Before you get too excited his next line was, "Facebook would not have worked if I had stayed in Boston."
Yesterday, Harvard dropout and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed by Y Combinator partner Jessica Livingston at Startup School at Stanford University. Y Combi's Startup School is a yearly event that brings investors and founders together to talk about their experiences with startups. This year's list included Marc Andreessen, Paul Graham, Ron Conway, Drew Houston, Max Levchin, Mark Pincus and of course Mark Zuckerberg.
Throughout the 40 minute interview (video below) Zuck revealed some incredibly interesting things about the early days founding Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, the culture of Silicon Valley and what he would have done differently.
"We didnt want to start a company we just started building it. We didn't expect it to be a company initially, we just built it because we thought it was awesome," said Zuck about the early days of Facebook at Harvard.
Zuck founded Facebook from a Harvard dorm room back in 2004. After his sophomore year he ended up going out to Silicon Valley for the summer because "it seemed like a magical place that all of these startups come from." The company went on to raise money out there and well you know the rest of the story. Before he went out west though, Zuck and cofounder Eduardo Saverin did pitch investors from Boston.
"How did you pitch Facebook to Battery Ventures in Boston? They clearly ended up passing and perhaps that was a mistake," asked Livingston.
“I barely remember that but I agree that it happened,” he recalled. “I don’t think I said anything and Eduardo said some things and they didn't want to do it, and it was fine because I didn’t want to do that anyway,” said Zuck.
Zuck did make it clear that he was (and still is) skeptical of VC's, which is why he ended up taking money from Peter Thiel. He took the money from Thiel because he could relate to them on a founder level. Thiel was a founder of PayPal and could offer them advice and connect to them in ways that VC's could not.
A lot has changed since that first summer in the valley and it looks as if it might be taking a toll on Zuckerberg.
Zuck explains, "what worries me is there’s this culture in the Valley of starting a company before they know what they want to do. You decided you want to start a company, but you don’t know what you are passionate about yet…you need to do stuff you are passionate about. The company’s that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.”
The last question and certainly the most shocking response was "can you think of anything that you would do differently if you could go back in time?"
If I were starting now, I would do it very differently, but I knew nothing back then.
[Polls audience for how many are traveling or from here. "Meaningful amount traveling"]
You get this feeling when you are out here that you have to be in Silicon Valley...It's not the only place to be. If you're a beginner and you don't know anything it is an excellent place to be because a lot of the stuff that you don't understand how to do on your own, you can get a lot of help from people.
If I were starting now I would have just stayed in Boston I think...There are aspects of the culture out here that are short term focused and that bothers me, people are trying to start companies just to start a company.
People don't commit to doing things out here.
A lot of companies built outside of SV, I just think seem to be on a longer term cadence.
I knew nothing so I had to be out here (Silicon Valley). Facebook would not have worked if I had stayed in Boston. Knowing what I do now I might have been able to pull it off though.
I like New York too.
The most important take-away from Zuck's loaded response was that he had to go west in order to get the resources and learn from others who have started successful companies. He could not do that in Boston.
A lot has changed since 2004 and Boston is coming into its own as a breeding ground for startups. There is still a long way to go for this city to make entrepreneurs feel like they have every resource they can to start a company though. We are certainly moving in the right direction.
For Zuckerberg to say that he would have stayed here if he knew what he did now, says that Boston is home to world changing companies and the people in Boston can actually build them. The Boston community is not just about starting a company to start a company. The folks in Boston are passionate about what they are working on and are confident that they can build big businesses.
The only problem is that it's harder for first time entrepreneurs in Boston than it is in the Valley.
Randomly, while at the unConference on Friday, I asked serial entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis if he thought Facebook could have been built here. Lucky, seeing as I had no idea I'd be writing this piece today.
"Absolutely," he said. "Boston has an incredible talent pool, but they couldn't have raised money and got off the ground." added Calacanis.
That sounded like a challenge.
If Zuck would have built Facebook here if he had a network and the resources, and if Boston is home to some of the best technical talent in the world, then the next Facebook will be built here if we WANT it to be.
It's simple, reduce the barriers to start a company and do everything you can to help out entrepreneurs.
I am working on another post for tomorrow. Shoot me an email if you have any thoughts on the topic greg at bostinnovation dot com.
The last two quotes from the interview that I'll leave you with are the two most important things that I have heard in a long time.
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk...You're guaranteed to fail if you don't take risks or try to change anything, you have to take risks."
"You're going to make a ton of mistakes but it doesn't matter. People don't remember the mistakes years from now, they remember the things that you did that were good."
Here is the video, skip to the 43 minute mark to hear what Zuck had to say.
Watch live video from Startup School on Justin.tv
Image via Flickr User kris krug (CC BY-SA 2.0)
