what’s up believe nation I served a
mentor me series with the goal to try to
learn from people who have done a lot
more than us and leverage some of their
skills their knowledge their ideas to
help us become the best version of
ourselves so today we’re going to learn
from Mark Zuckerberg
on his Facebook story mentor me mark and
as always guys as you’re watching the
videos if you see something that really
resonates with you please leave it in
the comments below if we approach around
it so other people can be inspired and
if you write it down it’s much more
likely to stick with yourself as well
[Music]
I I built the first version of Facebook
because it’s something that my friends
and I wanted to use at Harvard a
directory and a way to connect with the
other people around us and I didn’t
think it all that was going to be a
company I remember very specifically the
night that that we launched the first
version I went out to to get pizza with
a couple of my friends who now work here
and you know and I remember really
clearly we were talking about how one
day we thought that someone was going to
build a community like this for the
world and that that would be some
company but like it clearly wasn’t gonna
be us I mean it just it wasn’t me of
them I didn’t even occur yeah no I mean
it wasn’t even an option that we
considered that it might be us I mean we
just weren’t focused on building a
company back then we were just building
something that that we thought would be
useful at our school with Facebook there
was just such you know people loved it
right and had such an intensity of using
I think within a couple of weeks
two-thirds of students at Harvard were
using it and all these other students at
MIT and other local universities were
writing me and asking us if we could
open up Facebook at their school so we
kind of just follow that right um you
know again we didn’t set out and you
know my roommates don’t set out to build
a service that we’re going to turn into
a company but we just kind of followed
what people wanted and that led us to
expand it to all these other schools and
and eventually beyond schools and to you
know at some point once we’d hired a
bunch of people we decided to turn it
into a company and and go for this
mission of connecting the world but
that’s not where we started I think one
of the hardest parts for me was was
actually when Yahoo offered to buy the
company for for a lot of money because
up until that point that was a turning
point in the company where before that
we every day we just come in and kind of
do what we saw was the right next thing
to do right we open two more schools we
we open to high school and open beyond
schools and
you know launch more photos because
because that’s what seemed like the next
thing that we needed to do to help
people express themselves and understand
more what was going on around them but
been no yahoo came in with this with
this really meaningful offer right even
a billion dollars for how far into the
company that was a couple of years ago
right and you know we have 10 million
people using the product at the time
quite so it wasn’t like it wasn’t as if
it were obvious that we were going to
succeed far beyond that and that was the
first point where we really had to to
look at the future and say wow is what
we’re going to build going to actually
be so much more meaningful for this and
you know that caused a lot of
interesting conversations in the company
and with our investors and you know at
the end of that Dustin and I just
decided you know we think that we can
actually go connect more than just the
10 million people who are in schools we
can go beyond that and have this really
be a successful thing we decide to go
for it but it was really stressful cuz a
lot of people really thought that we
should sell the company and and you know
for a lot of folks who joined a start-up
I feel like at that point I hadn’t been
very good about communicating that we
were trying to go for this mission yeah
you know we just showed up every day and
yeah and kind of did what we thought was
the right next thing to do so for a lot
of folks who joined early on they
weren’t really aligned with me right for
them if they joined and you know being
able to sell a company for a billion
dollars after a couple years was I was
like a home run right and it is a home
run right then and that’s you know I
think that that’s um I get that but you
know that I think that’s the fact that I
didn’t communicate very well about what
we were trying to do cause causes huge
tension and the poor that was painful
wasn’t well then turning down the offer
it was the fact that after that a huge
amounts of the company quit because I
didn’t believe in and what we were what
we were doing right if you look at the
management team that we had does that
fellow management team lead the whole
management team who was gone within
within about a year after that did you
ever regret that decision
in that period like where there are
times we were like well we should have
pulled um you know we were I was a
really lucky because you know not only
did did
what I believe didn’t end up working out
but it ended up working out pretty
quickly right so it literally yeah I
think this was in the summer of 2006 and
by I think the next month after that we
launched a news feed right which now ten
years later looking back at it is you
