a claim
that the FWD.us organization is "just about tech wanting to hire more people", the Internet
entrepreneur replied: "The bigger problem were trying to address is ensuring the 11 million
undocumented folks living in this country now and similar folks in the future are treated fairly.
In June 2013, Zuckerberg joined Facebook employees in a company float as part of the annual
San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration. The company first
participated in the event in 2011, with 70 employees, and this number increased to 700 for the
2013 march. The 2013 pride celebration was especially significant, as it followed a U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that deemed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.
When questioned about the mid-2013 PRISM scandal at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in
September 2013, Zuckerberg stated that the U.S. government "blew it." He further explained that

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the government performed poorly in regard to the protection of the freedoms of its citizens, the
economy, and companies.
Zuckerberg placed a statement on his Facebook wall on December 9, 2015 which said that he
wants "to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world" in
response to the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks and the 2015 San Bernardino
shooting. The statement also said that Muslims are "always welcome" on Facebook, and that his
position was a result of the fact that "as a Jew, my parents taught me that we must stand up
against attacks on all communities."
On February 24, 2016, Zuckerberg sent out a company-wide internal memo to employees
formally rebuking employees who had crossed out handwritten "Black Lives Matter" phrases on
the company walls and had written "All Lives Matter" in their place. Facebook allows employees
to free-write thoughts and phrases on company walls. The memo was then leaked by several
employees. As Zuckerberg had previously condemned this practice at previous company
meetings, and other similar requests had been issued by other leaders at Facebook, Zuckerberg
wrote in the memo that he would now consider this overwriting practice not only disrespectful,
but "malicious as well." According to Zuckerberg's memo, "Black Lives Matter doesn't mean
other lives don't -- it's simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they
deserve." The memo also noted that the act of crossing something out in itself, "means silencing
speech, or that one person's speech is more important than another's." Zuckerberg also said in the
memo that he would be launching investigations into the incidents. The New York Daily News
interviewed Facebook employees who commented anonymously that, "Zuckerberg was
genuinely angry about the incident and it really encouraged staff that Zuckerberg showed a clear
understanding of why the phrase "Black Lives Matter" must exist, as well as why writing
through it is a form of harassment and erasure."

Internet.org

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In a public Facebook post, Zuckerberg launched the Internet.org project in late August
2013. Zuckerberg explained that the primary aim of the initiative is to provide Internet
access to the 5 billion people who are not connected as of the launch date.

Internet.org will also create new jobs and open up new markets, according to Zuckerberg.

To stay proven on the efforts of bringing in the concept of net neutrality, Mark
Zuckerberg met Narendra Modi to discuss on how to effectively establish
affordable internet access to the less developed countries. As a token of initiation, Mark
Zuckerberg changed his Facebook profile picture to extend his support to the Digital
India to help the rural communities to stay connected to the internet.

Mark Zuckerberg: TIMEs 2010 Person of the Year

In January 2010, TIME magazine named Facebook founder, CEO and 26-year old billionaire
Mark Zuckerberg the Person of the Year 2010.
Lady Gaga, James Cameron and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, were struggling for this
title that year. However, TIME magazine chose his hero. The social network created by Mark
connected almost every tenth person on the planet, Richard Stengel, TIME editor-in-chief
explained their choice. According to him, Today, Facebook is the third largest country in the
world that knows about its citizens as much as no government on planet does.

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Mark Zuckerberg named TIMESs person of the

year 2010
In 2010, Forbes magazine admitted Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest billionaire in its list to the
state of $4 billion.
In the rating of the 400 richest people in the United States, published by Forbes magazine in
2015, Zuckerberg took 7th place with a net worth of $40.3 billion.

Mark Zuckerbergs Lifestyle

Currently, Zuckerberg lives in the Palo Alto in a $7 million estate that features 5 bedrooms a
saltwater pool, and over 5,000 square feet of property.

