Mistakes are “the only way to make progress” and largely what’s still pushing Facebook forward, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Sunday while commemorating the 14th anniversary of the world’s largest social media network. In a succinct address published on the platform, Mr. Zuckerberg reflected on some of the many mistakes he made since launching Facebook at 19, admitting that he didn’t exhibit the best judgment with some business deals, appointments, and industry trends, but noting that the company’s focus to continue moving forward while learning from the past is something that has “always” been among its core strengths.
While largely general in nature, the comments are yet another signal of Mr. Zuckerberg’s changing rhetoric that started forming over the course of 2017 after Facebook found itself in the middle of a major controversy about its role in the dissemination of the so-called “fake news” in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Faced with those and related issues, Mr. Zuckerberg took a more apologetic approach to communicating with the public and describing Facebook’s operations and goals, labeling mistakes as not just an inherent part of the company’s initiatives but also life as a whole. That strategy is likely to continue going forward as Facebook is trying to partially reimagine its public image and present itself as a platform meant to benefit society and people’s wellbeing.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s Sunday comment concluded that Facebook’s story is still in its “early” days and there’s much more to come from the company. In the long term, the Menlo Park, California-based firm is likely to become more directly involved in consumer electronics and make a more focused push for automation technologies that are expected to make some jobs obsolete, which is why it has recently been committing resources to digital education initiatives around the world, seeking to prepare some individuals and organizations for major changes to the job market. Facebook also started revamping its News Feed in recent weeks in order to place a larger focus on friends and local news while purging it from general content posted by publishers as part of a move that was criticized by the media industry dependent on its traffic. The company is still growing at a steady pace, having posted yet another consecutive record quarter several days back, revealing that it recorded $12.97 billion in revenue and $4.2 billion in net profit over the final three months of 2017.