Mark Zuckerberg shared his personal story on the Morning Brew Daily show (same episode as this news and that news) after being asked about his management style following the 20-year anniversary of opening Facebook/Meta (founded in 2004).
In the beginning, Mark didn’t intend to start a company at all. He just enjoyed creating things (I like building stuffs). He went to college with the goal of becoming an engineer at Microsoft, but his mother predicted that he would end up starting a company, to which he adamantly denied. Similarly, his sister Randy Zuckerberg challenged him to finish college before her. Ultimately, both his mother and sister were correct, as he had to start a company to scale up Facebook, requiring external investment, which meant having a clear business model, income, and a well-defined company structure.
Mark posted a photo 20 years ago – @Zuck. He mentioned that when he first started his company, it was quite chaotic because he had no prior knowledge of starting a company. Eventually, he had to learn various things step by step on his own. He primarily learned from working closely with brilliant people, with Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Facebook (recently resigned from Meta’s board last month), being a significant person. They jokingly discussed that Sheryl seemed like the boss of Mark and almost like a parent to him.
He stated that Facebook in its early days was like a group of kids trying to do something cool, attracting professional managers to run the company. However, now everyone has grown up, with long-time employees like Chris Cox (Chief Product Officer) and Andrew Bosworth (Reality Labs) having been with the company for 18-19 years. This group of people has collectively learned how to manage a company and have become like close friends who have worked together through various experiences. Mark believes others give him too much credit for successfully creating Facebook, when in reality, it was due to the importance of this group of individuals.
Regarding his management style, Mark said he doesn’t believe in delegating tasks heavily according to traditional business management principles. He thinks that as the founder of a business, one should be making decisions and involved in different aspects of the company as much as possible but also be aware of their own limits. Getting involved in tasks that one is not good at will only burden the individuals responsible for those tasks.
TLDR: Mark Zuckerberg shares his journey of starting Facebook, emphasizing the importance of learning from experienced colleagues and being actively involved in various aspects of the company’s operations while being aware of personal limitations.
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