Story Of facebook
T
o say that Facebook is the most popular social networking and micro-blogging website today
would be an understatement. After almost a decade long run, the fact that Facebook has reached 1.2
billion active users today, speaks volumes about the entrepreneurship skills of Mark Zuckerberg,
chairman and CEO, Facebook Inc. But what is it that separates Mark from the rest?
Every successful entrepreneur we know of has had a higher purpose– a mission– to accomplish. ”To
make the world more open and connected” - was what drove Mark Zuckerberg. Only that kind of
selfless passion towards the mission, can give an entrepreneur, a success of that scale. Mark symbolizes
the policy of calculated risk-taking, which can make or break any startup.
He says, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy
where you’re guaranteed to fail, is not taking any risk and not changing anything.”
Moreover, having a great team is crucial for any business to be successful. Mark recruited Ms. Sheryl
Sandberg, who would focus on building the business, expanding internationally, cultivating
relationships with large advertising, handling communications and public policy. This allowed Mark to
merrily focus on the technical aspects of Facebook.
“The most important thing for you as an entrepreneur trying to build something is, you need to build a
really good team. I spend probably 25 percent of my time recruiting, finding good people, both outside
the company and inside the company, to put them in more impactful roles”
As an entrepreneur, you will always face various challenges, stiff competition and countless hurdles in
your path. In Facebook’s case, be it competition from networking portals like MySpace and Orkut, or
legal tussles with co-founders, or facing intermittent ban in several countries, to name a few.. Mark has
seen through it all. And he never shies away from facing criticism from his users and from the media.
One admirable quality an entrepreneur must imbibe from Mark Zuckerberg is to keep emotions and
personal attachments at bay and only concentrate on what is in the best interests of the project. Andrew
Bosworth, software engineer at Facebook, says, “Every time Zuck looks at a product, it is as if he does so
with fresh eyes. He approaches everything from first principles every time. I've never met anyone so willing
to scrap a good product in favor of a great one. Zuck could spend a year building something and, without
hesitation, throw it away the next day to do something better. I think this trait has been one of our biggest
strategic advantages in my time here.”
And finally, as they say, there’s no substitute for hard work. Countless hours of coding, developing
the platform, brainstorming, planning and strategizing the ABCs of Facebook - it is pure
perseverance that has catapulted Mark to heights.
One of the reasons why Facebook has had an unprecedented popularity is because it has, more or
less, managed to combine entertainment and usefulness together. Facebook is simple, fast and easy
to understand. It has become the layman’s substitute for online forums and blogs, which were the
prominent platforms for social connectivity, back then. Innovative features like Wall, Facebook Chat,
the Like widget, News Feed, Timeline, Graph Search and others have only added to the effectiveness
with which people can share and communicate with each other.
11