We all know Mark Zuckerberg is a frickin boss, but he’s been boss material even before Facebook became the world’s largest social network. The Huffington Post published a 2005 interview of Zuckerberg in his college-like Palo Alto office. Facebook, just 15 months old, had its three millionth users, and it was cause for a celebration as the founders commemorated the achievement with a keg of Heineken. Sounds like the Campus Socialite Media team.
The short video is from a 40-minute interview for a documentary about millennials, filmed by Ray Hafner and Derek Franzese. Barefoot and sitting by a Pulp Fiction poster and a lava lamp, Zuckerberg reveals his vision for Facebook as “an online directory for colleges.” Uh yea … such a general statement to describe a social network that has over 750 million users, offices in 15 countries and is worth $50 billion.
“I still don’t know if we have something,” Zuckerberg said. “Whether we have something that will last for a really long time or is just a cool toy for people to play with now, we’ll see. I think it’s actually useful and not necessarily just a fad.”
At the time, MySpace was the number two social network and has just been bought for $580 million. Zuckerberg had turned down a $750 million buyout, and the world thought he had lost his mind turning down all that money. The company’s goals was to expand to all 2,000 U.S. schools, which was seen as a small, short-sighted goal.
When asked what the plan was after reaching 2,000, Zuckerberg replied, ”There doesn’t necessarily have to be more. A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users … There’s a level of service that we can provide when we’re a college network that we wouldn’t be able to provide if we went to other types of things.”
Despite his naivete, Zuckerberg shows he was always a boss!
