How to Lead a Business | Learning from Mark Zuckerberg's Mistakes

Rise and shine, it's Enespresso time! Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So grab your coffee and sip on today's message: believe in your mission. Over to you, Mark Zuckerberg.

When I was here 3 years ago, they were calling you the toddler CEO, and they don't say that anymore at all. This is a tough question, but try. How would you grade yourself as a CEO, as the leader of this business?

I mean, that is a hard question.

That's a hard question.

I also don't think you can ever win by answering that question. Now, we've made a huge number of mistakes along the way. Right now, I I just think we've made probably every possible mistake you could make.

Is there 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, with this opportunity to sell the company to Yahoo for $1 billion, and we turned that down. I think a lot of people at the time thought that we should sell the company. Absolutely. But, you know, I felt really strongly, and I think like now people generally think that that was a good decision.

Since that decision, the company has grown considerably. Estimates are that if there were an initial public stock offering, an IPO, today, Facebook would be valued between $35 and $50 billion. Are you ever going to have the IPO ever?

You know, it's like maybe you can't let go. You can't let go.

You can't let go.

I don't think it's letting go. Here's the way that I think about it. A lot of people who I think build startups or companies think that selling the company or going public is this endpoint, right? It's like you win when you go public. And that's just not how I see it.

Raise your standard. Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.

I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

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