know one of the most used products in
the world and then we launched the
ability for anyone to sign up which
immediately started growing the
community so within a few months after
turning down the offer I think it was
actually pretty clear that that was the
right decision but you know I think you
know since then there have been much
harder to see on doing that to make work
you know sometimes you have to you have
to bet on something and you know either
you know bet the direction of the
company or you know bet billions of
dollars on something it’s not going to
be clear with you’re right for five or
ten years and you know that I think
actually can end up is much harder than
this what I want to talk about next but
before we go there have you ever thought
about selling the company again since no
after that
port I would just yeah got that out of
the way we’re people that want to be
here for a long time and yeah I always
think that you should start with the
problem that your trust health in the
world and not start with deciding that
you want to build a company right the
best companies that that get built are
things that are trying to drive some
kind of social change even if it’s just
local in one place I you know more than
starting out because you want to make a
bunch of money or have a lot of people
working for you or or build some company
in some way so you know I always think
that this is kind of a perverse thing
about Silicon Valley in a way which is
that you know people decide often but
they want to start a company before they
even decide what they want to do and
that just feels it’s really backwards to
me and you know for anyone you said the
experience of actually building a
company you know that you go through
some really hard things along the way
and I think part of what gets you
through that is believing in what you’re
doing and knowing that what you’re doing
is is really delivering a lot of value
for people and that’s I think how the
best companies end up getting made you
know I actually I spend a bunch of time
analyzing and reflecting on why it was
that we were even able to do it because
all like all reasons suggest that we
shouldn’t have been able to do it right
because all these other companies had
way more engineering power and and and
servers and time and money and all the
stuff and I actually think that this is
a pretty instructive thing for anything
that you want to go do because this is
the same properties can be true for any
thing that you guys start is that
someone else is going to have more
resources and be able to do it the
reason why I think we actually ended up
being the ones doing it is because we
just cared way more about it than
everyone else right so there were always
projects at some of these other
companies that were these hobbies but we
always thought that it was this really
important thing and really just like
felt in our gut in our heart that we
wanted to do it and you know early on
there were always these skeptics saying
that oh this can’t be a business we can
actually care that much about it being a
business early on but a lot of the
reason why bigger companies didn’t
invest in it was because it wasn’t clear
that there was a model that would work
for it it seemed like a bad idea yeah
and I actually think that that’s true
for a lot of the best ideas where it is
that it’s not that someone else can’t do
it they actually can and the odds are
stacked against you but I think often
that belief and the fact that you just
care so much about what you’re doing is
the only thing that kind of drives you
to do it and you know to be honest that
kind of drives me to this day I mean one
of the big emphasis points for the
company right now is internet.org and
you know for why we had this rallying
cry of can we connect a billion people
and you know when we start talking about
that we thought that was crazy right it
was way bigger than any service in the
world that had been built and you know
it’s ten digits long right a cycle you
know it just it felt crazy we’d never
get to that but then the thing is as
we’ve started to actually get closer to
that we took a step back and like
alright well our mission isn’t actually
to get one in seven people in the world
to be connected it’s we want to connect
everyone so it’s um it’s a big issue
that only around a third of the people
in the world have access to the Internet
and that’s something that we think that
we can do something about and similar to
early Facebook we don’t there’s no
business model around this I mean all
the people who have all the money in the
world I mean it’s not necessarily a fair
thing are already the people who are on
Facebook right it’s in the first you
know seventh of the world but we just
believe really strongly it’s like this
is what we were here to do this is what
our company cares about I care about it
the team cares about it our culture
cares about it so we’re just going to
keep pushing on it and I actually think
a lot of the reason
why great stuff gets built is because
it’s kind of irrational at the time but
so it kind of selects where the people
who care the most about it doing it with
a very simple focus an idea the goal
wasn’t to make a huge community site is
to make something where you could type
in someone’s name and find out a bunch
of information about them so I took a
few days and just threw together
