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I'm not sure what to think about Mark's non-answer to:

"So can you tell us about some of the hardest parts in the history of the early history of Facebook?"

(He basically says the hardest point was not selling for $1 billion, and that it was a non-issue months later.)



Well, as he clarified, the hard part was the management team quitting.

But I think it's hard to be vulnerable when you reach that level of prominence... anything he says will be scrutinized and potentially be quoted for years to come, and will affect not only himself but everyone who works at Facebook. Even if you want to be authentic, there are powerful social forces which make you careful in what you say.


He also left out the part where investor-genius Peter Thiel was pressuring him very hard to sell Facebook to Yahoo.

Peter Thiel almost cost Zuck one of the biggest mistakes in business history.

Another inconvenient fact that goes unsaid.


Was is it a mistake? What's the probability of massive success there? In 1000 universes with FB, how many times would FB take off like that?

Groupon's looking silly for not selling at 6BN, at least as a company. (I think they personally made out ok?)


Here's how Peter Thiel wrote that event in Zero to One:

> “When Yahoo! offered to buy Facebook for $1 billion in July 2006, I thought we should at least consider it. But Mark Zuckerberg walked into the board meeting and announced: “Okay, guys, this is just a formality, it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. We’re obviously not going to sell here.” Mark saw where he could take the company, and Yahoo! didn’t. A business with a good definite plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.”


the whole thing was a very vanilla overview of what happened and what he plans to do. I hope this isn't what YC intends to with their podcast.

He should have spoken about one of the many times they were on the brink of disaster or the company shutting down, not some time where he got offered a $B.

I hope someone like Tim Ferriss can get a hold of Zuck for 2 hours, and chat to get an in-depth view of him. The dude is going to be remembered as the Edison of this century. He should share more about himself outside the context of fb and their products.


I'm not sure they ever were on the brink of shutting.


Probably he can't talk about it without lawyers first, because remember, Mark isn't a single founder.




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