《财富》2016年度商人：你想不到他是个管理天才

我首次采访马克·扎克伯格是在2005年，他那时刚满21岁，但看上去还像是一位16岁的大男孩。不久前，扎克伯格从哈佛大学退学，把他的初创公司搬到硅谷。他似乎很享受被称为CEO那种新奇感。彼时，Facebook还没有移动版，其网站拥有600万用户，专为高中生和大学生开放。它刚刚添加了一项功能，允许用户把多张照片上传到他们的简历上。但这家估值约1亿美元的公司，已经是一件炙手可热的商品，对其垂涎三尺的买家不在少数，他们都愿意支付比这个数字高得多的收购价格。我当时指出：尽管他初出茅庐，缺乏经验，但扎克伯格显然是一位“稳健得不可思议”的企业家。

那天，扎克伯格用特别有力的语气表示，他根本无意出售这家成立仅1年的公司。“我在这里是为了创造一种非常酷的东西，而不是为了被别人收购。”他一脸冷酷的表情，显得无比真诚，特别令人信服。

11年后，扎克伯格的鸿鹄之志早已转化为令人惊叹的现实：他已经成为一种全球现象。如今的Facebook是一家拥有近1.6万名员工，市值高达3500亿美元的媒体巨头，它还是一家依托广告收入的科技巨无霸。2016年，Facebook有望实现逾270亿美元的营收，以及多达70亿美元的利润。其核心产品现在拥有18亿用户。为了支撑Facebook的势力版图，扎克伯格还精心组建了一个资产组合，以。其完整的“应用家族”包括照片共享工具Instagram和通信服务WhatsApp，外加两个自主开发的应用：Facebook Messenger和Facebook Groups。此外，扎克伯格认为，该公司的Oculus虚拟现实头盔代表着人类沟通的下一种方式。

The first time I interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, back in 2005, he was all of 21 years old and could have passed for 16. He had recently dropped out of Harvard to move his startup to Silicon Valley and was obviously enjoying the novelty of being called CEO. Facebook’s website—there was no mobile version yet—had 6 million users and was open exclusively to high school and college students. It had only just added a feature allowing users to upload multiple photos to their profiles. But the company was already a hot commodity, valued at $100 million and coveted by buyers who were willing to pay far more. And despite his callowness, it was obvious that Zuckerberg was an entrepreneur who was, as I wrote at the time, “preternaturally levelheaded.”

If there was one point Zuckerberg was most forceful about that day, it was this: He wasn’t the least bit interested in selling his year-old company. “I’m in this to build something cool, not to get bought,” he said with a bloodless sincerity that was altogether convincing.

Eleven years later Zuckerberg has built something beyond cool: He has willed into being a global phenomenon. Facebook FB -1.93% is a nearly 16,000-employee media powerhouse worth $350 billion—and also an advertising-technology juggernaut on track to annual revenues of more than $27 billion in 2016 and gaudy profits of $7 billion. Its core product now has 1.8 billion users, and Zuckerberg has shrewdly assembled a portfolio of properties to buttress Facebook. The complete “family of apps” includes the photo-sharing tool Instagram and the communications service WhatsApp, plus two homegrown apps, Facebook Messenger and Facebook Groups. In addition, Zuckerberg believes the company’s Oculus virtual-reality headset represents the next way people will communicate with one another.

凭借着Facebook的巨大成就，扎克伯格已经获得与比尔·盖茨、史蒂夫·乔布斯和杰夫·贝佐斯并驾齐驱的超级巨星地位。现年32岁的他仍然像10年前一样，面带稚气，着装随意。但现如今，这位Facebook首席执行官无论走到何处，都是一位众星捧月的名人。他与各国总统、首相和教皇会面。他在北京和巴塞罗那慢跑的照片风靡网络。（今年，他还首次跑完了半程马拉松比赛。）他已经成为世界上最雄心勃勃的慈善家之一。最近，扎克伯格和学医出身的妻子普莉希拉·陈承诺捐赠30亿美元，用以支持一项大胆的目标：在其子女的有生之年帮助人类治愈、预防和管控所有的疾病。

