Notes From Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes – NO IPO in 2008!

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed by Lesley Stahl. Here are my live notes from the interview. Here are the videos – it’s in pieces and I can’t embed it unfortunately.

Facebook with 60 million users. Lesley Stahl begins by explaining what Facebook is. She also mentions that users play long-distance Scrabble. "Sitting atop this growing Internet company is this young, geeky guy – Mark Zuckerberg." Is he old enough to be running the biggest thing since Google?

Zuckerberg helps Leslie setup a Facebook page. Next they added her friends and family to her account. Then she got a friend request and she was thrilled to hear from an old friend. This is why people find the site addictive and it’s a way to find lost friends.

Zuckerberg – Facebook makes it easy to stay in touch with friends. You can block people if you want.

Facebook HQ is in downtown Palo Alto looks like a dorm room – people come in late, leave late and party hard.

Zuckerberg doesn’t buy expensive things – lives in a 1 bedroom apartment with a mattress on the floor.

Kara Swisher says – I think it’s hard – when you are the meal ticket for others – this is the new Google.

Mark is looked up to as a visionary in Silicon Valley

We were warned that he could be "akward" – he lies on his profile that he is a Harvard alum – when he is a dropout in reality. His dad is a dentist.

Launched Facebook from their dorm room and in 4 months they expanded to 40 colleges.

Three Harvard students are suing Facebook and Mark is waiting for it to come out in court. He doesn’t worry about it because they have lawyers to worry about it.

Stahl says he has made one savvy business decision to the next. Now he is inviting everyone to create new software – you know, the platform.

He talks about Facebook Scrabble and how he plays with his grandparents.

Also changing politics – every main candidate has a Facebook page. Clinton is not popular, Obama is very popular on Facebook.

Charlene Li believes Facebook is a threat to Google because it might become the first place people go to search.

Yahoo offered Facebook $1.6B but Zuckerberg declined the deal. Then as we know Microsoft came in.

The $15B valuation puts it on the line with CBS and Ford.

Zuckerberg – as a private company we don’t have to share our financials.

He discusses the Beacon system – I won’t go into it but Lesley says that it’s almost like the purchaser is endorsing the product immediately.

Zuckerberg believes that the Beacon ads actually make the site less commercial.

Kara – Mark failed as a leader with Beacon – his mistake was doing it, not explaining it to users, not backing off quickly. We worry where the judgment is.

Stahl – he’s becoming a suit quickly.

Zuckerberg – it’s highly unlikely for us to go public in 2008 – my age is an asset and a liability.

end of interview.

thanks to Jared Brown for the idea – I was too busy watching the Giants kick arse :)