Facebook and launched it on February 4th
2004 it was just me working on at that
time but at that point my roommate
Dustin who haven’t had much computer
programming experience at all was like
now I can help you expand and I’m like
that’s cool dude but you know not a
program so lagana it’s not an issue and
he went home one weekend bought the book
pearl for dummies came back with a kind
of ready and then we started getting
emails from people a bunch of other
schools asking if we could launch
Facebook there in the last tech bubble
most websites will run using these
really expensive machines which made it
that you had to basically go and raise
money before you can do anything
we ran the site originally for $85 a
month renting computers for the first
three months we ever did um I don’t open
dead $160 and you know in a world that’s
changing so quickly the biggest risk you
can take is not taking any risk and I
really think that that’s true right a
lot of people I think think that you
know whatever it comes to whatever you
get yourself into a position where you
have to make some some big shift in
direction or do something you know there
are always people are going to point to
the downside risks of that decision and
locally there may be right right I mean
if for any given decision that you’re
going to make there’s upside and
downside but in aggregate if you are
stagnant and you don’t make those
changes then then I think you’re
guaranteed to fail right and not not
catch up so to some degree I think it’s
really right that over time the biggest
risk that you can take is to not take
any risks now we’ve made a huge number
of mistakes along the way
we’re not I I always say I just think
we’ve made probably every possible
mistake you could make in
they’re a decision that you’ve made that
the people around you told you was a
mistake
and you defied them and you were right
you know I mean the most famous one I
think probably has to do with selling
the company right I mean in 2006 right
we have this opportunity to sell the
company to Yahoo for a billion dollars
and we turn that down I think a lot of
people the times thought that we should
sell the company that’s somebody you
know I felt really strongly and I think
like now people generally think that
that was a good decision a lot of people
who I think build startups or companies
I think that’s selling the company or
going public is this end point where
it’s like you win when you go public and
that’s just not how I see it leaving
this basically disable other online
meetings don’t have I think that like
the fact that Facebook is tied into the
real world instead of just being an
online community is big different so a
lot of online communities don’t really
have like a set culture so I mean people
don’t know how to act online you know
and I mean right now we’re face-to-face
and we’re acting in a certain way which
is different than we’d act if you were
just like a screen name on my on my
monitor or something yeah but like the
fact that this is tied into culture in
like I mean so my friends at Harvard
will observe how I act on Facebook makes
it a different kind of community because
it’s actually an online community with
the values of a real community so I
think that makes a tool it makes it so
that there’s like real life useful
information is available there and in
the interactions also sometimes always
more applicable to real life too so I
think that that’s
that’s pretty interesting and I mean
like there’s also cool interactions that
occur on other sites but I mean this is
very real I don’t and as a nod toward or
with it
do you think there’s there’s anything
about you like a personal quality of
yours beside sort of basic smartness and
determination that made you well-suited
to work on this this project I realize
this requires some introspection
yeah I actually think the determination
is probably the biggest piece you know
it’s um so many things go wrong when
you’re starting a company and often I
think people ask you know what mistakes
should you avoid making and you know my
answer the question is don’t even bother
trying to avoid mistakes because you’re
going to make tons of mistakes right and
the the important thing is actually
learning quickly from whatever mistakes
you make and not giving up right and I
mean there are things every single year
of Facebook’s existence that could have
killed us or made it so that it just
seemed like moving forward and making a
lot of progress just seemed intractable
but you just kind of bounce back and you
learn and nothing is impossible you just
have to kind of keep running through the
walls thank you guys so much for
watching I hope you enjoyed I’d love to
know what did you learn from Mark that
you can immediately apply to your life
or business somehow leave it down the
comments below and I’m going to join in
the discussion I also want to give a
quick chat at the Katy cruise Katy thank
you so much for picking up a copy of my
book your one word and making that
awesome and I made a YouTube summary of
it on your channel thank you thank you
thank you for your support we are
talking about your one word the powerful
secret to creating a business and life
that matters by Ivan Carmichael thank
you guys again for watching I believe in
you I hope you continue to believe in
yourself and whatever your one where it
is let’s love I’ll see you soon