扎克伯格的巨大成就理应获得世人认可。但令人惊讶的是，他的商业头脑始终未受到充分赏识。是的，他已将Facebook的商业事务委托给了魅力十足的首席运营官谢丽尔·桑德伯格——她是比扎克伯格年长15岁的学姐，拥有哈佛大学MBA学位。桑德伯格的存在助长了一种在硅谷耳熟能详的“成人监督”叙事。但不同于曾经在长达10年的时间内把CEO职务转交给埃里克·施密特的谷歌创始人，在Facebook冲向成功的12年中，扎克伯格一直担任公司CEO。尽管一再招致怀疑——比如，Facebook错失了转向智能手机的良机；搞砸了IPO；不再那么受年轻人欢迎——扎克伯格仍然是该公司首席产品梦想家和商业战略家。面临谷歌、Twitter和Snapchat等公司的全面攻击时，扎克伯格以一种异乎寻常的纪律性恪守着公司的使命，并通过一系列大胆的收购，始终让Facebook行驶在正轨上。

崇拜者将扎克伯格的商业成功归功于他的好奇心以及他相对“接地气”的技术方法。“他总是那么好学，考虑到我必须向他学习的东西远多于他有必要向我学习的东西，这种好学劲头有时候的确令人发狂。”Benchmark公司风险投资家马特·科勒感慨道。他是Facebook的早期员工之一，现在仍然与扎克伯格保持着密切关系。“他坚持不懈地专注于创新，但同时还是一个擅长应用科学和工程的家伙。”

考虑到Facebook的庞大规模，这家公司的增长速度实在令人叹为观止。4年来，其营收猛增50%，利润飙涨5倍。毫不奇怪的是，Facebook的股价一路高歌猛进，在两年内翻了一番。在最近一个季度，Facebook的营收同比增长56%，净收入同比增长166%。（但这份靓丽的财报公布后，Facebook的股价却略有下降，因为一些投资者担心，这家公司将无法保持如此炽热的增长步伐。）

Facebook’s immense accomplishments already have conferred superstar status on Zuckerberg, inviting comparisons to the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. At 32, he is as fresh-faced and casually dressed as a decade ago, yet today the Facebook CEO is a celebrity wherever he goes. He huddles with Presidents, Prime Ministers, and the pope. He is photographed jogging in Beijing and Barcelona. (This year he ran his first half-marathon.) Together with his physician wife, Priscilla Chan, he has become one of the world’s most ambitious philanthropists, most recently pledging $3 billion to an initiative with an audacious goal: to cure, prevent, or make manageable all diseases in their children’s lifetime.

Zuckerberg is rightly recognized for his outsize success. Nevertheless, he is surprisingly underappreciated for his business acumen. Yes, he has delegated the commercial aspects of Facebook to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s polished chief operating officer, a Harvard MBA who is 15 years Zuckerberg’s senior. Sandberg’s presence has fostered an “adult supervision” narrative familiar to the Valley. But unlike, say, the Google GOOGL -3.14% founders, who turned over the CEO job to Eric Schmidt for a decade, Zuckerberg has remained chief executive throughout Facebook’s 12-year sprint to greatness. Despite repeated doubts—when Facebook missed the shift to smartphones, when it was thought to have botched its IPO, when it was seen as losing its luster with young people—Zuckerberg has remained the company’s chief product visionary and business strategist. Through bold acquisitions and the articulation of a remarkably constant mission, Zuckerberg has kept Facebook on track in the face of full-frontal assaults from the likes of Google, Twitter TWTR -3.97% , Snapchat, and others.

Admirers attribute Zuckerberg’s business success to his inquisitive nature as well as to his relatively grounded approach to technology. “He’s always been a learn-it-all person, to a level that is sometimes maddening, considering how much more I have to learn from him than he does from me,” says Matt Cohler, a venture capitalist at Benchmark and an early Facebook employee who has remained close to Zuckerberg. “He maintains a relentless focus on innovation, but at the same time he’s an applied-science and engineering guy.”

What Zuckerberg has engineered at Facebook is growth that is astounding considering the size of the company. For four years running, it has grown revenues at a 50% clip, while profits have jumped fivefold. Unsurprisingly, Facebook’s stock has followed suit, doubling in two years. In its most recent quarter, Facebook increased its revenues 56% over the year before and its net income 166%. (And yet the stock dipped on the news, as some investors expressed fears the company won’t be able to keep up the scorching pace.)

