Biography of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. “Starting a company should not be your main goal”
The other day the teamFacebook and Mark Zuckerberg held their first press conference of the year to talk about their plans for the next 12 months. On the eve of the event, the company's shares jumped by one percent. And cunning analysts have calculated that a year of such conferences every day will allow Zuckerberg to buy Las Vegas.
And I wondered how this simple curly-haired guy turned into one of the richest people on the planet. In general terms, his story is known to everyone, but the details and details are as interesting as always. Looking ahead, I’ll say that it’s all about a well-assembled team.
He is 27 years old and is worth more than WallMart's revenue last year. Mark Zuckerberg is well aware of his services “to the fatherland” and writes on his business cards “I CEO, bitch."
ended up in right time in the right place
But most people still know Zuckerberg as the scrawny nerd with bags under his eyes and a lack of self-confidence, thanks to the movie The Social Network. The impression is enhanced by awkward public performance. Mark may have written the original code for Facebook, but the general consensus is that the network, used by 1/8 of the world's population, achieved its success in spite of Zuckerberg rather than because of him. And he was simply in the right place at the right time.
But this is only a point of view, not a confirmed fact. Despite all the activity of users, such rapid growth rates still surprise specialists. Moreover, if the company is headed by an untalented manager. Someone had to establish relationships with investors, fight for users and overtake heavyweight competitors.
“In the time since Mark’s 20th birthday, he’s done two things: he’s built a global company and he’s grown,” says a Zuckerberg colleague. “The second became possible thanks to the first.”
In the beginning, his mistakes led to a rebellion among employees who did not see the necessary strength in the general director. But now he has learned to hit the table with his knuckles and shut his mouth. He learned from the best bosses in the business, but he didn't let anyone influence the concept he came up with. Now the head of Facebook has extensive experience in hiring the “right” people and getting rid of the “unnecessary” ones that the company has outgrown. Shocked by the way the director portrayed him in the film “The Social Network,” Mark initially wanted to disown the film. But instead, he rented the Mountain View Cineplex theater and took everyone in the company to see the movie.
"Was he happy?" - says another colleague of Mark. - "Certainly. We were all ridiculously lucky. But this was no coincidence. For some reason, the world does not take into account the fact that Mark is truly a brilliant CEO. Yes, he was in the right place at the right time, but he also had the right leadership skills so as not to lose potential.”
And now you can be sure: Facebook’s path depends 100% on Zuckerberg. If you buy shares of this social network, you are buying Mark’s shares. Smart investors know that deep commitment can drive Wall Street crazy.
Photo from Zuckerberg's latest press conference
Made it better
When Zuckerberg created Thefacebook, similar projects already existed at other colleges - Stanford, Yale and Columbia Universities had their own social networks for students. At Harvard, Zuckerberg's classmates tried for several months to promote exactly the same website. They succeeded: the Friendster network gained about 2 million users. Serious competitor. There was also MySpace, which in those days brought together all the star kids.
All great technologies have two common features: They are cool and easy to use. Mark immediately decided that he would not fill the social network with a bunch of functions that still needed to be sorted out. He did everything possible to ensure that there were no glitches and overloads on his site, expanding the number of servers in time. These steps were dictated by the mistakes of their predecessors. For example, the Stanford analogue of Facebook “burned out” on a wildly complex interface, and the Friedster network lost great amount users due to the fact that the servers could not cope with the flow.
MySpace was the only company that continued to compete with Facebook with its 5 million users by 2005. There wasn't even a million on Zuckerberg's network yet. Even after News Corporation bought MySpace, it continued to grow for another year, adding an additional million people. The purchase cost Rupert Murdoch $600 million, and he sincerely believed that the company would be successful. But he didn't take into account one thing: MySpace users could register under any names, while Facebook already served as a socialization and marketing tool and allowed only real names. Another shovel of dirt on the coffin of MySpace was the excessive attention to the business side: user pages were full of advertisements, and flaws in the code were increasingly making themselves felt.
Zuckerberg was initially modest in spending and disdained approaching his “brainchild” as a business. Even later, when advertising appeared on the Internet, it was limited within strict limits decency. But it also began to flicker long after Facebook acquired such global proportions.
Was focused
Most entrepreneurs are too impatient, both creatively and entrepreneurially, trying to implement a bunch of ideas in a short period of time. As a result, each of them turns out to be unfinished. And Zuckerberg managed to avoid this trap. After moving the then-small company to Palo Alto in 2004, the CEO threw all his energy into creating Wirehog, a file-sharing service for Facebook. The development looked quite decent, but Mark didn’t think it was enough.
Wirehog became one of the first applications on Facebook, but there was not enough money to improve it. After receiving his first investment in late summer 2004, Zuckerberg again focused on the file-sharing service. And he focused so hard that it was time to make stencil drawings with the word Wirehog above every urinal in the company office.
Moved fast and broke boundaries
As part of the presentation of his development, Zuckerberg, following tradition founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos and continued by Google executives wrote a letter to potential shareholders. In this document, he outlined his management philosophy and main priorities.
"Facebook is moving fast and breaking boundaries." This is the main message of the entire letter, which for a high-tech company was extremely concise and true. The buyers bought it themselves.