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Mark Zuckerbergs Wife Priscilla Chan

On May 19, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan in Palo Alto,
California and finally they happily live together.
On December 01, 2015, Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan announced the birth of their
daughter, Maxima Chan Zuckerberg, and wrote a letter to her with the supportive words and
mentoring notes. Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better
place for you and all children, Zuckerberg and Chan wrote in the letter to their daughter.
The young couple also pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares worth about $45 billion
through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative within their lifetime to promote human potential,
equality, and the world development.

28 Incredible Facts About Mark Zuckerberg

1. Mark Zuckerberg began programming at a young age--when he was 12 he created a
messaging program that his father used in his dental office, allowing the receptionist to
notify him of new patients without yelling across the office.
2. Zuckerberg took a computer graduate class at the nearby Mercy College while still in
high school.

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3. His parents even hired a computer tutor to work with the young Zuckerberg, but the
tutor admitted that it quickly became difficult to stay ahead of his pupil, referring to him
as a "prodigy."
4. Mark Zuckerberg attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy, a private school in
New Hampshire.
5. He was approached by several companies with job offers (including AOL and
Microsoft) before he even graduated high school, but Zuckerberg turned them all down.
6. Zuckerberg first launched Facebook from his dormitory at Harvard University.
7. He dropped out of Harvard University after his sophomore year to continue working on
Facebook.
8. A movie was made about Zuckerberg and the birth of Facebook, called The Social
Network.
9. Before Facebook, Zuckerberg created CourseMatch for Harvard students, helping
students pick out classes based on which classes their friends were enrolled in.
10. He also created the infamous Facemash program, which compared pictures of two
Harvard students and allowed users to vote on who was more attractive. Harvard
administration shut down the program, deeming it inappropriate.
11. Zuckerberg's next project involved teaming up with three other Harvard Students,
Divya Narendra and the Winklevoss twins (who are infamously portrayed in The Social
Network). They aimed to create a social networking site called Harvard Connection,
which would serve as a matchmaking site for students. Zuckerberg soon left this project
to work on Facebook with his friends.
12. Zuckerberg was close friends with Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, who also
became a founding president of Facebook.
13. Early on, many companies like Yahoo! and MTV Networks approached Zuckerberg in
hopes of advertising on Facebook, but Zuckerberg turned them down, not wanting to
sell out.

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14. In 2006, the Harvard Connection team sued Zuckerberg, claiming he stole their concept
and requesting compensation of their business losses. While Zuckerberg asserted that
the ideas were completely different, incriminating messages revealed that Zuckerberg
may have intentionally ripped off intellectual property from the Harvard Connection.
15. A settlement of 1.2 million Facebook stock shares and $20 million in cash was
eventually reached.
16. Zuckerberg wasn't the only one irritated with the Winklevoss twins. Former Harvard
President Larry Summers had no love for the pair either, saying, "One of the things you
learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on
Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they're
looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was
the latter case."
17. Zuckerberg was not a fan of The Social Network, arguing that many of the film's details
were inaccurate.
18. Zuckerberg notes that the film took huge liberties with some events, while staying
oddly true to others. He observed that while he never had any interest in joining the
finals clubs (an element that plays a major role in the film), every shirt and fleece
depicted in the movie was an actual piece of clothing that he has owned.
19. The Social Network is based off of the book, The Accidental Billionaires, by Ben
Mezrich. The book has been known to deviate quite a bit from actual events, as even the
book's publicist referred to it as "big juicy fun" rather than "reportage."
20. The Social Network's screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, confessed to New Yorkmagazine that,
"I don't want my fidelity to be the truth; I want it to be storytelling...what is the big deal
about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake?"
21. Mark Zuckerberg was one of the early adopters of Google+, saying that it validated his
vision of mainstream social networking. In 2011, Zuckerberg was the most followed
user on Google+, with even more followers than Google co-founders Larry Page and
Sergey Brin.

