Leadership Portfolio of

Mark Zuckerberg
Submitted By
Yash Raghuvanshi
K1315
11311827
A-19
Submitted To
Maninder Singh
Date Of Submission
October 13, 2015

Introduction
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984)
is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known
as one of five co-founders of the social networking site Facebook. Zuckerberg is
the chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Inc.

Born and raised in New York State, he took up writing software programs as a
hobby in middle school, beginning with BASIC, with help from his father and a
tutor (who called him a "prodigy"). In high school, he excelled in classic literature
and fencing while studying at Phillips Exeter Academy. Before he even graduated
high school, Zuckerberg was offered full-time jobs at Microsoft and Google, which
he promptly turned down. He later attended Harvard University, majoring in
computer science and psychology. (Geron, The Worlds Billionaires)In his
sophomore year, he wrote a program called Facemash as a "fun" project, letting
students on the college's network vote on other students' photo attractiveness. It
was shut down within days, but would become a template for his writing
Facebook, a program he launched from his dormitory room. (Harris, Inventing
Facebook)

Together with his college roommates and fellow Harvard

University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz,
and Chris Hughes, he launched Facebook from Harvard University's dormitory
rooms. The group then introduced Facebook onto other campuses nationwide and
moved to Palo Alto, California shortly afterwards. In 2007, at the age of 23,
Zuckerberg became a billionaire as a result of Facebook's success. The number of
Facebook users worldwide reached a total of one billion in 2012. Zuckerberg was
involved in various legal disputes that were initiated by others in the group, who
claimed a share of the company based upon their involvement during the
development phase of Facebook.

Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and
most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the

Year distinction. In 2011, Zuckerberg ranked first on the list of the "Most
Influential Jews in the World" by The Jerusalem Post. Zuckerberg was played by
actor Jesse Eisenberg in the 2010 film The Social Network, in which the rise of
Facebook is portrayed.

Over the past 10 years, as he was building the largest global social network, Zuck
has had a lot of supporters, as well as critics. Whether you love him or you hate
him, the fact remains that this college dropout has built something that only a few
on the planet had the privilege to build.
But what's most fascinating is how he did it. Here are just some of the lessons
that Zuckerberg can teach us about building and growing a strong and vibrant
business.

Leadership Traits of Mark Zuckerberg

1. Passion
The most successful entrepreneurs share the same trait: They are passionate about
what they do. Zuckerberg has always been fascinated by building systems that
connect people. His passion was always to make the world more open, sometimes
radically so.
If you look at Facebooks mission statement, its core hasnt changed since
inception. It states - Facebooks mission is to give people the power to share and
make the world more open and connected.
Yes, Zuckerberg has always been passionate about using technology to connect
people, but he has also put in the hard work to achieve it. Where some people see
failure, a passionate entrepreneur sees only a learning experience, a stepping stone
to keep moving forward.

Passion is what turns an entrepreneur into a successful business leader If you

are driven by passion you wont give up, no matter how long the journey, and you
keep learning constantly.
Find that thing you are super passionate about. A lot of the founding principles of
Facebook are that if people have access to more information and are more
connected, it will make the world better; people will have more understanding,
more empathy. Thats the guiding principle for me. On hard days, I really just step
back, and thats the thing that keeps me going. --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Passion fuels perseverance, one of the key ingredients of success.
2. Purpose
The really great companies have a sense of purpose at the root of all that they do,
from hiring employees, to attracting the right investors, to their marketing and their
customer service. That sense of purpose breeds the sense of belonging, it sparks
intense employee and customer loyalty. Great leaders (and great companies) create
movements, not just products. Facebook isnt just a social networking site, it is a
way of staying on touch with people around the world, a place to bring people
together and build communities, and a tool for sharing information.
By always keeping his purpose in mind, Zuckerberg has been able to focus on
creating the best product for achieving this.
At Facebook, were inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people
spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing
press and the television, by simply making communication more efficient, they led
to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more
people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was
organized. They brought us closer together. --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Great companies dont just create great products, they create movements.
3. People
The most innovative companies allow their employees the freedom to develop their
interests and to take risks. Facebook has an interview process that only selects
employees who are the right fit for the companys culture. Once they are in, they

take part in intensive training that teaches them the hacker way of fast, creative
coding that Zuckerberg prizes.
They are also allowed to work on the projects that they are most interested in vs.
those that are assigned to them. This comes from strong leadership that leads by
example.
I think as a company, if you can get those two things right--having a clear
direction on what you are trying to do and bringing in great people who can
execute on the stuff--then you can do pretty well." --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Get the right people on board and wrong people off the bus. And where
possible hire for attitude, not skills. Skills can be taught, passion cant.
4. Product
Facebook is utterly committed to its product. Every innovation is to further its goal
of connecting people in the simplest way possible. Facebook's philosophy is to
"move fast and break things and this has ensured the rapid growth that has
allowed the company to lead. Zuckerbergs complete belief in his product has also
given him the strength to persevere with some of the most unpopular changes in
the face of huge opposition, even within his own company.
When the News Feed was introduced it was initially disliked by users (mostly for
privacy reasons), yet the feature fuelled massive expansion and set Facebook apart
from other social media sites.
When Zuckerberg announced Facebook as a platform, people thought he was
crazy. But expansion into a platform has thrust the company into the next stage of
successful growth.
The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement
and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that
nothing is ever complete. . . There's a hacker mantra that you'll hear a lot around
Facebook offices: Code wins arguments --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: Establish a culture that welcomes innovation. And have courage to stick to
your vision and be dedicated to proliferating the culture that helps execute on that
vision in the most effective way.