When Zuckerberg launched Thefacebook, he quietly left the Winklevoss brothers, with whom he was developing a similar product (this story is the basis of the film “The Social Network”). The legal settlement of this issue subsequently cost the company millions of dollars. But it is now obvious that if Zuckerberg had delayed the launch of his network (due to negotiations with his brothers or out of a desire to improve the site), his train would have left with a loud “Toot!”
The phrase “Move fast and break boundaries” still works for the company’s evolution. Instead of tweaking and refining apps, they simply release them, listen to users' cries, and make adjustments as needed. Yes, this method is not ideal. Zuckerberg has had to apologize many times for his mistakes.
Wasn't ready to take the helm
Zuckerberg stopped writing code for Facebook in the summer of 2005. At this time, the company had several million users and about 25 employees. The social network was already valued at $100 million and was receiving more and more investments. Since then, Zuckerberg has devoted his entire working day to running the company. And in the beginning it was terrible.
The company's founder was young, awkward, and had "badly washed hair" (according to one Silicon Valley veteran). Zuckerberg was famous for his strange habits and scant experience as a manager. According to the traditions already established by that time, the founder of the company remained the CEO exactly until the company got on its feet and reached a size exceeding the developer’s potential. The founder is simply removed from management, and if he tries to “stick his nose where it shouldn’t,” then he is simply expelled from the company. Remember the experience of Steve Jobs. He wasn’t the only one—the founders of eBay and Cisco did the same.
But the trend has broken. The last decade has been marked by the “victory” of founders, who have turned from developers to the “face of the company” or even its soul. One of the first to destroy the tradition was Bill Gates, who has headed Microsoft for several decades. He also started from scratch, knowing nothing about management. Jeffrey Bezos was a banker before he started Amazon in his garage, and he's still at the helm, too. And Google's CEO is one of its founders, Larry Page.
In industries whose products change slowly (various industries, for example), professional managers find their place. Because such companies do not depend on innovation, but on optimization. Think, for example, of Coca-Cola, which has been making the same product for over a hundred years.
“If you put a manager responsible for sales at the head of the company, he will kill himself, but he will optimize these sales for you for the next quarter. If you appoint a financier, then no one will find fault with your budget. The founder of the company has a broad view of things. He will appoint someone who will be responsible for optimization, and he will look towards innovation,” says Marc Andreessen, co-founder of NetSkape.
The first thing a leader must learn is to communicate with his team. We need to explain to her where they are going and why. This question becomes especially relevant when the company hires dozens of new employees every month and each has their own vision of the world and philosophy of the company. But when Zuckerberg devoted himself to leadership, he did not communicate with his team, but simply disappeared from their horizon. He had to do this because Mark had not yet acquired one important quality for a leader: the ability to say “no.” And this is a whole art.
After missing out on the opportunity to buy MySpace, Viacom turned its attention to Facebook. Viacom was interested in buying, just as it had previously been interested in buying Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Zuckerberg told his employees that he does not want to sell his Network. But this was not enough. Mark hid from Viacom representatives, who even resorted to deception in order to meet with the founder of the social network. Meanwhile, the morale of the company's employees was steadily declining. They began to whisper and grumble about the need for a professional CEO. It was so bad that David Kirkpatrick, a negotiator for Viacom, found Zuckerberg at 2:30 a.m. in a New York City diner and said, “If you want to stay in charge, you need to take a few lessons from the real bosses.”
But he learned to be a great boss
One of Zuckerberg's quirks that just infuriates and frustrates his employees is that he doesn't listen to them. At first sight. A week after the conversation at the diner, Zuckerberg held his first meeting with his colleagues. And explained to them the priorities.
These efforts slightly improved the situation “downstairs,” but the company’s directors continued their lamentations about the need for “pros.” And Zuckerberg had to gather a whole council of directors of other companies who were supposed to help him. Among these people were Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen (now a member of the Facebook board), Don Graham of the Washington Post, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Jim Breuer, a partner at Accel, and Peter Thiel, an investor and entrepreneur who was Facebook's first professional backer. .
“Mark absorbed everything like a sponge. I constantly asked questions: what do you think about this? How to solve this problem? What would you do here? - says one of the Silicon Valley graduates.
In 2010, at the AllThingsD conference dedicated to high technology, Mark Zuckerberg spoke in live. He walked on stage in his usual attire - jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. He felt terribly hot under the spotlights. And when questions started pouring in about Facebook's invasion of privacy users, Mark began to sweat quickly. And a huge number of TV viewers and conference participants had the opportunity to see his shifting eyes and spots on his T-shirt. He was terribly nervous and stammered.
But if his facial expression and clothing raised doubts, the answers were quite reasonable: Facebook will give users complete control over their privacy settings. After the speech, when Mark was already openly wiping sweat from his forehead, journalists asked about his feelings in the role of CEO. His response showed how much he had changed his leadership “style”:
“I'm always focused on two things. The former have a clear alignment with the company's goals. The latter simply make my team better. This is the most I can do for my project: focus on the most important thing and attract great people so that this main thing is executed beautifully.”