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22. Zuckerberg has supported numerous philanthropic causes, most famously donating
$100 million to rescue the struggling Newark Public Schools system of New Jersey.
23. Zuckerberg has signed the "Giving Pledge" commitment, promising to donate at least
50% of his wealth over the course of his lifetime.
24. In 2014, Zuckerberg donated $25 million to combat the ebola virus epidemic in West
Africa.
25. Zuckerberg's marriage to longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan was quite the surprise for
friends and family--guests were told they were being invited over to celebrate Chan's
medical school graduation, but in reality they ended up attending the pair's wedding.
26. Similar to Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg has a $1 annual salary as CEO of Facebook.
27. Zuckerberg was Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2010 and in 2013, Facebook
made the Fortune 500 list for the first time--making Zuckerberg, at the age of 28, the
youngest CEO on the list.
28. Zuckerberg is currently #10 on Forbe's list of the 400 richest Americans.

How to Lead Like Mark Elliot Zuckerberg

1. Passion
The most successful entrepreneurs share the same trait: They are passionate about what they do.
Zuckerberg has always been fascinated by building systems that connect people. His passion was
always to make the world more open, sometimes radically so.
If you look at Facebook's mission statement, its core hasn't changed since inception. It states:
"Facebooks mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and
connected."
Yes, Zuckerberg has always been passionate about using technology to connect people, but he
has also put in the hard work to achieve it. Having passion for something means that you dont
give up. It gives you energy to work through difficulties. Where some people see failure, a
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passionate entrepreneur sees only a learning experience, a stepping stone to keep moving
forward.
Passion is what turns an entrepreneur into a successful business leader: If you are driven by
passion you wont give up, no matter how long the journey, and you keep learning constantly. "
Find that thing you are super passionate about. A lot of the founding principles of Facebook are
that if people have access to more information and are more connected, it will make the world
better; people will have more understanding, more empathy. That's the guiding principle for me.
On hard days, I really just step back, and thats the thing that keeps me going." --Mark
Zuckerberg
Lesson: Passion fuels perseverance, one of the key ingredients of success.
2. Purpose
The really great companies have a sense of purpose at the root of all that they do, from hiring
employees, to attracting the right investors, to their marketing and their customer service. That
sense of purpose breeds the sense of belonging, it sparks intense employee and customer loyalty.
Great leaders (and great companies) create movements, not just products. Facebook isnt just a
social networking site, it is a way of staying on touch with people around the world, a place to
bring people together and build communities, and a tool for sharing information.
By always keeping his purpose in mind, Zuckerberg has been able to focus on creating the best
product for achieving this.
"At Facebook, we're inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and
consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the
television-;by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete
transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They
encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer
together." --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Great companies dont just create great products, they create movements.

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3. People
The most innovative companies allow their employees the freedom to develop their interests and
to take risks. Facebook has an interview process that only selects employees who are the right fit
for the company's culture. Once they are in, they take part in intensive training that teaches them
the "hacker way" of fast, creative coding that Zuckerberg prizes.
They are also allowed to work on the projects that they are most interested in vs. those that are
assigned to them. Companies like Facebook, Apple and Zappos have created a culture that
empowers courage of conviction, freedom of speech, and action. This comes from strong
leadership that leads by example.
"I think as a company, if you can get those two things right--having a clear direction on what you
are trying to do and bringing in great people who can execute on the stuff--then you can do pretty
well." --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Get the right people on board and wrong people off the bus. And where possible hire for
attitude, not skills. Skills can be taught, passion can't.
4. Product
Facebook is utterly committed to its product. Every innovation is to further its goal of connecting
people in the simplest way possible. Facebook's philosophy is to "move fast and break things"
and this has ensured the rapid growth that has allowed the company to lead. Zuckerbergs
complete belief in his product has also given him the strength to persevere with some of the most
unpopular changes in the face of huge opposition, even within his own company.
When the News Feed was introduced it was initially disliked by users (mostly for privacy
reasons), yet the feature fuelled massive expansion and set Facebook apart from other social
media sites.
When Zuckerberg announced Facebook as a platform, people thought he was crazy. But
expansion into a platform has thrust the company into the next stage of successful growth.
"The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration.
Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. . .
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There's a hacker mantra that you'll hear a lot around Facebook offices: 'Code wins arguments.'
" --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Establish a culture that welcomes innovation. And have courage to stick to your vision
and be dedicated to proliferating the culture that helps execute on that vision in the most
effective way.
5. Partnerships
No business leader can run a company all by themselves. Success is a team sport. Great leaders
recognize their own weaknesses as much as their strengths and bring in the right people in to
form partnerships that drive success. Whether it is investors, a management team, suppliers,
distributors or retail partnerships, partnering with the right people is vital.
At Facebook, Zuckerberg provides the imagination, while Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief
operating officer, provides the execution around his vision. Like Warner Bros., Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, or any other successful business partnerships,
Zuckerberg and Sandberg share the same values, complementary strengths, commitment, mutual
trust and the mutual respect needed to continue to drive the company forwards.
"Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our growth and success
over the years." --Mark Zuckerberg

