Hacker. Dropout. CEO.
FAST COMPANY — Apr 11 — Facebook has 19 million users, half of which log on each day, is the 6th most-trafficked site in the U.S., 1% of all Internet time is spent on Facebook (ComScore), and is the #1 photo-sharing site on the Web, with 6 million pictures uploaded daily, and should bring in $100 million in revenue this year. Zuckerburg still lives in a rented apartment, with a mattress on the floor and only two chairs and a table for furniture. He walks or bikes to the office every day. Is Zuckerberg being greedy holding out for a bigger money buyout (than Yahoo, Viacom)? Zuckerberg's answer, "I'm here to build something for the long term." Cofounder/VP Eng. Dustin Moskovitz, 22, his roommate at Harvard, and CTO Adam D'Angelo, 23, whom he met in prep school–are true believers. Their faith: that the openness, collaboration, and sharing of information epitomized by social networking can make the world work better. Facebook now has two buildings (soon to be three) and employs 200.
In June 2006, Facebook was opened to work networks. There are more than 20,000 networks of employees, from the CIA and the IRS to Macy's and McDonald's. In September, Facebook announced "open registration": Anyone with a valid email address could join a regional network. Last spring, Facebook received $25 million (Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital, also Accel and Peter Thiel) but Facebook isn't living on VC cash anymore (Cohler, VP Strategy). So how does Facebook make its money? Advertising and sponsorships, mostly, i.e. Apple sponsors a site for iTunes enthusiasts. The big money comes from a banner ad-placement alliance with Microsoft (through 2011). It mirrors a deal MySpace Inked with Google last year. (MySpace reportedly got $900 million over three years).
"Can we get to 35 million users this year?" Dominating another sector beyond the college crowd would be key. "If we were to see that in the high school space, that would be very significant." Facebook is on track to double its engineering team of 50 this year (check out the first step in the application process at facebook.com/jobs_puzzles) as well as its 50-person customer-service group. His reps are mostly from top-shelf universities. (By my estimate, there's $5 million worth of tuition handling customer service at Facebook). 100,000 new users signed on in a single day this past February. The college markets in Canada and the UK have been growing ~30% a month. ~28% of all users are outside the U.S. and the site is adding older users; 3 million 25-34, 380,000 are 35-44, 100,000 are eligible for Medicare. FULL ARTICLE @ FAST COMPANY
~admin
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