Quote

For the first time we're allowing developers who don't work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That's a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.

Right now, nearly all the apps on Facebook take a week to build. No more.

I think it's a problem that we don't have more companies like Facebook. It shouldn't be the only company that's doing this well.

Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected.

Facebook's data trove is enviable, and its moves into nearly every aspect of our lives - from payment to media, will create even more of it. The company also has created a huge base of developers for its platform, but the ecosystem is incomplete compared to vertically integrated OSes like iOS, Mac or Windows.

We started off as this platform inside Facebook; and we were pretty clear from the beginning that that wasn't where it was going to end up. A lot of people saw it and asked, 'Why is Facebook trying to get all these applications inside Facebook when the web is clearly the platform?' And we actually agreed with that.

Facebook is in a very different place than Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Microsoft. We are trying to build a community.

One of my big regrets is that Facebook hasn't had a major chance to shape the mobile operating system ecosystem.

In 2007, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would become a 'platform,' meaning that outside developers could start creating applications that would run inside the site. It worked.

It took less time to build 'Instagram' than it did for me to get my work visa. The app was an instant hit, and Facebook agreed to acquire the startup for about $1 billion in April 2012.