Assembled a great team
One of Steve Jobs' famous recruiting techniques was long walks around Palo Alto. During them, he told the potential employee his vision of the Apple philosophy. A Zuckerberg confidant says Mark has adopted this tactic and become an ideal for his employees.
A trail starts near Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto that leads straight into the mountains. This is where Zuckerberg takes new recruits, combining measured philosophy with a chic look. It is not surprising that the new employee returns with eyes full of genuine admiration.
At the Facebook office in Palo Alto
One analyst claims that Zuckerberg's team is "one of the two strongest teams in IT (the other being Apple). This did not happen by accident - Mark worked methodically on his leadership style.”
“Basically, there are two ways to build a strong organization,” explains former employee Facebook. “The first is the careful selection of employees. The second is the ability to persuade and make people believe. Mark can really convince. When I worked at the company, we hired a few of the “wrong” people, but he was able to correct this mistake by changing their attitude towards work.
Sean Parker, for example, joined Facebook in the summer of 2004 as a co-founder. He held the helm when Zuckerberg's attention was completely absorbed by the Wirehog service. Thanks to him, the company was able to win several rounds when it began to grow outside the country. But the most important thing he was able to do was allow Zuckerberg to maintain as much control over Facebook as he wanted.
Parker (played by Justin Timberlake in the film The Social Network), who had previously failed in several projects, realized that Mark did not face the same fate. He became obsessed with helping his friend. As a result, Zuckerberg ended up with a terrible 57% stake in their company. It was a nightmare only for the stock exchanges on Wall Street, which emanated poison. After all, this meant that the opinions of other shareholders were simply not taken into account and the company would follow the course set by its strange creator. Unfortunately, Parker was forced to leave the company after he was caught in possession of cocaine.
But with his departure, he made room for Owen Van Natt, a former executive at Amazon. Owen got busy development of Facebook as a business project (he was then promoted to chief operating officer). Van Natt, 36, was the first “adult” to take the helm. When he joined the company, it employed 26 people, and only two of them were over 30 years old. During his leadership, the team grew to hundreds of people.
The task of building his sales and finance teams fell on Van Natt's shoulders. Through his efforts, negotiations on cooperation with Microsoft began, which valued Facebook at $15 billion. Revenue grew from $1,000,000 to 150. However, at heart, Owen was a startup man. It blooms with all its colors on the fertile soil of a company in creative ecstasy. He is great at making deals, but not at managing. Owen knew this very well and left of his own free will.
“The only criticism of leaders like Zuckerberg is that they behave too Machiavellian and do not think about people. But as in the case of Machiavelli himself, this appearance of neglect has far-reaching plans. Removing unnecessary people is the way to move forward,” says Van Nott. - “He was never good guy. But he wasn’t bad either.”
stole fromGoogle valuable employee
Owen's dismissal allowed Zuckerberg to make his most correct and decisive move: hiring Sheryl Sandberg (one Facebook expert called this move “a blessing from the gods”). In total, Zuckerberg spent 50 hours persuading. Their first meeting took place at a Christmas party in 2007. At that time, Sandberg was promoting another service from Google. In the following months, they met several times in a cafe near Sandberg's house - a cup of tea, to which Mark invited her, turned into an hours-long discussion. Then the conversations had to be moved to the kitchen of a potential employee, since their regular meetings could not help but attract attention.
When the IT elite began to flock to the city of Davos for the World Economic Forum, Mark went there on a Google plane, along with Sandberg. The entire flight, these two huddled like conspirators in front of the other employees. Soon Cheryl left Google.
And skeptical statements about Zuckerberg’s ability to lead received a decisive answer: keeping such a specialist as Sheryl Sandberg in one place for 5 years (whom all the big IT bigwigs dream of getting) is worth not only financial, but also moral efforts. You yourself know that talented people They don’t like to work for weak bosses.
The Zuckerberg-Sandberg duo turned out to be so successful that the company's revenues grew from $150,000,000 to 4 billion. And this example forces other companies not to look for a replacement for their quirky founder, but to try to “get their Cheryl.”
Placed a bet on “long-term marshmallows”
When Zuckerberg's colleagues are asked about his most important personality traits, they jokingly recall the Stanford marshmallow test: when a child was placed in front of a sweet and told that if he didn't eat it, he would get two marshmallows instead of one. It is clear that some held on and survived, and some swept the marshmallows off the table after a couple of minutes. And, according to employees of the social network, if Zuckerberg had been the subject of study by Stanford scientists, then Facebook would never have been created: Mark would still be sitting in the room and not eating marshmallows.
Most Wall Street investors perform this proverbial marshmallow test all the time. Behind last decades, as business became even more competitive, they raised the narrow concept of the expression "shareholder value" to ridiculous heights. Simply put, they were blown out of proportion. Shareholder value in the minds of most investors is equated with the meaning of "stock price today." If the stock price today is higher than the stock price yesterday, then the management of the company has “created” shareholder value. If the price turned out to be worse than yesterday, then management “destroyed” it. This play on words would be nonsense if managers weren't chasing short-term price increases using clever tricks to artificially inflate prices.
Calmer, more detached people recognize that a company is much more than its shares. They create jobs, they create products that help people. They devote a lot of resources to maintaining the value of their products, even though such investments do not receive a quick response. In other words, companies create “social value.”