规模增长是商业领导力的圣杯。仅凭这一成就，就足以使得扎克伯格轻松地成为《财富》2016年度商业人物。Facebook的产品经常被各方悉心剖析，一如它作为一家媒体巨头的种种过失。（Facebook很不愿意承认自己是一家媒体，这家公司似乎很享受庞大的广告数量带来的经济果实，但不愿承担随之而来的编辑责任。）

然而，尽管Facebook的成功备受赞誉，扎克伯格作为一位梦想家的远见卓识也被传为美谈，但外界并不太理解，作为一位CEO的扎克伯格究竟是如何开展日常工作的？是什么使得他成为一位如此高效的商人？对扎克伯格管理方式的研究表明，他的成功取决于三大支柱：他独特的展望未来的能力；他超脱尘俗的连贯性；他在一个经常迷恋闪亮小玩意的行业中培养的商业纪律。经过一番更加仔细的研究，《财富》发现，扎克伯格多年来始终保持着一种惊人的稳健性。

作为一位有远见的人要比表面看起来难得多。

2002年，就在扎克伯格进入哈佛大学校园的几个月前，迈克·维纳尔从这所顶级学府毕业，随后加盟微软公司。5年后，他成为一位Facebook工程师，后来获得擢升，主管该公司的搜索、本地和市场产品团队，直接向扎克伯格汇报工作。今年早些时候，他离开Facebook，成为一名风险投资家——这意味着他的新工作是找到下一个马克·扎克伯格。

近距离观察了这位Facebook首席执行官之后，维纳尔相信扎克伯格成功的关键是，他的思维能够穿越好几个时代，同时知道什么时候该深入探究。“马克的一大特点是，他看待事物的眼光非常长远，几乎是站在地质学的角度。”维纳尔说。“大多数人所思所想的，皆是今天或明天，本周或下周的事情，而马克的思维总是以世纪为单位。”（实际上，扎克伯格最喜欢玩的视频游戏正是《文明》。构想下一步行动时，这款游戏的玩家需要考虑宏大的历史进程。）

维纳尔列举了一个有点不那么壮观的例子：扎克伯格意欲利用至少10年时间，连接这个星球上另一半还没有使用互联网的人口。Facebook将借助固定翼无人机完成这一大胆的计划。这些无人机将从地球上空提供互联网接入服务。维纳尔表示，透过扎克伯格办公室四周的玻璃墙，所有人都能看到，这位CEO的办公桌上经常摆放着一大堆书。“有一段时间，他的桌子上有一本关于自由空间光通信的书籍。”当时，Facebook正在寻求利用这种技术从大气上传递信号。“他为此悉心阅读一本关于自由空间光学的大学教科书，这很符合马克的个性。”

Growing at scale is the holy grail of business leadership—and this feat alone makes Zuckerberg an easy choice for Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year for 2016. Facebook’s products are frequently dissected, as are its missteps as a reluctant media titan. (Facebook seems to enjoy the financial fruits of advertising dominance far more than the editorial responsibilities that go with it.)

Yet for all the celebration of Facebook’s success and the adulation of Zuckerberg as a visionary, what’s less well understood is how he goes about his day job as an executive. What makes him so effective as a businessperson? An examination of Zuckerberg’s management approach reveals that his success rests on three pillars: his unique ability to look into the future, his otherworldly consistency, and the business discipline he has nurtured in an industry quite often enamored of bright, shiny objects. A closer look reveals just how levelheaded he has remained over the years.

Being a visionary is harder than it looks.

Mike Vernal graduated from Harvard in 2002, a few months before Zuckerberg arrived on campus, and took a job at Microsoft MSFT -2.43% . Five years later he joined Facebook as an engineer, and later rose to head the company’s search, local, and marketplace product groups, reporting to Zuckerberg. Earlier this year he left Facebook to become a venture capitalist—meaning his new job is to find the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Having watched Facebook’s CEO up close, Vernal believes the key to Zuckerberg’s success is his ability to think for the ages while knowing when to go deep. “One of the things that defines Mark is that he takes a very, very long view of things, almost a geological view,” says Vernal. “Most people think day to day or week to week. Mark thinks century to century.” (Indeed, Zuckerberg’s favorite video game is Civilization, which allows players to consider the vast sweep of history while plotting their next move.)

Somewhat less grandiosely, Vernal cites Zuckerberg’s audacious 10-year-and-beyond quest to connect the half of the planet that doesn’t yet use the Internet. Facebook’s plan to do this involves fixed-wing drones that will deliver connectivity from high above the earth. Vernal says Zuckerberg typically has a pile of books on his desk, visible to all through the glass walls that surround it. “For a while there was a book on free-space optical communications,” says Vernal, referring to a technology Facebook is pursuing that will beam signals from the atmosphere. “It is telling about Mark’s personality that he reads a college textbook on free-space optics.”

