company has succeeded because hundreds of millions of people—slowly at first and then in crashing herds—became comfortable sharing their true selves on the site. It is precisely that authenticity that makes Facebook matter to its 845 million users. If Marshall McLuhan had lived long enough to have a Facebook profile, his status might read thus: The medium isn’t just the message; the medium has become us. But the moment belonged first and foremost o Zuckerberg, who for years has had his own identity problem: “boy CEO.” Young, arrogant, and awkward—no one believed that Zuckerberg could survive the adult swim of real business, and thanks to his depiction in The Social Net- work, some folks will forever see him as the fatally flawed psychopathic robot nerd looking to steal your code, your personal data, your girl- friend. “I don’t think about it . . . much,” he once
told me when I asked him how he handles all
the noise, measuring his words as he always
does. “I understand why people need to have
these dialogues, to ask these questions. We have
so much to do here, we don’t think about it if we
don’t have to.”
I first met Zuckerberg and his colleagues five
years ago, when Facebook had just 19 million
users and was on the verge of opening up its
platform to outside developers. Looking back on
more than 400 hours of reporting with Facebook
staffers, investors, and people in the site’s eco-
system, including a visit in late December, plus
more than seven hours of one-on-one interviews
with Zuckerberg, one fact is clear: The only thing
that could have derailed Facebook’s climb to
Internet domination was the inexperience of a
young CEO. He had never held a proper job before
and, by virtue of his own ballsy negotiations,
could not be ousted from his position. (Facebook,
citing IPO-quiet-period restrictions, declined to
make Zuckerberg available for this story.) But
what was largely interpreted as control freakery
in service of a bigger exit strategy turned out to
be a real vision. “So many businesses get worried
about looking like they might make a mistake,
they become afraid to take any risk,” he told me
after the company moved into its first grown-up
tech campus, on Palo Alto’s California Avenue,
in 2009. “Companies are set up so that people
judge each other on failure. I’m not going to get
fired if we have a bad year. Or a bad five years. I
don’t have to worry about making things look
good if they’re not. I can actually set up the com-
pany to create value.”
This February, as part of his effort to ensure
that this remain true, Zuckerberg asked inves-
tors to back a company in which he will retain
It was a minor meta moment, the perfect
inside joke to kick off a September day that was
otherwise all business. The occasion was f8 2011,
the erratically scheduled, mostly annual conference
for Facebook developers and social-media innovators,
a gathering that now has a pilgrimage-like quality for
the Facebook faithful. It is one of the few opportuni-
ties for legions of Mark Zuckerberg fans viewing the
event live online to observe their spotlight-averse
hero perform a rite native to the CEO species: the key-
note address. Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Zuckerberg.
The whoops turned to laughter almost immediately;
it took only a few seconds for the assembled engi-
neers, designers, brand stewards, marketing mavens,
nonprofiteers, pundits, bloggers, and investors to
realize that they were being punked.
On stage was the comedian Andy Samberg, fully
in character as “Zuck Dawg” in a hoodie, jeans,
and Adidas sandals. “I want to start by focusing on
some key issues,” he said. “The first is the importance
of authentic identity. I . . .” he paused, hand over
heart, “. . . am Mark Zuckerberg.”
It was a delicious moment for the Facebook staff,
now 3,200 strong. For them, it’s always been about
identity. Since Facebook’s February 2004 launch, the