It often takes the best CEOs (and founders) to create their “dream company.” long years, and sometimes - decades. During this time, short-term investors will have time to spit in their direction so many times that they will flood the entire Wall Street. Great illustration – Amazon. This company went public in 1997. Jeff Bezos ignored all the skeptics who claimed that his project would not make money (and there were crowds of them). And then, when Amazon began to refute this claim, Bezos had to ignore those who say that “it should bring more more money" All this time he continued to invest in his product: for example, he bought cheap e-books Kindle, having sensed their commercial prospect five years ago.
Bezos' philosophy has enormous value for Amazon customers. Under his leadership, more than 65,000 jobs were created. And it created a stunning prospect for long-term investors: its shares, initially priced at $225, sold for 130 times that price. True, this growth was not outlined by a straight ascending line. The company's shares also experienced a rapid decline, the consequences of which were felt for a very long time. But Jeff, with the serenity of a snake, continued to invest in his future at the expense of the present. Impatient investors got burned out and sold their shares in disappointment. The patient ones waited until 2007, when the price began to rise again.
In his letters to potential shareholders, Zuckerberg is even more categorical than Bezos. One of these messages began with the words: “Facebook was not originally created as a company.” Most likely, Mark meant that his site was created with a social mission - to make the world more open and interactive. The letter continues with the following lines: “We want everyone who invests in Facebook to share our purpose and understand the meaning of the mission.” He later expressed the same idea in an interview: “We don’t create services to make money. We earn money to make our services better."
For short-term investors, the letter included the phrase “Don’t buy this stock!” Now it's not just Zuckerberg who sees his company's mission in the social rather than the financial spectrum, but Wall Street regulars as well. Moreover, for many it will be a betrayal if Zuckerberg does not have such an impressive stake in his hands that allows him to control every step of his company.
The result of this influence was the purchase of Instagram. All shareholders whined and groaned over this, from their point of view, thoughtless purchase. At that time the service was unprofitable. Zuckerberg invested $1 billion in it. Many analysts considered this a prerequisite for a “bubble” that would burst, drawing on the negativity. That is, they began to suspect that Facebook was in a critical situation.
But seasoned executives agreed the deal was shrewd. Having spent one percent of the value of Facebook, Zuckerberg acquired the increasingly popular mobile service. And in mobile services, its social network has always been weak. Mark stole Instagram from under the nose of its competitor, the Twitter service. And, as eyewitnesses say, the deal was completed in a few days. Because Zuckerberg is still "moving fast and breaking boundaries."
Part three of four. In the first two parts of this article, I shared the first 23 amazing (and incredibly effective) talent management practices at Facebook.
Facebook's difference: Unique approach to personnel management, part 3
Part three of four. In the first two parts of this article, I shared the first 23 amazing (and incredibly effective) talent management practices at Facebook.
Today and tomorrow, I will reveal the remaining 21 unique best practices that you can learn from them. If you don't already know about Facebook's success, consider that within 15 months of its IPO, the average employee is generating over $1.3 million in revenue and $120,000 in profit each year. Glassdoor.com ranked Facebook as the No. 1 company for employee satisfaction, and employees ranked their CEO number one with a near-perfect rating of 99%.
My main contribution to this study is to provide a business case for each of their unique practices. Over 45 features divided into 10 various categories. When will you meet these best practices, consider whether you agree that they are unique.
If you want to know why these talent management practices are what I can only describe as amazing and impactful, read on.
Encouraging openness, collaboration, innovation
24. Open floor plans encourage collaboration.
Facebook's office design may outdo even Google's in encouraging openness, collaboration and innovation. Instead of office workstations or cubicles, everyone seems to have simple standing desks (for health benefits), but it also improves exchange and collaboration. Without barriers between employees, it's easy to see and hear dozens of colleagues working together, whether they're facing challenges or enjoying success.
Since part of the company culture is openness, you simply won't find large number locked doors or "keep out" signs, as would be the case in most large corporate headquarters. The main campus has a two-lane "road" running down the middle of campus the entire way, and since there are free bike rentals everywhere, it encourages collaboration between remote teams at opposite ends of campus. Additionally, when the new "opposite building" is ready, the underground tunnel will leave interactions still fairly simple.
25. Even though Facebook is a social networking company, they have a “going to work” culture.
For a firm that develops a 100% online product, you would think that they would encourage working from home. But like other firms in the neighborhood (Google, Apple and Yahoo), they encourage people to physically show up at work, offering great food, gifts and free delivery to work. In a culture where a constant and rapid flow of innovation is the source vitality, the evidence simply shows that face-to-face communication between members of different teams is the basis of collaboration.
26. The “No Meetings on Wednesday” practice provides work time no interruptions
Facebook unofficially emphasizes avoiding scheduled meetings on Wednesdays. This day in the middle of the week without meetings guarantees “producers” (programmers) at least, one full day of continuous working time.
Being interrupt-free is especially important because programmers, after one interruption, such as a meeting, may need the rest of the day to get back into their work flow. To add flexibility, many employees are using Wednesday as a work-from-home day when they need it.
