Charlie Rose Talks to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook’s founder and its COO talk about their company’s mission, scope, and IPO plans—as well as Steve Jobs and oversharing

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By Charlie Peete Rose

November 11, 2011 at 3:55 AM UTC

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This article is part of the November 14, 2011 issue of businessweek.

What’s the Facebook mission?
Mark Zuckerberg: The stated mission of the company is to make the world more open and connected. And one of the things we’re really proud of is that now 800 million people around the world are using Facebook every month. Perhaps even crazier—it’s mind-blowing, from my perspective—but more than half a billion people use Facebook every day. If you look forward five years, the story that people will remember isn’t how this one site was built. It’s how every single service that you use is going to be better with your friends.
Sheryl Sandberg: From the wisdom of crowds to the wisdom of friends.

That’s Google vs. Facebook, right?
Sandberg: I don’t think it’s Google vs. Facebook. I think the wisdom of crowds applies not just to Google but to a phase of the Web that’s about information, mostly based on anonymity. The information Web is still broadly used, but the social Web didn’t exist before. The social Web can’t exist until you are your real self online. You have to be Charlie Rose. He has to be Mark Zuckerberg … then you have the evolution of the social Web, not just on Facebook but throughout.