ENTREPRENEURIAL LESSONS FROM MARK ZUCKERBERG

Listen to Zuckerberg discuss the early days of Facebook, and we will hear him say that he knew
he wanted to get into tech startups, but he never thought it was going to be Facebook. He figured
a social network would be built by a big, multi-billion dollar tech corporation, not him. Now,
nine years after Facebooks launch, it has become its own multi-billion dollar empire. Facebook

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has done a lot of things right. It scaled well, has a great UI (user interface) and always has been
iterating, a trademark of many top companies.
There are a few things we can learn from Zuckerberg and his relatively short stint as CEO. Lets
look at what drives Zuckerberg and how his team at Facebook is changing the world for the
better.
1. BUSINESSES NEED TO HAVE HIGHER PURPOSE
In a May 2012 interview with Forbes, Zuckerberg says:
I often say inside the company that my goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people
have been misinterpreting that as if I dont care about revenue or profit or any of those things,
he continued. Thats not actually it at all. You need to do those things to succeed in any
meaningful way.. Ultimately what not being just a company means to me, is just not being just
thatbuilding something that actually makes a really big change in the world.
Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social
mission to make the world more open and connected.
According to Zuckerberg, Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. As
stated, the mission of Facebook is to make the world more open and connected. This mission, of
consumers having closer relationships with businesses, musicians, etc., and forming connections
with others is why Facebook exists. The business aspect of Facebook is to serve advertisements
to people who are interested and expose them to brands that may appeal to them. Thus, people
connect and meet new people and businesses on Facebook.
2. MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS
Move fast and break things is a motto that Facebook has become known for. Like Zuckerberg
states, it means that if you arent making mistakes, you arent moving fast enough.
Zuckerberg says in his letter to shareholders:

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Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies
grow, they slow down too much because theyre more afraid of making mistakes than they are of
losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: Move fast and break things. The
idea is that if you never break anything, youre probably not moving fast enough.
An instance where Facebook upset many users was the integration of Timeline into user profiles.
The first impression of Timeline was overwhelmingly negative for many users. In fact, they
didnt like being forced into using Timeline so much that a verb, Timelined, was born.
Eventually, the user screams faded and everyone is adapting to Timeline.
The key with mistakes is distinguishing between the false positive mistakes and the real
mistakes. For instance, Timeline would appear to be a false positive mistake, meaning that it
appeared to be a huge mistake at first, but ultimately turned out to be a success. Then there are
the real mistakes, like Beacon.
Ultimately, as Zuckerberg has pointed out, people wont remember the mistakes years from now.
Theyll remember the value that you provided.
3. GROWTH SHOULD BE A CORE COMPETENCE
Zuckerberg says that once you have a product youre happy with, you should centralize things
like a growth team. At Facebook, they were called the Spread Facebook team, and their only
job was to get people to sign up and use Facebook.
One thing that the growth team at Facebook discovered was that a new signup needs 10 friends
in order to stay engaged and keep coming back to Facebook. If they have any fewer than 10
friends, there isnt enough content for them to keep coming back to see their News Feed. Once
Facebook had this information, it removed a lot of the unnecessary red tape from the new user
setup and helped the beginners discover people they might know.
Zuckerberg says its different for every company:

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Its going to be different things for different companies, but I think for each of your companies
once you get a core product that youre happy with, I think its worth going through and having
the discipline to do this exercise.
You can find a good write up about Facebooks user growth that Andy Johns, former Facebook
user growth employee.
4. DONT BE AFRAID TO TAKE RISK
The biggest risk is not taking any risk.- Mark Zuckerberg
If you want to move fast and break things, you cannot shy away from risk. The biggest mistake
you can make is not making any mistakes. As Zuckerberg says:
In a world thats changing really quickly the only strategy where youre guaranteed to fail is not
taking any risk and not changing anything.
Amazon is a company known for its risks. It is constantly experimenting and inventing, unafraid
to fail. One big risk for them was letting other merchants sell through Amazon. It would allow a
merchant to undercut Amazons price, which would lead to fewer sales for Amazon.
One of the biggest risks taken by a major US corporation was Coca-Colas introduction of New
Coke. Amid a shrinking market share, Coca-Cola introduced New Coke. Consumers didnt like
it and were vocal about their displeasure. That was a big risk for Coke changing the formula for
their top selling product. Its a risk that didnt pay off, but Coke has rebounded since then.
Theyve eliminated New Coke and brought back Classic Coke.
5. STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR PRODUCT AND DONT WORRY ABOUT MISTAKES
Zuckerberg and his team at Facebook focus on moving fast and making mistakes. Its his
philosophy that people wont remember the mistakes you make in the long run.
In a talk at Startup School 2011, Zuckerberg says that entrepreneurs need to stay focused on
providing value for users. He says:

23

Theres like 1000 things going on at any point in given time [at Facebook], and theres like one
or two that actually matter. You need to focus on those.probably the most inspiring surprising
thing is that you can be so bad at so many things, and learn along the way, and as long as you
stay focused on how youre providing value to your users and customers and you have
something that is unique and valuable and you understand and that youre providing, then you
get through all that stuff.you have time to learn, youre not going to know everything going
into it up front, and thats okay. Just stay focused on the stuff that youre providing to your users.
Youre going to make a ton of mistakes, it doesnt matter. You dont get judged by the mistakes,
people dont remember those years from now, they remember the things that you did that were
good.
Zuckerberg later says:
We place a really big premium on moving quickly. One of the big theories that I had about that,
was that all technology companies, and probably all companies, just slow down dramatically as
they grow. But if we can focus at every step along the way on moving quickerthen well move
as quickly as a company that only has 500 people, because weve invested so much in building
up the infrastructure and tools and also the culture that tells people to take risks and try things
out. I just think that that ability to build stuff quicker will be a big advantage for us and will help
us build better products over the long term.

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Newspaper article

Autor surname ,initial.

Publication date in brackets.
Title of newspaper- italics,
Page number.

Delshad Irani , HT Bureau, (October 13, 2010) , The Social

Network' on Mark Zuckerberg, the hindustantimes , p. 12.

Pankaj Mishra & Jayadevan PK , ET Bureau, (May 20,

2015) ,Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg wants India to like
Internet.org, the news york times , p.9.

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Webage with an author

Autor surname ,initial.

Date webage created in brackets , hint : you will find this at the bottom of
the page.
Title of web page in italics.
retrieved and date retrieved.

From the url.

mark zuckerberg , Freebase, (2005), STAN SCHROEDER (2005-2016).

retrieved november 7,2009, from http://mashable.com/category/markzuckerberg/

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Book

Autors surname , Autors initial.

Publication date ( in brackets).
Title italics.
Place of Publication : Publisher.

Moises Naim, N. J. ( 2013) .Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of
Facebook's Improbably brilliant ceo mark zuckerberg . united states
chronicle books

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