27. There is no place where you cannot work
To make it easier for employees to start their workday, Facebook offers buses with free Wi-Fi from anywhere within an hour's drive. Buses not only improve attendance, but they also increase productivity as colleagues can collaborate and work while traveling.
The company also offers free tickets for trains, a car park for joint alternate use, and, of course, free parking. Few companies treat cyclists better than Facebook, with a dedicated bike-to-work program and a full-service bike shop on campus!
28. It's easy to have fun and exercise
Of course, Facebook has a fitness center, and for busy employees, there are even desks with treadmills for exercising while they work. For entertainment, there is a fully stocked video game room, a movie theater, a printing facility, a skateboarding rink, and free on-campus bicycle rentals. Plus, the campus is located right on the San Francisco Bay, so it has beautiful walking and biking trails with breathtaking views.
29. No more need to leave campus for personal matters.
Having employees on campus not only makes it difficult for them to meet with recruiters from other companies, but also saves them “lost” travel time that would be wasted navigating the congested streets of Silicon Valley. Facebook employees can use the laundry, hair salon, and dry cleaning services for free.
There is also a local doctor's office, acupuncturist, and chiropractor, so there is little need to leave campus for personal matters, and many stay late because they have several personal matters after work.
30. Wood Workshop stimulates/encourages/inspires creativity
In the world of technology, it may seem outdated or irrelevant, but Facebook (like Google) offers its employees a complete wood shop. This helps some people relax, but it also serves to encourage employees to be creative, think, but most importantly, develop the habit of doing things. Therefore, making personal items is encouraged.
31. Everyone gets whatever technology they need
Because Facebook is a technology-driven company, full of software engineers and staff that rely on their computers, the company finds its way to provide everyone with the best technology tools. Each building has its own technical support office (some are open 24 hours). Nothing demonstrates a commitment to technology more than strategically placing 24-hour vending machines at headquarters that dispense replacement parts (such as a keyboard) free of charge. For geeks/geeks this is AMAZING.
Unique approaches to personnel management
32. Employees are happy to have an impact.
My own research shows that occupation best job in life and making an impact on the world are two of the biggest motivators of great employees. Leaders at Facebook also understand the importance of influence. So to reassure employees that their impact is real, engineering HR departments deliberately have a mindset of maximizing direct impact impact that a particular engineer has on clients. Imagine the excitement of every engineer knowing that what they do, on average, impacts more than 1 million customers.
33. Becoming a manager does not mean getting a promotion.
In the best technology-oriented organizations, engineers strive to become managers primarily because they desire increased pay and prestige. However, at Facebook, moving to manager is a lateral transfer, not a promotion.
As a result, there is not enough incentive to move away from your technical work, unless you really want to become a manager in order to make a difference. Reducing incentives may also indirectly reduce the politicization typically associated with managerial choices.
34. Everyone new manager receives a mentor and coach
Even if it's not a promotion, all new managers must succeed for the good of the team. Few firms give new managers more support than Facebook. At Facebook, new managers typically receive an internal mentor for four months and an external "coach" for three months. Facebook also has an extremely broad feedback program from all managers and executives.
35. Providing feedback on performance results
Facebook are fanatics about constant feedback. Formal performance reviews are completed every six months, based on the results received from the manager and an online employee feedback tool (total feedback consists of several (usually up to seven) individual feedbacks). Managers and employees are also provided with real-time success metrics that quantify their performance.
36. Flexible project team organization
Facebook is 100 percent team-based, with most teams being small (typically around six people), but they can be larger, up to 30. Also, almost everything is done on a project basis. Engineers typically remain on teams until a project is completed, but they may consult for multiple teams at the same time.
Project work makes the organization extremely flexible, as most teams disband after the project is completed. As a result, over a three-year period, an engineer may work on three different teams and have five different managers. This flexibility in the environment ensures that almost everyone can know and work with many different colleagues, which in turn helps reduce the formation of those familiar corporate silos and silos.
37. Metrics-based decision-making system where "code wins the argument"
In many organizations, decisions to implement ideas are often influenced by the status, position, and rank of those proposing the idea. However, because the CEO was a college dropout, had no formal management experience, or vocational training When he started, the title or education level of the person with the idea meant much less on Facebook.
Instead, the company prides itself on data-driven decision making, where "code wins arguments" (for example, if something works well) and metrics and data are the basis for most decisions. If there is an area where improvement can be made, it would be by increasing the use of more advanced analytics, much like Google is doing.
38. Zuckerberg is rated #1 CEO
It's hard to argue that Mark Zuckerberg is an outstanding CEO, based on his record of gaining 1.2 million customers, maintaining market dominance, stable profitability, and most recently high price shares
But what's more surprising is that based on employee ratings (99% satisfied with his leadership), Glassdoor rated him the No. 1 CEO of 2013, far ahead of the CEOs of Google and Apple. The company's second-in-command, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, has an equally successful track record and has also been named the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley.
39. The most casual dress code in the corporate world
If Facebook had a dress code, it would become disappointingly formal/excessive. In an organization where the CEO is known for wearing only hoodies or T-shirts, it's obvious that if you're going to impress a co-worker, you can't do it through your clothes, so you'll have to do it through your work.
Missed part 1 and part 2? Then read here -
Let's look at how Mark Zuckerberg managed to create the image of the most correct and honest young billionaire.