mentor me series with the goal to try to
learn from people who have done a lot
more than us and leverage some of their
skills their knowledge their ideas to
help us become the best version of
ourselves so today we’re going to learn
from Mark Zuckerberg
on his Facebook story mentor me mark and
as always guys as you’re watching the
videos if you see something that really
resonates with you please leave it in
the comments below if we approach around
it so other people can be inspired and
if you write it down it’s much more
likely to stick with yourself as well
[Music]
I I built the first version of Facebook
because it’s something that my friends
and I wanted to use at Harvard a
directory and a way to connect with the
other people around us and I didn’t
think it all that was going to be a
company I remember very specifically the
night that that we launched the first
version I went out to to get pizza with
a couple of my friends who now work here
and you know and I remember really
clearly we were talking about how one
day we thought that someone was going to
build a community like this for the
world and that that would be some
company but like it clearly wasn’t gonna
be us I mean it just it wasn’t me of
them I didn’t even occur yeah no I mean
it wasn’t even an option that we
considered that it might be us I mean we
just weren’t focused on building a
company back then we were just building
something that that we thought would be
useful at our school with Facebook there
was just such you know people loved it
right and had such an intensity of using
I think within a couple of weeks
two-thirds of students at Harvard were
using it and all these other students at
MIT and other local universities were
writing me and asking us if we could
open up Facebook at their school so we
kind of just follow that right um you
know again we didn’t set out and you
know my roommates don’t set out to build
a service that we’re going to turn into
a company but we just kind of followed
what people wanted and that led us to
expand it to all these other schools and
and eventually beyond schools and to you
know at some point once we’d hired a
bunch of people we decided to turn it
into a company and and go for this
mission of connecting the world but
that’s not where we started I think one
of the hardest parts for me was was
actually when Yahoo offered to buy the
company for for a lot of money because
up until that point that was a turning
point in the company where before that
we every day we just come in and kind of
do what we saw was the right next thing
to do right we open two more schools we
we open to high school and open beyond
schools and
you know launch more photos because
because that’s what seemed like the next
thing that we needed to do to help
people express themselves and understand
more what was going on around them but
been no yahoo came in with this with
this really meaningful offer right even
a billion dollars for how far into the
company that was a couple of years ago
right and you know we have 10 million
people using the product at the time
quite so it wasn’t like it wasn’t as if
it were obvious that we were going to
succeed far beyond that and that was the
first point where we really had to to
look at the future and say wow is what
we’re going to build going to actually
be so much more meaningful for this and
you know that caused a lot of
interesting conversations in the company
and with our investors and you know at
the end of that Dustin and I just
decided you know we think that we can
actually go connect more than just the
10 million people who are in schools we
can go beyond that and have this really
be a successful thing we decide to go
for it but it was really stressful cuz a
lot of people really thought that we
should sell the company and and you know
for a lot of folks who joined a start-up
I feel like at that point I hadn’t been
very good about communicating that we
were trying to go for this mission yeah
you know we just showed up every day and
yeah and kind of did what we thought was
the right next thing to do so for a lot
of folks who joined early on they
weren’t really aligned with me right for
them if they joined and you know being
able to sell a company for a billion
dollars after a couple years was I was
like a home run right and it is a home
run right then and that’s you know I
think that that’s um I get that but you
know that I think that’s the fact that I
didn’t communicate very well about what
we were trying to do cause causes huge
tension and the poor that was painful
wasn’t well then turning down the offer
it was the fact that after that a huge
amounts of the company quit because I
didn’t believe in and what we were what
we were doing right if you look at the
management team that we had does that
fellow management team lead the whole
management team who was gone within
within about a year after that did you
ever regret that decision
in that period like where there are
times we were like well we should have
pulled um you know we were I was a
really lucky because you know not only
did did
what I believe didn’t end up working out
but it ended up working out pretty
quickly right so it literally yeah I
think this was in the summer of 2006 and
by I think the next month after that we
launched a news feed right which now ten
years later looking back at it is you
know one of the most used products in