5. Partnerships
No business leader can run a company all by themselves. Success is a team sport.
Great leaders recognize their own weaknesses as much as their strengths and bring
in the right people in to form partnerships that drive success. Whether it is
investors, a management team, suppliers, distributors or retail partnerships,
partnering with the right people is vital.
At Facebook, Zuckerberg provides the imagination, while Sheryl Sandberg,
Facebooks chief operating officer, provides the execution around his vision. Like
Warner Bros, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, or
any other successful business partnerships, Zuckerberg and Sandberg share the
same values, complementary strengths, commitment, mutual trust and the mutual
respect needed to continue to drive the company forwards.
Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our
growth and success over the years. --Mark Zuckerberg
Lesson: The right partnership of imagination and execution is at the heart of a
successful company.

Now, why is Mark Zuckerberg considered a business leader?

A simple answer could be that he is the co-founder of a multi-billion dollar

company. He is also the world's youngest billionaire. Facebook is also a logo that
is recognized by more than 95% of all Americans. (Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
Bloombergs Billionaires)That could be the simple answer, but that speaks more
to the success of the company than the aptitude of Mr. Zuckerberg as a business
leader. From the beginning of his college days at Harvard, Zuckerberg knew where
his skill set lay and how to use it to the point where it could foster a successful
business. He enlisted the help of several close friends from Harvard and launched
Facebook into its infant stages. After receiving 500,000 dollars in funding from
venture capitalist Peter Thiel (Grossman, Person of the Year), Zuckerberg moved

to California with his Harvard roommate, Dustin Moskovitz and established their
own office in a temporary home they had leased for the summer.
Then, in what could perhaps be considered one of the most dangerous career
moves Zuckerberg ever made, he and his roommate remained in Palo Alto,
California, this marking the end of Zuckerberg's Harvard education. Not only was
Zuckerberg extremely talented and had a firm understanding of how to market his
skills, he was daring and also carried the ability to recognize when he had
something extremely valuable at his discretion. He took advice from top
technological innovators and executives in effectively operating a business. He
even solicited the help of Steve Jobs in effectively managing his company after
Facebook hit the 500 million user mark in 2004. Not only did Zuckerberg
demonstrate creativity and passion as a business leader, he also demonstrated a
willingness to learn. A quality that is absolutely essential of effective leaders.

One particular experience I will focus on that qualified Zuckerberg as a better

leader will be from the summer he spent in California. Rather than allowing
several massive corporations to overtake Facebook, he remained stalwart and
instead allowed a single investor to boost Facebooks growth. Considering the
inordinate amount of money he was offered as a college-aged student by such
corporations it begs the question, why didnt Zuckerberg just take the money? Had
he in fact done so, Facebook would have been absorbed by another company and
would not be the independent and international entity we know it as today.
Zuckerberg faced an extremely difficult choice as a business leader, but rather than
choosing what seemed obvious, Zuckerberg acted intuitively and most likely out of
love for his creation. He ultimately obtained unparalleled success for walking the
proverbial business straight and narrow.

It would have been simple for him to take the job offer from Microsoft or Google
and become a successful programmer through a stable company, but Zuckerberg
saw his own path to success through higher education. It would have been simple
for Zuckerberg to sell out Facebook to AOL in order to turn an immediate profit
from his software, but he turned down the offer and used funding to turn Facebook
into its own entity. Zuckerberg was presented with an array of opportunities to
make the creation of Facebook simpler for himself, but he chose instead to grind it
out through hard work and make Facebook a masterpiece of his own design. I

observed how Zuckerberg practiced this in the development of his own company
and I felt as though this idea applied directly to my life and what motivates me. If I
can say Ive learned anything from Zuckerberg, its that one should never choose
the easiest path, rather the own their will bear the most fruits of ones labor.

In the world of business today, Zuckerberg has not only set an example for small or
independent companies about the values and rewards or perseverance, but nearly
every business or corporation in America (and the hundreds of thousands
worldwide) has one or more Facebook page. Thanks to Zuckerberg and the
Facebook team, social and professional networking has been completely
remastered in the world of business; networking referring a supportive system of
sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common
interest. Zuckerberg brought this entire process to the twenty first century by
adding a major electronic and online component. Facebook has formed essential
partnerships with other online entities (such as Twitter or LinkedIn) that has drawn
the world of business even further into the twenty-first century and has altered the
way the world works today.