A Walk in the Woods with Mark Zuckerberg

<i>"He pointed out Apple’s headquarters, then Hewlett-Packard and a number of other big tech companies, the individual explained. Then he pointed to Facebook and said that it would eventually be bigger than all of the companies he had just mentioned, and that if I joined the company, I could be a part of it all."</i><p>This sounds vaguely familiar.<p><i>Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.</i> -- Matthew 4:8-9<p>(edit: it's a common theme, one of the oldest is in the Bible, and most are most likely appropriated from there)

“Then he pointed to Facebook and said that it would eventually be bigger than all of the companies he had just mentioned, and that if I joined the company, I could be a part of it all.”<p>That's how Mufasa pitched Simba.

Judging from most of the comments here, I'm in the minority, but I applaud Mark for taking such a personal approach to recruiting desired talent. Sure, it can be seen as cheesy when you read about it - but I'm sure each person who got this invite was somewhat impressed and/or flattered by the personal attention.<p>I once wooed a great developer by taking photos of people from my team holding a sign saying, "Hi $Persons_Name!" (where $Persons_Name was the actual candidate's name, of course). Seeing it now, it sounds kinda cheesy and dumb, but it worked. He took the job and rose quickly in the company.<p>This approach may not work for everyone, but it's still admirable that Mark is taking time out of his hectic schedule to try attracting these candidates.

<i>"He pointed out Apple’s headquarters, then Hewlett-Packard and a number of other big tech companies, the individual explained. Then he pointed to Facebook and said that it would eventually be bigger than all of the companies he had just mentioned, and that if I joined the company, I could be a part of it all."</i><p>I know he has to sweet talk employees to join his company, but I can't see this ever happening. Right now Facebook has a valuation of about 80 billion, and a userbase of about 750 million. Assuming he can get the userbase to 1 billion, and assuming he could pass Apple (~200 billion evaluation), that would be $200 per user, when the service is free. I know they get money through advertising and other ways, but that seems kind of high.

I got one of those email invites, to work on my specialty (accessibility features). It was a bit of a fiasco as my chair got stuck in some mud on the trail. MZ kept walking and talking while my wheels spun and dug me ever deeper into the slime. Thank God some other guys came along. I think it was a Honda service manager courting a new mechanic, because they both had tools and the older guy had a "Honda" patch on his shirt. Anyway, I lived, but I didn't get the FB job.

Kind of a cute idea, although if I'm seeing this trail correctly, you wouldn't be starting at the edge of the Facebook parking lot--you cross a hill, then cut through an elementary school, walk a few blocks to Junipero Serra and start up the trail there. Also, the trail itself is not very wooded--more like grassy.<p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Facebook+Offices,+South+California+Avenue,+Palo+Alto,+CA&#38;hl=en&#38;ll=37.412215,-122.156639&#38;spn=0.012868,0.023775&#38;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&#38;sspn=51.708931,97.382812&#38;t=h&#38;z=16" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Facebook+Offices,+South+Califo...</a>

This is so cheesy! I don't know if I could keep a straight face.<p>It's interesting how different the personalities of different companies are, and how deeply those personalities penetrate the way they operate. And, just like human personalities, you just like some companies and you don't like others. I would be completely turned off by the Zuckerberg-worshipping atmosphere being confirmed explicitly by the man himself, but clearly it must work on a lot of people if they're doing it regularly.

See how they treat their engineers. Some of these negative reviews have pretty high ratings: <a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Facebook-Company-Reviews-E40772_P2.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Facebook-Company-Reviews-E4...</a><p>Everything is fine and dandy until you see the actual realities and numbers. I'm curious to know what they engineer turnover rate is.

For all you unfamiliar with sales, this is what's referred to as, "the close". I highly doubt Zuckerberg thought about the biblical overtones. It is, an easy way to close a prospect, and a great way to convince somebody to join Facebook.<p>It would be the same as a highly recruited athlete in high school. You take the tour of the college campus, then they lead you to the stadium and say, "Imagine Nick, 30,000 fans screaming your name every Saturday afternoon."<p>It's just a sales pitch, nothing more, nothing less.

Skeptical employee walks into the woods with Mark Zuckerberg. 30 minutes later, pale faced, sweating employee walks out of the woods and into Zuckerberg's office, and hastily signs employment contract.

Slick. As an interviewee I do my best to stand up and walk around during an interview; anything to get the brain and charisma going and the jitters forgotten is good for developing a rapport.

That was nice of him to give them an offer they couldn't refuse.

Although this may sound cheesy, anyone who got the chance to participate in something like this would be geeked. What's more is that Zuckerberg has created something that <i>could</i> take on the major tech companies. The best part, he's got 750 million people riding his coattails. He's conscious of the phenomenon that he's created. You'd Simba the fuck out of your programmers too if you were him.

Perhaps this was something that was left on the cutting room floor of "The Social Network". Very Hollywood to me.

what? that's it? this article was boring. why do peeps care about everything Zuc does or says? I expected a little more juice then a few sentences someone said..<p>&#60;story&#62; My boss took me on three walks on market st in SF before I was hired. I was the first potential employee and I felt as though I was going to get whacked or something...talking about passion, drive, loyalty, and how I can make a big difference and the world is ours.<p>We make 3m+ /year and have 19 employees&#60;/story&#62;<p>Im not sure why anyone would care about my story. Was my story interesting? no...articles like this make me feel like the tech world is still in HS :|

I think the negative reviews need to put into perspective that they just are eliminating people who don't align with the main viewpoints of Facebook - I for one would probably be one of them, the idea of making this giant social networking tool doesn't bring me much joy.<p>I think those people should say more about what led them to Facebook in the first place. If it isn't a love of "connecting" people, then it probably wasn't that great of a reason (e.g., solely money or fame, though I could be wrong)

Did he track and kill something for food with his bare hands?

TL;DR: no, he did not kill a pig or a goat this time.

If there's an NDA, how are people talking about it?<p>Seems fishy to me.