The first thing we do when we start creating a brand strategy is to look at quantity and quality. mentions client's name in Internet search engines. It is these mentions that form a personal brand.
IN standard search Google returns 32 pages of answers for the query “Mark Zuckerberg,” with 10 mentions each. 320 results - and everywhere, at most, a detailed news or article, at least a couple of lines dedicated to the founder of Facebook. Let's try to find hidden, that is, results of the same type: 77 pages of mentions in headlines and snippets out of 78 maximum displayed.
Over the 11 years of its existence, Facebook has accomplished colossal work to create a personal brand for its founder. We can confidently say that today personal brand and reputation work for Mark Zuckerberg, and not vice versa.
How does the whole world know Mark Zuckerberg?
Youngest dollar millionaire, programmer, CEO of Facebook Inc. Smart, modest, open. A devoted family man and loving father. Zuckerberg's publicity is inextricably linked to Facebook's reputation. You could say Zuckerberg and Facebook grew alongside each other.
Three years were spent researching and analyzing Zuckerberg's public statements. Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a group of assistants called the project The Zuckerberg Files.
In early Zuckerberg's posts, personal statements (April 4, 2009: “I don't like playing dominoes”) are interspersed with posts about major changes in the functionality of the social network (September 5, 2004: “posts on the wall”). In 2008 it was first heard mantra for an open and connected world. It was this idea that Zuckerberg developed throughout: when he talked about training or about his wife’s pregnancy, and when he commented on world news or updates in the company.
By 2010, the idea of “making the world open and connected” had reached its zenith. From the initially informative function of a card index, Facebook began to fulfill a socio-political mission. Functions for supporting individual nations and minorities and promptly responding to high-profile world events began to appear on the social network.
Zuckerberg's actions seem quite sincere. And it's more than showcasing a brand. This expression of ambition and point of view, which are inextricably linked with his work.
What now?
Facebook adapted to new trends when the Internet and its own websites began to be used as advertising. Zuckerberg did not abandon the idea of an open and united world, but at the same time he reshaped the social network in a new way.
“Think about what people are doing on Facebook now. They communicate with friends and relatives, but they also create a certain image about themselves here, one might say own brand… If you think about stores and brands that way, everyone is doing the same thing,” Mark Zuckerberg.
How is this image created from the point of view of developing a personal brand?
Let me remind you. To distribute the attributes into the matrix, we answer two questions. Who evaluates? In this case, for target audience Let's take Zuckerberg's followers - the team, partners, users of the social network, loyal to its founder. Who are they comparing with? We pay attention to positioning - technology entrepreneur, philanthropist. People who decide to choose Mark Zuckerberg as an ideologist, leader or business partner compare him with similar people.
Attractive unique attributes - attributes of the “elephant”. They create the most vivid associations with a person. Attractive mass attributes – the attributes of “hamsters” – are also present among “competitors” and therefore do not make a person distinctive against their background.
With “hamsters” everything is more or less clear. Let's take a closer look at Zuckerberg's elephants.
Attribute "Ideas and Methodology"
Mark found the handwritten file cabinet of Harvard students obsolete and decided to create a computerized file cabinet with communication capabilities. The idea was that all university students could communicate. As we know, it turned out to be viral: other universities joined the network, and later the project irrevocably went beyond the student project.
Throughout his journey, Zuckerberg has consistently and actively promoted the idea of “making the world more open and connected.” People, in his opinion, should always stay in touch and be closer friend to friend. Facebook is the way Zuckerberg puts his ideas into action.
Tools attribute promotion:
Marker words in posts and public statements (“open and connected world”).
Clothing and style. Mark has the same type of clothes and wears the same gray T-shirt and jeans. According to GQ, the Facebook founder is the most tastelessly dressed resident of Silicon Valley. In the business world, lack of taste is usually a turn-off, but in Zuckerberg's case, it highlights his philosophy and "I'm just like everyone else" attitude.
Photo. Open Google Images. Have you seen a more open and spontaneous smile?
Attribute "Company"
As the head of Facebook Inc., Mark, along with his subordinates, works 9-10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now Facebook is not only a social network, but also an advertising platform and an excellent resource for business development.
Tools attribute promotion:
Brand story. In the case of a person of this magnitude, you no longer have to talk about yourself - at events, interviews, and official meetings other people represent you. It is impossible to imagine a mention of Zuckerberg without mentioning the main project of his life.
Business card(CEO of Facebook).
I told you more about promoting a personal brand using the “company” attribute.
Attribute "Achievements"
The youngest billionaire in history and the richest American of Jewish origin, this is the most significant recognition for a businessman.
"Person of the Year" Time versions and the prototype of the main character of the film “The Social Network” - public recognition and all this at the age of 26 years.
Tools attribute promotion:
Surprisingly, Zuckerberg himself does not promote this attribute. Journalists successfully do this for him.
Attribute "Personal Beliefs"
Strong personal convictions and unshakable faith are what motivate followers to follow and support their leader. Zuckerberg not only declares his desire to make the world a safer and more open place, but also confirms his intentions with concrete action.
