Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg- The Next Bill Gates?
October 26, 2007 by Pablo Palatnik
The question is now being raised if Mark Zuckerberg, founder and developer of Facebook, could be the next Bill Gates? I guess any young guy that has a company worth billions will always be compared to Bill Gates. Bill Gates most definitely believes in the Facebook product and brand buying a share of the company for $240 million dollars, as the site is now valued at $15 billion.
Some comparisons by an AOL article between Zuckerberg and Gates:
Gates has built an empire in Microsoft and its many products and acquisitions. There is no comparison between what Zuckerberg and Gates have built…unless of course Zuckerberg somehow gets Facebook to be the default page on some browser that’s just as big as Explorer and makes a software platform installed with every PC that’s not Apple or Microsoft. Nevertheless, Facebook is becoming a huge force and becoming the biggest thing in social media, for now, with all this buzz. I have to give it up to Microsoft though for making deals with Digg for ad space and now purchasing a share of the largest social site (Myspace is still up there though, traffic wise and has a great new concept I’ll blog about soon) battling out Google and winning the companies share. I really think Yahoo is soon to be bought out by Microsoft…it’s coming.
If your company was worth $15 billion dollars and you had a chance to sell it before it devalues, would you take the money and run to your next start-up or try to build on the Facebook brand and take it up a few more billion?
BTW- I’m close to being the next Bill Gates as well, I have more Facebook friends. I just need to top his net worth…that’s all.
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It’s totally unwarranted to compare Mark to Bill, other than they are both clever at core and can make visionary business decisions.
I actually like Bill Gates a lot. I wish he was my friend. I think at core the guys Karma is good.
But AFAIC Microsoft’s reputation is not exactly “friendly”. They make big tough corporate decisions and often deploy them badly. They do not put individuals or people first. Their prime directive is to make money.
Bill himself, charitable, loving, open, etc.. Microsoft the machine, not so much
Now take Mark. No doubt him and his advisory panel are way shrewd, but the way they have deployed is friendly. If you look at their developer support staff they are friendly, keen, supportive, helpful. They want to be there. There is no script support database with dead ends in it. They are responsive and listening.
They may both be Satan underneath (I doubt it). But IMHO Mark would buy you a fizzy and wouldn’t care if you did the deal or not.
Perhaps it’s just scale. Facebook are like’s Bill’s garage DOS days.
But the signs so far is that they will be able to handle scaling up, OK politically.
It’s furonic that large corporates need ISO9001 to show they invest in people.
With Mark you feel he doesn’t need a certificate. He’s just one of the crew.
Make no mistake. It is ALL business. But one has to decide who you want to do business with – if you have a choice!
JM0CW
Your blog is the best looking i have ever come across.