Interview With NOT Mark Zuckerberg

As always there are Key Takeaways at the end of each interview. These are important because our interviews are with ULTRA- successful people. Their "coaching" can be worth millions. BUT read or watch the first interview so that the takeaways are in context. They will be more impactful.

About our interviews. So far, we have interviewed all Vision Masters (Visionaries see things, Vision Masters make them happen). One thing we've found that most (not all) Vision Masters have in common is that they are arrogant. Some in a confident way, some in a disrespectful way, some in a near impossible to tolerate way, and some are truly inspiring leaders.

One thing they all have in common is they are stratospherically successful and we can say that their arrogance, in whatever form they demonstrate it, is an essential component of their unique, innovative mindset. It appears, thinking their ideas and leadership style is better than anyone else's, drives them forward with a level of confidence that is unshakable.

Each of our interviews is a result of the NOT interviewee reading dozens of articles, interviews, watching videos of his character in action. It allows him or her to distill down the persona of the person they represent.

Love them or not, you get an unfiltered look into the attitude, mindset, and success factors that drive them to keep going and achieve often life-changing results. So with that said, our NOT Mark Zuckerberg interview will either inspire or piss you off. You tell us.

Enjoy the video and written versions here.

Robert Steven Kramarz (Rob): Oh, hi there, Mark, NOT Mark Zuckerberg. How are you this morning?

Mark: I’m doing all right, Rob. How are you?

Rob:  I’m glad you’re here. Our vision masters are looking forward to hearing from you on raising capital and being successful with startups. This is your Vision Master podcast. I’m Robert Steven Kramarz, executive director of Intelliversity.

Now let’s get to you, Mark. You’ve been in the news lately a lot lately, not in a positive way, frankly. What do you think about that?

Mark: I don’t care.

Rob: I mean, both the right and the left claim that you’re tipping the… that you have a thumb on the scale of influencing public opinion. You influence a lot of people. The left claims that your algorithm favors conspiracies and gives the Russians a way to manipulate the public. What do you think about that?

Mark: I really don’t think about it.

Rob: Really?

Mark: Really.

Rob: The right-wing accuses you of flagging and deleting their stuff. You don’t care about that?

Mark: No, I don’t.

Rob: I see. How does all of this controversy influence your work as CEO of Facebook?

Mark: It doesn’t. I mean, I waste a lot of time, money, and jet fuel flying to Washington and to get asked stupid questions from people that have no idea what they’re talking about, but other than that, it doesn’t affect me.

Rob: So you’re not thinking about changing your algorithm that addicts users?

Mark: No.

Rob: You’re not thinking about changing your community standards that cause you to flag and delete posts that are clearly more on one side than the other?

Mark: Not at all. I mean, we’ve got an awesome fact-checking system, and it works in a very balanced way. Not changing it.

Rob: But it's a known fact that almost all of your fact-checking board are progressives.

Mark: Try to find a conservative in Silicon Valley.

Rob: But doesn’t that make you wonder about fairness?

Mark: Nope.

Rob: I think we’re going to change the subject right now, Mark. Is that okay with you?

Mark: That’s a really good idea, Rob.

Rob: What do you attribute your early success in raising capital over at Facebook?

Mark: Well, in 2004, I let Sean Parker from Napster take on the role of president. Okay. He’s, I guess, what you would have called an Execution Master. To me, he just a hacker in nice clothes. I used to call him a gopher. So he thought he needed to prove his value. That led them to pitch Reid Hoffman, who was head of LinkedIn, and Reed thought that investing in Facebook was a conflict with LinkedIn.

So he turned me on to Peter Thiel, who, if you remember, was a member of the PayPal mafia, along with Reed. Reed later invested, excuse me, Peter then invested 500 grand as an angel, and that was our seed round. So just an interesting side note, both Reed and Peter have written books about investing in startups and they’re completely different books and I recommend your followers so read them both.