Tools attribute promotion:
Manners and behavior. Despite his billion-dollar fortune, Zuckerberg tries his best not to stand out, drives a regular Volkswagen Golf GTI and has given himself an official salary of only $1.
Charity projects. Let me give an example of some of the initiatives. The young billionaire bequeathed 99% of his Facebook shares (= $45 billion), " to join many others in making this world a better place for the next generation" Together with his wife Priscilla, Chan launched the Chan Zuckerberg Science project aimed at combating various diseases. Accepted Yuri Milner's offer and joined the board of directors of the Breakthrough Starshot project for space exploration and the search for life in the Universe. allocated $100 million from his own funds to save the system public schools Newark (New Jersey, USA).
All attributes promote through channels: social networks, speeches, online and offline media, online directories and encyclopedias.
Who is the eminence grise here?
Who creates a personal brand for the creator of a personal branding channel?
Like everyone else, Zuckerberg started on his own. The posts were about everything, about pizza, about startups, about dogs and news in the IT field. Many personal photographs and notes on the specialty.
It would seem that all personal branding experts advise against publishing overly personal content. However, he was great at combining incompatible things.
A couple of years ago, Zuckerberg came to the conclusion that it was time to put everything under control. Now they help him write posts and speeches, remove offensive comments and spam on his page. Since 2016, he has been followed by personal photographer Charles Ommanni, who records the billionaire's every move.
Top managers and executives at this level most often also have employees who monitor their brand and public image, but in the case of Zuckerberg we are talking about a completely different scale. The image of Zuckerberg merges with the image of the company: photographs of the head of Facebook changing diapers are published next to statistics on user growth.
Achieve a balance where personality effectively highlights professional achievements– this is what makes a personal brand impressive and allows you to gain followers.
When Forbes magazine published its traditional annual ranking of billionaires in 2008, the world was surprised: albeit in 785th place, but still in general list was the name of 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest billionaire with more than $1.5 billion in his account! While his peers played football, went to discos or simply wasted their lives in the gateways, Mark, albeit not always consciously, still built own life. The result speaks for itself - today the example of Mark Zuckerberg inspires young businessmen. But can anyone follow the path of the creator of the famous social network?
Mark Zuckerberg's first successes
Future founder Facebook networks born in 1984 in one of the wealthy areas of New York. Mark Zuckerberg grew up with three sisters, and his parents worked as doctors. But the boy did not follow in the footsteps of his father and mother - already in elementary school he became seriously interested in programming. When Mark was given a computer in the sixth grade, his hobby grew into a kind of creative obsession. True, Zuckerberg himself did not use computer resources exclusively for the game - already in the ninth grade he created a computer version of the board game “Risk”. He also wrote a program for the Winamp music player, with which the computer analyzed the user’s preferences and created playlists that corresponded to his needs and musical tastes. When Mark made the program for an MP3 player freely available, Microsoft representatives immediately contacted him, promising to pay at least $2 million for such an invention. Imagine the surprise of the employees of a well-known corporation when they heard in response: “Sorry, but inspiration is not for sale.” It would seem that this is the one " finest hour"of young talent, and it is stupid to refuse the gifts of fate. However, as it became known later, it was the ability to wait that helped Zuckerberg reach unprecedented heights.
Student years and new achievements
At the time of his studies at Harvard, there was no database with information and photographs of students, although other educational institutions had a kind of “book of faces” of all students. Initially, Mark approached the university administration with a request to create the same database at Harvard in order to quickly exchange information and photographs, but was refused. Then Zuckerberg simply hacked the university database, created his own website and began posting photos of students in pairs, asking users to vote for the most attractive person from the proposed pair. In just 4 hours, Zuckerberg’s website was visited by 1.5 thousand users. But, naturally, the university management immediately determined that the database had been hacked, and the resource was blocked. Zuckerberg was going to be expelled from Harvard, they were forced to apologize to the students, but the latter, in turn, did not consider him guilty at all - they, on the contrary, demanded that the site be restored! As a result, the university management finally allowed Mark to open the resource again, and within 2 weeks thousands of students registered on it. After that, requests from representatives of other universities began to come to the site. This is how Facebook was born...
Why has Facebook become so popular in a short period of time? On this site, users were invited to post information about themselves, participate in communities, view photos of acquaintances and friends, and also display their own images for public viewing. Facebook has become a new way of communication, making online communication more lively and easier.
For development own business Mark spent all the money he had set aside to study at Harvard. Of course, these funds were not enough for Zuckerberg to implement all his plans. That is why, on summer holidays he goes to Silicon Valley in the hope of making the right contacts and getting money. It is there that he miraculously encounters Sean Parker, who at one time created the Napster program, designed for file sharing. It turned out that Sean was looking for housing, and Mark invited the young man to spend the night with him. Subsequently, it was thanks to Parker that Mark met Peter Thiel, who is the co-founder of PayPal, a famous payment system. It only took Teel 15 minutes to realize that this red-haired guy deserves a $500,000 investment. Now Zuckerberg had money, but no time. True, he solved this problem by writing a statement in which he asked Harvard management to grant him an indefinite academic leave. By the way, this is exactly what another half-educated millionaire, Bill Gates, did at one time.
