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Zuckerberg Facebook

First time ever, Zuckerberg opens up for a few friends (10,000 actually)

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

March 26, 2011 | 5 min read

Whatever you may have thought about the intense Facebook founder in the film, the Social Network, think again. Mark Zuckerberg faced a huge student audience (his first ever) on Friday and cheerfully gave frank answers to all the topics under the sun. Read it here first!

Senator Hatch, chair of the U.S. Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, had invited the shy Zuckerberg to speak to the students at the Mormon Brigham Young University about technology and policy.

It was the first time Mark had spoken to such a large crowd, as the website Search Engine Land reported. "I am a little bit nervous. I have never had to speak to a stadium full of people before,” he said - but you'd never know it. For people expecting the intense young man from the film the Social Network, he showed a surprisingly cheerful side.

BYU had asked for questions via their official Facebook page (of course!), and got about 450 possibles .

Senator Hatch probably asked Zuckerberg less than 10 questions in the 45 minute discussion, but by the second question, Mark turned the tables on him — “Do I get to ask you questions, too?” The answer was yes.

Zuckerberg asked Hatch, “How does the government see the evolution of the Internet and technology – what do you think the government can do to encourage startups?”

Senator Hatch replied, “Probably the best thing would be for us to stay out of the way”. He “personally prefers keeping innovation alive,” as opposed to overly regulating.

Zuckerberg suggested that many startups could come and challenge the social network and similar technologies at any time, by simply focusing on building something better in an open environment:

“We believe there will be much better services for all the people who use Facebook if millions of people around the world can develop those services. A good independent entrepreneur should always be able to do something better than a division of a company.”

On privacy, Zuckerberg was very firm , “If you go back 10 years, people were very afraid of sharing anything on the Internet. "They became more comfortable with Facebook because we have extremely robust privacy controls…. We are really focused on safety, especially on children’s safety.”

When Hatch asked him about the key role of social media dealing with some of our most important issues (Egypt?), Zuckerberg spoke vaguely about “grassroots connectivity” But he said that “information about businesses or governance issues can be spread through society much more easily”.

One developer at Facebook had created Peace.Facebook.com, he said, where the site tracks and measures friendships being formed around the world. That interested him because of the relationships developing between people in countries historically divided by politics or wars.

“Empathy is developing in the world . We ARE all connected, we just don’t fully understand it yet.”

On Facebook advertising, Hatch asked, “Are you worried that Ads will take away from Facebook’s coolness?”

Zuckerberg: "I think everyone likes the service being free." (wild applause).Then he said, “That’s the bare minimum of how you need to think about ads; that’s the way you can use the service without paying for it. We don’t sell your information, people trust us, so that’s important for us.” He said it was a “misconception” that advertisers can access your personal information. Rather, Facebook does the targeting based on advertiser selection. Hatch asked what could the students learn from his experience. There was a roar when Mark started with, “So, I wasn’t in school for that long…” (He dropped out of Harvard). Mark told budding entrepreneurs: “you really have to love and believe in what you’re doing, that’s the most important thing. If you don’t, it becomes an irrational thing you’re doing”. Zuckerberg brought along three BYU alumni who currently work at Facebook. Hatch asked what the firm looked for in potential employees. Zuckerberg said they mainly “look for people who are passionate about something." It doesn’t matter actually what they are passionate about. " We cover a lot of different things, make a lot of products. We look at what you took the initiative to build or make on on your own. “We don’t want people to work at Facebook because of what it already is, but because they want Facebook to become something else - what they think it should be.” You can read more about Mark's big date here.
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