Rob: So really there’s a lot of different theories about what you guys did. What do you attribute your success… How do you attribute your success? Do you attribute your success to Sean Parker?

Mark: No way. Look, Facebook and my success is directly related to how fucking good Facebook was. I’m also smart enough to hire someone dumber than me but more status hungry than I was, like Sean Parker, who felt they had to prove himself to the world, and that’s what drove him.

Rob: What happened next?

Mark: 2005 and ’06 went very quickly, right? We had several rounds of venture capital, but by series B, we were now valued at 500 million, but I never let those bloodsuckers control me.

Rob: How do you prevent the VCs from controlling your board?

Mark: My stock was and is a very special series that has more voting runs. I always control the board. They only think they have a say in Facebook.

Rob: You’re saying you make all the decisions at Facebook, Mark?

Mark: No. No, no. Not at all. Look, Sheryl Sandberg is the best thing that ever happened to Facebook after we’d dumped Sean Parker. She’s the one that truly understood how to sell advertising, but the algorithm, that’s all mine.

Rob: Oh, you’re going to love this because Sean Parker takes credit for the algorithm such as the idea of addicting users to a continuous flow of what he calls dopamine hits such as when someone likes one of your posts so you want more and more and more like a drug. Now he blames himself for ruining the world. What do you think of that?

Mark: I’m happy to give him credit for ruining the world, but the algorithm, it’s all mine.

Rob: So I take it you don’t get along with Mr. Parker.

Mark:  Rob, I think now is another really great time to move on to another series of questions.

Rob: I’m hoping he’s listening. All right, jumping ahead to 2012. You had an IPO finally. It took a full eight years, which was really short, actually, by high-tech standards. You raised 16 billion making you a $19 billion one of the wealthiest people on earth at that time. So what took you so long to do an IPO?

Mark: Well, we had to get Sheryl’s ideas on profitable advertising really going, and then I had to fire a bunch of idiots. If I did it again, we’d get there and half the time, probably four years.

Rob: What would you do differently?

Mark: I’d stop listening to other people’s advice.

Rob: You’re claiming that you just basically use people without respecting them.

Mark: That sums it up. Although there are exceptions.

Rob: I guess so that would be for your future biography for your next biography. Should we include that? What do you advise other founders about success in startups?

Mark: The first one is trite, but it’s worth revisiting. Okay? You really do have to work very, very hard, and never give up on your broad goals but being open to tactical pivots. Okay? That’s been said so many times, but it’s worth saying again.

The second one is a little more unusual. I divide my workday into short-term thinking and short-term work during traditional work hours, but at the end of my workday, I try to switch to thinking about broader goals and broader issues and more long-term vision.

Rob: You split your days into short-term and long-term focus?

Mark: Right

Rob: Daytime short term, evening long term. I think that’s actually pretty brilliant, Mark, ahhh..NOT Mark. What do you advise other founders about raising capital specifically?

Mark: 1. Surround yourself with people who are really good at getting things done by influencing and leading other people. 2. Make sure you hire people that have raised money and know investors so that you can spend your time getting the product right in position in the marketplace. I guess you’d call those people Execution Masters, but I call them friends.

Rob: Wow. You are a host of contradictions. Okay, Mark, or NOT Mark. Just for the Vision Masters, like yourself, that are listening, we’re not advising that you be like Mark Zuckerberg, but we are advising that you listen to his advice on what he did, actually, because that’s different and that worked.

The Vision Master podcast goes on. I’m really happy to see you here today NOT Mark Zuckerberg. Thank you very much.

Mark: You're welcome. Any time.

Key Takeaways

1. Think short-term during the day and long-term after work.

2. Do not let controversy distract you from your vision.

3. Be sure you have a well-balanced team. (Vision Master and Execution Master)

For those of you that want to talk to me personally about vision mastery and/or raising capital, you’ll find my calendar at intelliversity.org on the connect page. For now, that’s the way it will be.