尽管扎克伯格是一个很内向的人，他习惯于长时间的凝视，经常陷入令人尴尬的沉默，但他所做的不仅仅是深思。情感智力更高的CEO往往依赖他们的口才，而Facebook的CEO则把他的管理技能归因于自己的工程师背景。“对我来说，工程学可归结为两个真正的原则。”今年夏天，在尼日利亚首都，他告诉一群全神贯注的软件开发人员。“工程师思维模式把每个问题视为一个系统，然后将问题从最大的阶段分解为更小的部分。”随着时间的推移，“你就可以运营一家公司了。”在扎克伯格看来，一家公司自身就是一个复杂的系统，可分解为若干个高效运作的群体。“你管理的不是个人，而是团队。如果你的团队建设工作做得很好，运营一家公司就跟编写代码没有什么本质区别。”

始终如一的讯息有助于鼓舞士气

事实证明，扎克伯格善于选择人才，而且尤为依赖一个几乎见证了Facebook成长历程的核心高管团队。他声称，这个小圈子给予他的灵感远多于任何导师或顾问。尽管扎克伯格以代码神童著称，但在现实生活中，他其实是一位不知疲倦的“研磨者”——为了收获1%的灵感，他往往要付出99%的汗水。扎克伯格为自己聚集了一群他尊重的人才，不断地与他们一起测试他的假设。“创意通常不会来找你的。”2014年，他在Facebook公司组织的一个公开问答会上说。“你之所以萌发创意，是因为你一直在讨论或者思考某件事，并与很多人探讨了很长一段时间。”

An introvert given to long stares and awkward silences, Zuckerberg does more than think deeply. Where CEOs with more emotional intelligence rely on their gifts for gab, Facebook’s CEO attributes his management technique to his training as an engineer. “For me engineering comes down to two real principles,” he told a group of Nigerian software developers this summer. The “engineering mind-set,” he said, dictates thinking “of every problem as a system” and breaking down problems “from the biggest stage down to smaller pieces.” Over time, Zuckerberg told his rapt audience in Lagos, “you get to the point where you’re running a company,” itself a complicated system segmented into groups of high-functioning people. “Instead of managing individuals, you’re managing teams. And if you’ve built it well, then it’s not so different from writing code.”

A consistent message helps rally the troops.

Zuckerberg has proved adept at selecting talent, relying on a core of top executives who have been at Facebook for much of its existence. He claims to draw more inspiration from his coterie of senior managers than from any mentor or adviser. While he retains his reputation as a boy-genius coder, in reality Zuckerberg is something of a grinder—a 99% perspiration guy who has surrounded himself with a group of people he respects and with whom he is constantly stress-testing his hypotheses. “Ideas typically do not just come to you,” he said in a 2014 public Q&A session at Facebook. “They happen because you’ve been talking about something or thinking about something and talking to a lot of people about it for a long period of time.”

正是这种思维方式，驱使扎克伯格认识到三项对Facebook最重要的主题：连接性（让神奇的互联网，当然还包括神奇的Facebook，遍布世界每个角落，是他矢志不渝的追求）；人工智能和虚拟现实。

更重要的是，由于扎克伯格一直在鞭策自己，他能够早早地识别其他人的伟大创意（包括一些Facebook涉足较晚的领域）。如果有必要的话，他总是能够秉持大胆的信念，斥巨资收购其他公司的创新发明。比如，Facebook在2012年斥资10亿美元收购照片共享站点Instagram；两年后，该公司斥资20亿美元收购虚拟现实设备制造商Oculus VR，同年还以190亿美元的天价将WhatsApp揽入怀中。Instagram早已大获成功，今年的营收有望达到25亿美元，而Oculus和WhatsApp至少已经帮助Facebook在一些与其核心产品相邻的重要领域占据了非常有利的位置。

如今已拥有数百人的“成长团队”，是Facebook最重大的商业创新之一。这支团队主要负责为公司各个部门设计发展战略，并依靠一套严格的指标来衡量各部门的绩效。该部门拥有广泛的自主权，可评估Facebook业务的任何方面。“成长团队的纪律性对Facebook的影响不亚于其他任何事情。”前产品高管维纳尔说。“这支团队没有开发任何产品。相反，它负责解决一切阻止人们注册或使用Facebook的问题。”

