In five days Facebook would be seven years old. But that's not it. Facebook would also be a top social website with more than six hundred million active users and no that is not a typo. It is currently valued over fifty billion dollars and believe it or not that is not a typo also. Amazon on the other hand has dropped down to seventy-five billion dollars. Facebook has achieved greatness and has nearly replaced MySpace in seven years. All I can say is, “What the heck!” What is it that makes Facebook so successful and powerful? What is it that makes users come back almost more than two to three times a day? What is it that makes it able to still acquire new users by the thousands daily? I can say it is not the page layout and I am sure it is not because users are not able to change or design their page.
I am not an expert on Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg or other founders of Facebook, but I can say that Mark’s dedication and strong adherence to his passion and dream are main factors in making Facebook one of the largest social networks today. Mr. Zuckerberg created Facebook with the help of some roommates and friends in his Harvard dorm after realizing the shortly successful “facemash.” From there on it took off jumping from campuses to campuses and now available worldwide. Mr. Zuckerberg was offered one billion dollars for his start-up after a year of officially establishing Facebook. How many of you would have sold your start-up if someone offered you one billion dollars after a year? For some I bet it does not even have to be half a billion dollars. Honestly, I probably would have sold it and retired. But Mr. Zuckerberg had a larger vision, a more grand vision that overpowers his want of money. Money was not something he cared much for. He wanted to connect the world and increase information transparency and held onto his dream.
You can see that the most successful people are those who chase after their passion and dream. They don’t let money deter them from their path or obstacles bring them down easily. One example of this is Dr. Myron Wentz whose parents passed away from degenerative diseases when he was only seventeen years old. Dr. Wentz set out with the passion to find cure for these degenerative diseases and developed the highest quality nutritional supplement, later to be known as USANA Health Sciences world wide. You can find many more examples out there.
Contradicting, money is a huge part of life. It is almost as valuable as air because nearly everything revolves around it. It is what pushes our economy along and creates job for students. Unfortunately it has misled many and created greed.
Whether Facebook will continue successfully or not depends upon Mark Zuckerberg’s adherence to his passion and dream. Once the focus shifts towards maximizing profit by cluttering ads all over the place and selling user information to outsiders, Facebook users will switch over to something else.
I got your point. It is really true that most of us would prefer 1 billion and sold the company. If he really sold his company back then, I don't think Facebook would be that successful.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, it is hard to emerge another Zukerberg. I am not saying that there aren't any talented, determined and passionate people. But with the fact that he was also very lucky. Without the help of his roommate, Sean Parker and many others, Facebook might not be Mark's company anymore.
I think your main point is true--sometimes when we let something besides money drive us, we then find real success. It's a problem endemic in business though--too many people asking, "How can we make more money?" not "How can we make a good product or a useful company?"
ReplyDeleteI think it is definitely a mix between passion and money. Zuckerburg probably knows that he's sitting on a gold mine right now but is still holding on to it in hopes of making it even larger. However, once Facebook becomes public, I fear for its continued trend of success. Historically, when AOL decided to merge with Time Warner in hopes of creating a enormous media corporation or when MySpace sold itself to NewsCorp, the sites simply lost their appeal. I figure that it could be due to that loss of internal passion and drive to keep the project alive. Instead, it becomes a dry money making apparatus that becomes less and less user friendly as time passes.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Zuckerberg's apathy towards money is one the biggest reasons for Facebook's success. By postponing advertising Zuckerberg was able to build a strong foundation of trust in his website. Zuckerberg knew that Facebook would be successful and didn't fall for the enormous sums of money offered to him. I also agree that passion was a large part in Facebook's success. Zuckerberg felt that he could make the world a better place by making it "transparent." Facebook would definitely not be possible without Zuckerberg.
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