More Words of Wisdom from Mark Zuckerberg

by Scott Edward Walker on November 2nd, 2013

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week, we share a favorite video of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics.  This week, we again present Mark Zuckerberg, the brilliant co-founder of Facebook.

In this interesting interview by Paul Graham a couple of weeks ago (courtesy of the Startup School), Mark shares some solid nuggets for entrepreneurs, including the following:

• “Part of my theory at the time was that people were really missing from the internet… [and] I still think people are largely missing from a lot of the software we build…”  (at 4:12)
• “I was really focused on this idea of channeling a community as energy to build some kind of shared asset…”  (at 5:11)
• “A lot of people just wanted to see who other people knew – there was nothing like that that existed… [Friending] was a really critical piece.”  (at 10:14)
• “Someone else is [always] going to have more resources and be able to do it. [But] the reason I think we actually ended-up being the ones doing it is because we just cared way more about it then everyone else.”  (at 15:08)
• “It’s not that someone else can’t do [your idea] – they actually can; and the odds are stacked against you.  But I think often that belief – the fact that you care so much in what you’re doing – that will drive you [to succeed].  (at 15:51)
• “A lot of the reason great stuff gets built is because it’s kind of irrational at the time, but it kind of selects for the people who care the most about doing it.”  (at 17:07)
• “I actually think that determination is probably the biggest piece.”  (at 17:30)
• “Don’t even bother trying to avoid mistakes because you’re going to make tons of mistakes.  The important thing is actually learning quickly from whatever mistakes you make and not giving up.”  (at 17:44)
• “Nothing is impossible.  You just have to kinda keep running through the walls.” (at 18:06)
• “I don’t think anyone is naturally good at hiring out of the box. You have to learn…”  (21:18)

I hope you enjoy it.  Cheers, Scott