But 500 thousand dollars seemed like a huge amount only in appearance. Mark invested half a million in the business, and he began to live in Palo Alto. It was there that he rented premises for work. There were servers in all the rooms, and one could only dream of ventilation. Mark and his employees worked in temperatures of 45 degrees, but the result justified all the efforts - in 2004, the number of users who registered on Facebook exceeded 1 million! Exactly one year later, 5 million people became visitors to the site! When Mark announced free registration on the site, this led to an increase in the number of users whose age exceeded 30 years. As a result, Facebook became the seventh site in the ranking of the best Internet resources in the United States.
Secrets of Mark Zuckerberg's success
Unlike other famous billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg is in no hurry to reveal his secrets, therefore, many experts are independently trying to analyze the personality of the Facebook founder in order to understand how a 26-year-old young man managed to do something that 99 percent of people today cannot do?
The first thing to note is that Mark has always understood the difference between technological breakthrough and creative strategy. And if he is not strong in the latter, then he is happy to entrust this area of work to a good manager. Although in the field of management, Mark cannot be considered so mediocre, because in the most miraculous way the best of the best, specialists who have been hunted by large companies for years, end up on his team. Many argue that Zuckerberg has a rare ability to negotiate correctly.
Mark Zuckerberg is extremely demanding. He loves to argue, rarely praises his employees and strives to do everything to ensure that they work with their souls, completely devoting themselves to the task. However, indifferent people Mark is simply not on the team.
Many psychologists say that Mark’s modesty and unpretentiousness in terms of comfort contribute in every possible way to the fact that he can fully concentrate on his main mission– development of the Facebook network. In general, the simplicity and even some carelessness in Mark’s business negotiations are legendary. So one day he refused a meeting with a Microsoft representative, which was scheduled for 8.00. “I’m still sleeping at this time,” Mark said. When Zuckerberg was invited to discuss cooperation with Yahoo, he said that a girl was coming to see him that day. No amount of talk about this being a billion-dollar deal had any effect on Mark. There is no need to rush - Zuckerberg learned this principle back in school years after the first offer from Microsoft. Today Mark is true to himself, and the money still flows into his hands. The youngest billionaire today has become the idol of millions of people who want to reach the same unprecedented heights. But only a few can do this...
I'm CEO, Bitch.
This phrase was actually written on Mark Zuckerberg's business cards back when Facebook was still a startup, as we know from Ben Mezrich's 2009 novel The Reluctant Billionaires. But it acquired legendary status after the release of the film (the script of which was written based on this novel), the name of which had already surfaced in your memory. Justin Timberlake, who plays Sean Parker, inspired the obstinate Jesse Eisenberg, who played the founder of the social network, with these words at the end of a loud monologue.
“This time you hand them a business card that says, ‘I’m the CEO, bitch!’ That’s what I wish for you,” Sean said. At the very end of the film, Mark opens a box of business cards on which this odious phrase is already written.
Of course, this is all Hollywood fiction. In fact, nothing like this happened. But the phrase, and business cards, were more than real.
Last year David Kirkpatrick, in his book " The Facebook Effect“confirmed their existence. Excerpt from the book: “As the Facebook guys began to meet more often with real business professionals, their violent and rebellious authority spread more and more widely in the Valley. “Over there is the Lord of the Flies,” one of the managers said to a senior recruiter, pointing towards Zuckerberg, who had to be careful about what business cards he took with him to meetings. He had two sets with a simple inscription: “CEO.” On the other: “I"m CEO... bitch!”
One of the company's first employees, Andrew Bosworth ("Boz"), later continued this idea by answering a question on Quora. Although he tried to avoid the fact that such business cards existed: “I think it was intended primarily as a joke on his friends, and speaks to how unsure Mark himself was that one day he would become important person throughout the industry."
But just recently, Bryan Veloso, a designer at Facebook between 2005 and 2006, gave an extensive answer to the same question on Quora. In fact, it is the original source, since the design business card was the creation of his hands. According to Veloso, the idea of the phrase “I"m a CEO, Bitch” came to his mind for a reason - Zuckerberg made full use of this phrase. And, according to his words, he did this in order to look more aggressive, simulating a behavior style one person: Steve Jobs.
Here is the translation of the key part: “As for Mark, it’s no secret that at one time he was largely guided by Steve Jobs. Aaron Sittig and I were the company's only designers at the end of 2005, and all our meetings with Mark were done in that classic aggressive Jobs style. It was at one of these meetings that I remember him using this phrase more than once.”
Veloso also notes that these business cards were in many ways a “happy accident”, because... he drove a good relationship with Zuckerberg himself. It is also said that towards the end of his tenure at Facebook, they were no longer used: “From a designer’s point of view, these retired business cards best illustrate the culture within the company at that time. Their replacement symbolizes the changes the young company had to go through to get to where it is today."
So this inscription on Mark Zuckerberg’s business cards did not appear at all after a party in a nightclub, with Victoria models Secret. But they really were. And you can thank Steve Jobs for that.
- What is a focus group Focus group how many people should there be
- Social status of a person
- Math I Like Limit Theorem
- The theory of archetypes by C. G. Jung and its significance for understanding the mechanisms of perception of the objective world. Basic archetypes in Jungian analysis Jung's archetypes in brief