the world and then we launched the
ability for anyone to sign up which
immediately started growing the
community so within a few months after
turning down the offer I think it was
actually pretty clear that that was the
right decision but you know I think you
know since then there have been much
harder to see on doing that to make work
you know sometimes you have to you have
to bet on something and you know either
you know bet the direction of the
company or you know bet billions of
dollars on something it’s not going to
be clear with you’re right for five or
ten years and you know that I think
actually can end up is much harder than
this what I want to talk about next but
before we go there have you ever thought
about selling the company again since no
after that
port I would just yeah got that out of
the way we’re people that want to be
here for a long time and yeah I always
think that you should start with the
problem that your trust health in the
world and not start with deciding that
you want to build a company right the
best companies that that get built are
things that are trying to drive some
kind of social change even if it’s just
local in one place I you know more than
starting out because you want to make a
bunch of money or have a lot of people
working for you or or build some company
in some way so you know I always think
that this is kind of a perverse thing
about Silicon Valley in a way which is
that you know people decide often but
they want to start a company before they
even decide what they want to do and
that just feels it’s really backwards to
me and you know for anyone you said the
experience of actually building a
company you know that you go through
some really hard things along the way
and I think part of what gets you
through that is believing in what you’re
doing and knowing that what you’re doing
is is really delivering a lot of value
for people and that’s I think how the
best companies end up getting made you
know I actually I spend a bunch of time
analyzing and reflecting on why it was
that we were even able to do it because
all like all reasons suggest that we
shouldn’t have been able to do it right
because all these other companies had
way more engineering power and and and
servers and time and money and all the
stuff and I actually think that this is
a pretty instructive thing for anything
that you want to go do because this is
the same properties can be true for any
thing that you guys start is that
someone else is going to have more
resources and be able to do it the
reason why I think we actually ended up
being the ones doing it is because we
just cared way more about it than
everyone else right so there were always
projects at some of these other
companies that were these hobbies but we
always thought that it was this really
important thing and really just like
felt in our gut in our heart that we
wanted to do it and you know early on
there were always these skeptics saying
that oh this can’t be a business we can
actually care that much about it being a
business early on but a lot of the
reason why bigger companies didn’t
invest in it was because it wasn’t clear
that there was a model that would work
for it it seemed like a bad idea yeah
and I actually think that that’s true
for a lot of the best ideas where it is
that it’s not that someone else can’t do
it they actually can and the odds are
stacked against you but I think often
that belief and the fact that you just
care so much about what you’re doing is
the only thing that kind of drives you
to do it and you know to be honest that
kind of drives me to this day I mean one
of the big emphasis points for the
company right now is internet.org and
you know for why we had this rallying
cry of can we connect a billion people
and you know when we start talking about
that we thought that was crazy right it
was way bigger than any service in the
world that had been built and you know
it’s ten digits long right a cycle you
know it just it felt crazy we’d never
get to that but then the thing is as
we’ve started to actually get closer to
that we took a step back and like
alright well our mission isn’t actually
to get one in seven people in the world
to be connected it’s we want to connect
everyone so it’s um it’s a big issue
that only around a third of the people
in the world have access to the Internet
and that’s something that we think that
we can do something about and similar to
early Facebook we don’t there’s no
business model around this I mean all
the people who have all the money in the
world I mean it’s not necessarily a fair
thing are already the people who are on
Facebook right it’s in the first you
know seventh of the world but we just
believe really strongly it’s like this
is what we were here to do this is what
our company cares about I care about it
the team cares about it our culture
cares about it so we’re just going to
keep pushing on it and I actually think
a lot of the reason
why great stuff gets built is because
it’s kind of irrational at the time but
so it kind of selects where the people
who care the most about it doing it with
a very simple focus an idea the goal
wasn’t to make a huge community site is
to make something where you could type
in someone’s name and find out a bunch
of information about them so I took a
few days and just threw together
Facebook and launched it on February 4th