现如今，许多硅谷公司都在效仿Facebook发明的成长团队概念。

耐心总有回报，哪怕你是一家匆忙成长的年轻公司

Facebook拥有一个简单，但足够宏大的使命：“给予人们分享的权力，让世界更加开放互联。”扎克伯格总是能够以一种令人头脑发木的方式，有效地将这项使命穿插在他的公开演讲、访谈，以及日常对话中。（拜日积月累的演练所赐，扎克伯格以呆板著称的演讲风格已有所改善。）

不断的重复使得这种讯息得以在外部和内部有效传播。在Facebook，如果某种东西用这项不断重复的使命解释不通，那么它就是不适合发展的。虚拟现实之所以占有一席之地，是因为扎克伯格认为它是下一个沟通“平台”，就像他创建Facebook时的互联网一样。为WhatsApp支付令人瞠目结舌的天价，也是可以接受的，因为它契合“开放互联”这一口头禅。WhatsApp已经对最时髦的免费国际电话服务Skype构成了强有力的挑战。

作为坚守信念的必然结果之一，在追求这项使命的过程中，Facebook需要保持耐心和纪律性。扎克伯格对Instagram的耐心令人感慨万千。被Facebook收购时，该公司还没有一分钱的收入，但现如今，这家照片分享网站已经走上了一条蓬勃发展的轨道。至于WhatsApp，他似乎也在打一场类似的持久战。

事实上，Facebook拥有今日之成就，固然有赖于扎克伯格的种种举措，但他没有做的事情同样功不可没。不同于谷歌的母公司Alphabet，Facebook并没有一个独立的“探月”(moon shots)部门。它也无意重塑隐形眼镜或自动驾驶汽车。扎克伯格可能已经承诺捐出其巨额财富的一部分（他持有的Facebook股票价值近500亿美元）用于抗击疾病，他的公司并没有成立一家旨在扭转人类衰老的子公司。

所以说，扎克伯格是一位恪守纪律，具有协作精神，始终如一，慷慨大方，至少从表面看非常谦卑的企业家。他甚至是进步主义者眼中的楷模。去年感恩节刚过，在他的女儿马克西马（Maxima）出生后，扎克伯格专门请了两个月的陪产假。

此外，扎克伯格还设定了一些宏伟的个人目标。他曾经花费很长时间学习普通话。今年，他为自己家设计了一款基于人工智能，名为Jarvis的个人助理。最近，他在罗马告诉一位观众，通过Jarvis，他能够控制家里的温度，但“让我太太特别懊恼的是，”她无法控制，“因为根据编程设计，它只听从我一个人的声音，这是作为一位工程师的好处之一。”但他很快补充说，“一旦我搞定后，我就会给她提供访问权限。”

和以往一样，扎克伯格决心以他的方式打造下一个很酷的东西，即使这意味着他的家庭内部会爆发一点小摩擦。

附：Facebook创始人谈管理之道

扎克伯格经常思考管理问题。以下这些内容选自他发布在Facebook的公开问答。

谁适合在Facebook工作？

就吸引人才而言，我认为最重要的事情之一就是预先了解你的信仰和立场。Facebook并不是一家适合每个人的公司。我们相信，当每个人有能力分享自己的所思所想，与他们的朋友联系，并且能够连接整个世界的时候，这个世界将变得更加美好。我非常强烈地相信，这对世界有好处，如果你相信这一点，那么对你来说，Facebook就是一家很棒的公司。如果你不相信，你也许该找一家不同的公司。

如何做尝试？

在很多方面，建立一家公司就像遵循一种科学的方法。你尝试了一堆不同的假设，如果你很好地设置实验，那么你就可以学会点什么。我们斥巨资打造了这个庞大的测试框架。在任何既定的时点，世界上都不只有一个Facebook版本在运行。可能有成千上万个版本同时运行，因为我们的工程师团队有权力尝试某个想法，并将它提供给1万或者10个用户。他们随后会获得一个数据反馈。

一定要寻找有才干的人

如果你身处一种你学到的东西没有你想象的多的环境，或者如果你认为身边的同事不足以激发你的最大潜能，那么你就该考虑做点改变了。因为这是一个大问题。

招聘时绝不凑合

从长远来看，如果你招募到一位出类拔萃的精英，你肯定只会变得更好。这些年来，我逐渐确定了一个简单的规则：我只会招募那些我愿意为之效力的人才直接为我工作。（财富中文网）

译者：Kevin

From such thinking came Zuckerberg’s realization that three broad themes matter most to Facebook: connectivity (his goal of bringing the Internet—and the wonders of Facebook, of course—to those who don’t have it), artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.

