One adage I would associate with Facebook is - Optimizing for Impact.
Here is a little anecdote: Back in 2007-2008 when Facebook was thinking about growing beyond the US, they had many paths that they could have taken. Intuitively, they could have picked the next country and could have gone after them. But at that time, the growth team assessed the situation and decided to target everyone who didn’t speak English and that led to the creation of the famous Translation project. Of course, this decision maximized the impact.
But here is the catch: They did not start out like what most companies would have done (i.e. hire a bunch of translators). Instead, Facebook built a bunch of tools that would allow users to translate the site by themselves. Anybody who knew French and was willing to translate the site from English to French could do so.
Had they hired French translators and operated in a centralized and methodical fashion, it would have taken a longer time to get to the impact. To make sense of that sentence, Facebook is currently available in 43 languages and is in the process of being translated into another 60 languages.
In open sourcing to some degree tools that allowed developers to translate quickly, Facebook got it done in the least possible time. So it is not just about “Where is the most impact?”, it is also about “What is the straightest line to achieve that impact?”
Check out this email from Mark Zuckerberg outlining the importance of Speed.
Create your profile
Only paid subscribers can comment on this post
Check your email
For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.
Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.