As the Facebook CEO makes the rounds at f8, the company's daylong
developer conference, it is clear that he is among his people. Fifteen
hundred hackers have amassed, the first time Zuck has called this flock
together in two and a half years. They're here to attend engineering
sessions about how to build, grow, and monetize their apps; to munch on
plastic-wrapped sandwiches trucked up from Facebook's Menlo Park
headquarters; and to try to catch a glimpse of Zuck casually hanging out
by the Oculus Rift demo, a sight even more surreal for them than the
virtual-reality experience itself. Despite the stuffy heat--the 125,000-
square-foot space doesn't have air-conditioning, so Facebook had to
import its own ventilation ducts, which hum along the wooden ceilings--
Zuck looks cool and relaxed in his T-shirt and jeans. He walks tall, chest
out firmly, and with each quick hello he leaves a trail of starstruck smiles
and excited whispers in his wake, as if Harry Styles were strolling through
a suburban shopping mall. As one beaming attendee says after shaking
hands with the CEO, "He seems pretty fucking confident!"
Zuck, now 30 years old, has reason to be confident. His company is
crushing it. Monthly active users: up to almost 1.3 billion worldwide.
Engagement: up, with more than 50% of users now visiting the service six
days a week and, according to a report by the app-analytics firm Flurry,
spending 17% of their time on their phones in Facebook's app, far and
away the most popular service on iOS and Android devices. Speaking of
mobile, Facebook, which spent all of 2012 and into 2013 dogged by
concerns that it would not be able to make money on people's phones, now
generates 59% of its ad revenue from mobile.
One particular ad unit--the
one that suggests apps a Facebook user might want to download--is the
envy of the entire industry and is being widely copied. Revenue for the
first quarter of 2014 was $2.5 billion. The company earned profits of $642
million, almost triple its haul a year earlier.
These feats are even more impressive when you consider that Zuck is
delivering these results with a core product that has been criticized for
being as stagnant as it is ubiquitous, a place where parents and
grandparents share photos of kids who may be less likely to embrace the
service when they grow up. In a world churning out startups with one
innovation after another--Snapchat, Tinder, Whisper--Facebook can seem
like yesterday's news. Yet how many businesses see revenue and
engagement surge just as passion for their products stalls?
Zuck went on a shopping spree last February and March that seemed, on
first blush, downright desperate.
On February 19, Facebook announced its
acquisition of global-messaging phenomenon WhatsApp for almost $19
billion--the largest sum ever paid for a venture-backed startup. Five weeks
later, Zuck shelled out $2 billion for the promising virtual-reality headset
company Oculus VR. Two days after that, he spent $20 million on a drone
company.
Yes, drones. Although Zuck has outlined his three-, five-, and 10-year goals for employees, he has never crisply explained publicly how all of these recent moves fit together, and that has gotten tech watchers buzzing about whether he and the company have lost their way. But after dozens of interviews with current and former employees, rivals, advertisers, developers, and users, it becomes clear that Zuckerberg has launched Facebook on an aggressive and potentially brilliant strategy--one that has very little to do with the company you think you know based on your desktop use of its social network. [Facebook granted Fast Company access to several company executives, but not to Zuckerberg or COO Sheryl Sandberg.] To make Facebook more relevant than ever, the company has targeted the very core of the app economy to fulfill its vision for the next half-decade. As the six lessons that follow illuminate, the great social network of the early 21st century is laying the groundwork for a platform that could make Facebook a part of just about every social interaction that takes place around the world.
Fast company
Yes, drones. Although Zuck has outlined his three-, five-, and 10-year goals for employees, he has never crisply explained publicly how all of these recent moves fit together, and that has gotten tech watchers buzzing about whether he and the company have lost their way. But after dozens of interviews with current and former employees, rivals, advertisers, developers, and users, it becomes clear that Zuckerberg has launched Facebook on an aggressive and potentially brilliant strategy--one that has very little to do with the company you think you know based on your desktop use of its social network. [Facebook granted Fast Company access to several company executives, but not to Zuckerberg or COO Sheryl Sandberg.] To make Facebook more relevant than ever, the company has targeted the very core of the app economy to fulfill its vision for the next half-decade. As the six lessons that follow illuminate, the great social network of the early 21st century is laying the groundwork for a platform that could make Facebook a part of just about every social interaction that takes place around the world.
Fast company
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