My number one piece of advice is: you should learn how to program.
Mark ZuckerbergRead
Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.
Interpretation
A successful business requires both a clear mission and practical operations.
In this quote, Mark Zuckerberg emphasizes the importance of aligning a company's mission with its business practices. He suggests that while the excitement of pursuing a mission is paramount, one must also recognize the necessity of building a sustainable business to support that mission. This balance between purpose and practicality is essential for long-term success.
In practice
During a business conference, one might quote this to illustrate the essential link between mission-driven work and financial viability.
My number one piece of advice is: you should learn how to program.
I literally coded Facebook in my dorm room and launched it from my dorm room. I rented a server for $85 a month, and I funded it by putting an ad on the side, and we've funded ever since by putting ads on the side.
People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don't really believe in it, then they are not going to really work hard.
Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services.
The question isn't, 'What do we want to know about people?', It's, 'What do people want to tell about themselves?'
I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.
Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making.
The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them - preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.
I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.
Of all the things that your company owns, brands are far and away the most important and the toughest. Founders die. Factories burn down. Machinery wears out. Inventories get depleted. Technology becomes obsolete. Brand loyalty is the only sound foundation on which business leaders can build enduring, profitable growth.
The reason why it is so difficult for existing firms to capitalize on disruptive innovations is that their processes and their business model that make them good at the existing business actually make them bad at competing for the disruption.
To those who are engaged in commercial dealings, justice is indispensable for the conduct of business.
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