2004 it was just me working on at that
time but at that point my roommate
Dustin who haven’t had much computer
programming experience at all was like
now I can help you expand and I’m like
that’s cool dude but you know not a
program so lagana it’s not an issue and
he went home one weekend bought the book
pearl for dummies came back with a kind
of ready and then we started getting
emails from people a bunch of other
schools asking if we could launch
Facebook there in the last tech bubble
most websites will run using these
really expensive machines which made it
that you had to basically go and raise
money before you can do anything
we ran the site originally for $85 a
month renting computers for the first
three months we ever did um I don’t open
dead $160 and you know in a world that’s
changing so quickly the biggest risk you
can take is not taking any risk and I
really think that that’s true right a
lot of people I think think that you
know whatever it comes to whatever you
get yourself into a position where you
have to make some some big shift in
direction or do something you know there
are always people are going to point to
the downside risks of that decision and
locally there may be right right I mean
if for any given decision that you’re
going to make there’s upside and
downside but in aggregate if you are
stagnant and you don’t make those
changes then then I think you’re
guaranteed to fail right and not not
catch up so to some degree I think it’s
really right that over time the biggest
risk that you can take is to not take
any risks now we’ve made a huge number
of mistakes along the way
we’re not I I always say I just think
we’ve made probably every possible
mistake you could make in
they’re a decision that you’ve made that
the people around you told you was a
mistake
and you defied them and you were right
you know I mean the most famous one I
think probably has to do with selling
the company right I mean in 2006 right
we have this opportunity to sell the
company to Yahoo for a billion dollars
and we turn that down I think a lot of
people the times thought that we should
sell the company that’s somebody you
know I felt really strongly and I think
like now people generally think that
that was a good decision a lot of people
who I think build startups or companies
I think that’s selling the company or
going public is this end point where
it’s like you win when you go public and
that’s just not how I see it leaving
this basically disable other online
meetings don’t have I think that like
the fact that Facebook is tied into the
real world instead of just being an
online community is big different so a
lot of online communities don’t really
have like a set culture so I mean people
don’t know how to act online you know
and I mean right now we’re face-to-face
and we’re acting in a certain way which
is different than we’d act if you were
just like a screen name on my on my
monitor or something yeah but like the
fact that this is tied into culture in
like I mean so my friends at Harvard
will observe how I act on Facebook makes
it a different kind of community because
it’s actually an online community with
the values of a real community so I
think that makes a tool it makes it so
that there’s like real life useful
information is available there and in
the interactions also sometimes always
more applicable to real life too so I
think that that’s
that’s pretty interesting and I mean
like there’s also cool interactions that
occur on other sites but I mean this is
very real I don’t and as a nod toward or
with it
do you think there’s there’s anything
about you like a personal quality of
yours beside sort of basic smartness and
determination that made you well-suited
to work on this this project I realize
this requires some introspection
yeah I actually think the determination
is probably the biggest piece you know
it’s um so many things go wrong when
you’re starting a company and often I
think people ask you know what mistakes
should you avoid making and you know my
answer the question is don’t even bother
trying to avoid mistakes because you’re
going to make tons of mistakes right and
the the important thing is actually
learning quickly from whatever mistakes
you make and not giving up right and I
mean there are things every single year
of Facebook’s existence that could have
killed us or made it so that it just
seemed like moving forward and making a
lot of progress just seemed intractable
but you just kind of bounce back and you
learn and nothing is impossible you just
have to kind of keep running through the
walls thank you guys so much for
watching I hope you enjoyed I’d love to
know what did you learn from Mark that
you can immediately apply to your life
or business somehow leave it down the
comments below and I’m going to join in
the discussion I also want to give a
quick chat at the Katy cruise Katy thank
you so much for picking up a copy of my
book your one word and making that
awesome and I made a YouTube summary of
it on your channel thank you thank you
thank you for your support we are
talking about your one word the powerful
secret to creating a business and life
that matters by Ivan Carmichael thank
you guys again for watching I believe in
you I hope you continue to believe in
yourself and whatever your one where it
is let’s love I’ll see you soon
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