What’s more, because he is always pushing, Zuckerberg has shown an ability to recognize big ideas from others early—including when Facebook has been late—and has been able to act with bold conviction to buy what others have created, if necessary. Examples include spending $1 billion to buy photo-sharing site Instagram in 2012; $2 billion for Oculus VR two years later; and $19 billion for WhatsApp, also in 2014. Instagram, with estimated revenues of $2.5 billion this year, already is a runaway success, while at a minimum Oculus and WhatsApp have positioned Facebook to succeed in important areas adjacent to its core product.

One of Facebook’s key business innovations is a “growth team”—today made up of hundreds of people—that designs tactics for various parts of the company, relying on a rigorous set of metrics to gauge success. The unit has broad latitude to weigh in on any aspect of Facebook’s business. “The growth team’s discipline has had as big an impact on Facebook as anything else,” says Vernal, the former top product executive. “The team owns no single product. Instead, it owns any issue that is preventing people from signing up for or using Facebook.”

Silicon Valley companies are now widely replicating the concept of the growth team invented at Facebook.

Patience pays, even for a young company in a hurry.

Facebook has a simple, if grandiose mission: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Zuckerberg, whose wooden public speaking style has improved with practice, is mind-numbingly efficient about slipping the statement into everyday conversation, as well as his speeches and interviews.

The repetition makes for effective external and internal messaging. If something at Facebook can’t be explained by the oft-repeated catchphrase, then it doesn’t fit. Virtual reality has a place because Zuckerberg thinks it’s the next “platform” for communicating, just as the web was when he started Facebook. Spending an outrageous amount of money for WhatsApp—which has challenged Skype as the trendiest free international calling service—was acceptable because it fit into the “open and connected” mantra.

A corollary to staying on message is being patient and disciplined in pursuit of the mission. Zuckerberg was ultra-patient with Instagram, which had no revenues when Facebook bought it but is now booming. He appears to be playing a similarly long game with WhatsApp.

Indeed, Zuckerberg’s achievement in guiding Facebook to where it is today owes as much to what he hasn’t done as to what he has. Unlike Alphabet, Google’s parent, Facebook harbors no separate unit for “moon shots.” It isn’t attempting to reinvent contact lenses or autonomous vehicles. Zuckerberg may have pledged part of his immense wealth to fighting disease—his Facebook stake is worth nearly $50 billion—but his company has no subsidiary attempting to reverse the effects of aging.

So he’s disciplined, collaborative, consistent, generous, and at least outwardly humble. He’s even a progressive role model. When his daughter, Maxima, was born just after Thanksgiving last year, Zuckerberg took a two-month paternity leave.

Zuckerberg is also big on personal goals, having committed in the past to learning Mandarin and this year to designing his own AI-fueled personal assistant, named Jarvis, for his home. He recently told an audience in Rome that through Jarvis he can control the house’s temperature but that “much to the chagrin of my wife,” she cannot, “because it is programmed to only listen to my voice, which is one of the perks of being an engineer.” He added, “I’ll give her access once I’m done.”

As ever, Zuckerberg is determined to build the next cool thing his way, even if it means a little domestic friction.

Zuckerberg often muses on management. Here, a selection of quotes from public Q&As posted on Facebook.

ON WHO SHOULD WORK AT FACEBOOK

In terms of attracting people, I think one of the most important things is just being upfront about what you stand for. Facebook is not a company for everyone. We believe that the world will be better when everyone has the ability to share what they think and to be able to connect to their friends and to be able to connect to the whole world. I believe very strongly that that’s good for the world, and if you believe that, then Facebook is a good company for you, and if you don’t, then maybe find a different one.

ON EXPERIMENTATION

In a lot of ways building a company is like following the scientific method. You try a bunch of different hypotheses, and if you set up the experiments well, then you kind of learn what to do… We invest in this huge testing framework. At any given point in time, there’s not just one version of Facebook running in the world. There’re probably tens of thousands of versions running because engineers here have the power to try out an idea and ship it to maybe 10,000 people or 100,000 people. And then they get a readout.

ON THE VALUE OF SURROUNDING ONESELF WITH TALENTED PEOPLE

If you’re in an environment where you’re not learning as much as you think you should be, if you don’t have the people around you who you think are going to inspire you to do the best work that you can, then think about changing something. Because that’s a big deal.

ON RESISTING THE TEMPTATION FOR A QUICK FIX WHEN HIRING

Over the long term, you’re really only going to be better off if you get someone really good. I’ve developed over time a simple rule, which is that I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person.