Facebook CEO Charms Chinese Audiences

Computer Celebrity

Zuckerberg’s early life and career have been the subject of magazine profiles, books and a successful Hollywood film. The son of a dentist in suburban New York, Zuckerberg grew up in a sea of white collars and wrote his first programs before he was a teenager. When computer skills were still the mark of the hopelessly uncool, he immersed himself in programming and quickly outpaced his tutors. By his second year at Harvard, Zuckerberg was known as a virtuoso hacker by his peers and a troublemaker by the university authorities.

The full story of Facebook’s conception remains debated. Three classmates would later claim that Zuckerberg had poached their idea of a social network, and in one lengthy article, Rolling Stone magazine suggested that Facebook was born because Mark was “jilted by a girl.” These accounts became widely accepted by the public, eventually growing into a book and the 2010 movie, The Social Network. Whatever the truth, Zuckerberg’s reputation has outlasted unflattering portraits in the media, as evident in his plaudits from audiences worldwide.

Throughout his rise to Internet stardom Zuckerberg fought against expectations of conformity. Unlike the masterminds of Microsoft and Google (with whom he is inevitably compared) he struggled aggressively to maintain his hacker persona as his fortunes grew. During Facebook’s rise he often ignored or flouted business standards. He met important financiers wearing pajamas and shower shoes.  Even in his most recent tours he has made few concessions to business norms. For his interview before China’s future business leaders, for instance, he wore a plain T-shirt.

The Fortune 500 CEO lives with his wife in Palo Alto;  has been a vegetarian since 2011; is a Yankees fan, a registered organ donor and a fan of science fiction and action movies. Within minutes, even a complete stranger can find the details of his education (Harvard University and Philips Exeter Academy) or peruse photos of his recent travels (including recent trips to China, India, and Indonesia). His goal, according to his profile, is to “make the world a more open place.”  

Advice to Fans

As the world’s youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg is often asked for advice by his multitudes of admirers. “I think that the best companies aren’t started because the founders want to change the world,” he told his audience, most of whom were business students. “But you might have a lot of ideas and not know which one is best. And if your initial idea is bad, then your company will be bad too. But if you decide to change the world, you’ll need to come up with more ideas, and if any of them are fantastic, then you start a company.”

“The most important thing,” Zuckerberg elaborated in simple Mandarin, “is you can’t give up. Developing a company is really hard. Most things don’t just happen in passing. You’ll need to make really hard decisions. You’ll need to fire some employees.”

“If you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. Most founders give up, but the best founders don’t. So believing in your mission and not giving up is most important.”

Plans for the Future

In his talk at Tsinghua Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook was just a beginning. He has already paid handsomely to acquire promising applications like WhatsApp and Instagram, a photo-sharing service. Asked about his future plans, Mark elaborated three of his new goals. “One, we’re going to connect the entire world. So we need to help everyone to use the Internet, the Internet.org initiative. Two, we want to make artificial intelligence. ...I think that 10 years from now, computers will be better at seeing, speaking, listening, and languages. So we’re developing this [technology]. Three, once everyone is using mobile phones, I believe the next platform is ‘Virtual Reality.’ ”

When Facebook was still in its cradle, many experts doubted Mark Zuckerberg’s ability to run a business. “It’s one thing to stumble across the Next Big Thing one night in your dorm room,” wrote Claire Hoffman in 2008. “It’s another thing to build it into a new kind of empire.” After a decade of empire building, a warm welcome in Beijing and with his ambitions for the future, it now seems safe to say that Mark Zuckerberg’s legacy as a businessman may well overshadow his fame as a programmer.