When Facebook first started, and it was just a social directory for undergrads at Harvard, it would have seemed like such a bad startup idea, like some student side project.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004. On February 5, we were feeling pretty confident, even from observing the first few hours of usage. Students used it like crazy. They'd sign up then spend the next 3-4 hours on it. Then we'd go to lecture hall and see it on every computer screen there.
By playing on people's desire to belong to groups, Facebook creates a new, inclusive society. After all, Facebook is not like Harvard College. Anyone with access to the Internet can sign up.
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 the real deal. Nobody can buy Facebook now. Everybody has taken an angle at it. But Facebook may be the place that organizes everybody's personal information. It's got a very good chance of being that.
Facebook wasn't built out of a Harvard dorm window.
We want Facebook to be one of the best places people can go to learn how to build stuff. If you want to build a company, nothing better than jumping in and trying to build one. But Facebook is also great for entrepreneurs/hackers. If people want to come for a few years and move on and build something great, that's something we're proud of.
While a lot of what is on Facebook is a better amalgam of what AOL, Yahoo, Amazon, and other Web pioneers introduced long ago, with a nice dash of connection and really identified community, this kind of thing is not a new idea.
I've always liked the fact that anyone with a great idea, access to the Internet, and an unrelenting will can spark a world-beating company simply by standing up code on the Internet and/or leveraging the information and relationship network that is the web. That's how Facebook started, after all.
Facebook was founded on February 4th, 2004, and around February 5th, we were feeling pretty confident it would be bigger. We would see Facebook on every single laptop in class. We knew there was a bigger story here.
When I started Facebook from my dorm room in 2004, the idea that my roommates and I talked about all the time was a world that was more open.
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