Facebook的成功之道

美国知名媒体《Fast Company》日前评出2010年 度世界最具创新力公司榜，社会化网站的世界霸主Facebook成为世界最具创新力公司，而去年它还排在第15位。

2009年，成立才不到6年、CEO Mark Zuckerberg只有26岁、员工仅1200多人的Facebook，用户翻了一番，增加了2亿，将MySpace等竞争对手远远甩在身后，成功压制 住了Twitter等新贵的挑战，巩固了自己社会化网络的霸主地位，而且表现出难得的稳健和成熟。业界普遍认为，Facebook是目前最有可能超越 Google的互联网公司，成长为微软、Intel、Google那样的伟大公司也没有太多悬念。

那么，Facebook的成功之道是什么呢？

Facebook的可贵之处，是在经济大环境不佳的情况下，实现了快速成长，并在很好地控制了成本（目前公司仍然只有一个专职的人力资源职员）的同 时，专注于锐意创新，不断改善产品，快速变化，而且敢于冒险。也在于在公司快速变大的同时保留了小型创业公司的基本特质，很好地兼顾了工程师文化和社会化 （推荐阅读：Facebook的社会化 基因）。

Zuckerberg在哈佛大学人工智能课程的老师、曾在微软任职的Andrew \"Boz\" Bosworth说，他加入Facebook后在公司里听到的最多的话，是进取、奋斗、激情和影响世界，人人都争着提出新想法，并说服别人，争取实现的机 会，如果你没有想法，很容易被淘汰。与只是接规格说明然后提交代码的微软相比，这里的环境完全不同。

与Google相比，Facebook在创新力方面的优势也显而易见。Gmail创始人、现在Facebook开发下一代基础平台的传奇人物 Paul Buchheit说，自己离开Google的时候产品发布周期已经非常长，如果现在提交代码，三个月之后它才会上线。而在Facebook，每周都会发布 新产品，如果想进行测试，每天都可以让代码上线，让特定的真实用户组试用。这背后的理念是hacking文化，就是不断精益求精，而且不怕为此打破陈规。

Facebook大约每两个月都会举行著名的Hackathon活动，由公司创业者们早期的围炉夜话发展而来。参加Hackathon的人包括律师 有时候也 包括Mark Zuckerberg，都会把自己的新点子、新项目提出来讨论，如果你能经过众人严苛的考察，能打动一些人跟你干，那就去干吧，公司提供后勤保障。

2010年，Zuckerberg关注的重点仍然是新想法、更好的产品和更多的用户，当然，还有正在进行中的整个网站基础平台的重构。对于用户 数，Zuckerberg不愿设定具体目标，但他提到了自己一直崇拜的Google的用户数是8亿人。不过，他也自豪地表示，Facebook每个工程师 所支持的用户数超过了100万，这比Google要多得多。

而Facebook的一位员工则不那么隐讳了，他说，我们总是有大龙要杀，今年这条大龙将是Google。对于Facebook来说，一切仿佛才刚 刚开始。

Back in 2004, Facebook was still a post-dormroom project on wobbly colt legs, being coded by true believers, pulling all-nighters from rented living rooms around Palo Alto. Now, the company has 1,200 employees, recruited and supported by a professional human resources manager, and lives in a 150,000-square-foot headquarters that is more reminiscent of an early Google or Microsoft than a scrappy start-up. “Yeah, we’ve come along way,” says CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

But the spirit of the original Facebook -- do things fast, take risks, don’t be afraid to break things to make them better -- still lives on, even as their surroundings have become more grown-up. “We’re an entrepreneurial company,” says Andrew Bosworth, a coding legend who runs a “boot camp” for new engineers. “This place is fast paced and free form. If you’re not coming up as a new ideas, then you’re just along for the ride.” The working environment is designed for, and modified by, people who toil long hours (all-nighters are still routine) and find that creative, often irreverent, self-expression to be as important as the copious free food.

Merry Innovation at Facebook

At 400 million active users worldwide, Facebook has long shaken off its college roots. But the spirit of dorm-room expressiveness lives on at the company's new headquarters. And, as you will see, urinals are a recurring theme.

Focus is Key

Male Facebook employees vanquish distractions as they modulate their exemplary hydration levels maintained by the free beverages.

Work Harder, Play Hardest

Employees keep long hours, and often let off steam together. More than one meeting room has game or musical equipment, though this one is reputed to be the location of more than one ill-advised performance video.

Tags From A Not So Distant Past

Mark Zuckerberg commissioned graffiti murals for the company's original offices that dotted Palo Alto's University Avenue. \"I really didn't want the place to feel corporate,\" he said. Many of the original works were cut from the walls and now adorn the new building.

Actually, There Is an \"I\" in Service

The customer service team--who help with everything from user tech support to site safety--under a reminder that while the site is up, the work never ends for them.

How Many Facebook Friends Would Magritte Have?

Nobody uses Facebook for the design, says designer Soleio Cuervo, \"The purpose of the site is to draw your attention to the people you know and care about.\" But aesthetics matter. Design, color, spacing, are points of obsessive pride. \"We even created our own font.\"

Deep Thoughts at Facebook

Quiet meeting rooms line the perimeter of the floors, where staffers hold meetings, use the phone, think, or prepare their next hackathon strategy.

The World Lets Their Facebook Flags Fly

Someone uses or logs in to Facebook from every country on earth, and the international team is visibly proud. Facebook works with more than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries, and the site is found in more than 70 language, including Latin.

Facebook Employees at Work.

One of the unsung perks of working at Facebook: You won't get fired for being on Facebook at the office.

Got Beverages?

Micro-kitchens abound, filled with every kind of beverage or snack available. Free, of course. And a full barbecue on the roof. And a pastry chef.

It's Not All High Brow and Higher Tech

Pop culture mavens have a home at Facebook--even Tyra Banks made a site visit recently.

#1 Facebook

BY

Ellen McGirt

February 17, 2010

Photograph by Floto + Warner

It was quite a year for Mark Zuckerberg and crew, whose site added a whopping 200 million users. Now, as they brush off the crumbs of MySpace and other competitors, it's time to look for their next meal. They're very, very hungry.

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1. Facebook 2. Amazon 3. Apple 4. Google 5. Huawei

6. First Solar 7. PG&E 8. Novartis 9. Walmart 10. HP

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11. Hulu 12. Netflix 13. Nike 14. Intel 15. Spotify 16. BYD

17. Cisco Systems 18. IBM 19. GE 20. Disney

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21. Gilt Groupe

22. Indian Premier League 23. PatientsLikeMe 24. Grey New York

25. BMW Group Designworks USA

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26. Synthetic Genomics 27. FiLife 28. Frito-Lay 29. Alibaba 30. MITRE

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31. HTC

32. Diller Scofidio + Renfro 33. Firstborn 34. Sportvision 35. Ideo 36. Samsung 37. Glam Media 38. Ngmoco 39. VNL

40. Aldi Süd

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41. Fast Retailing 42. Huayi Brothers 43. Athenahealth 44. MVRDV 45. Alstom 46. Quantcast 47. Good Guide 48. Microsoft 49. Politico 50. Twitter

The photos and updates began appearing on individual profiles, then popped up across interrelated news feeds: The first Facebook-staffer wedding had gone off without a hitch. Two beloved engineers, Ruchi Sanghvi and Aditya Agarwal, had arrived at Facebook as a couple in 2005 and survived the unique pressure of cranking out code for the hottest startup in the world. \"They were a package deal,\" says Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. So, over what the company still calls its \"Christmas break,\" Zuckerberg and more than a dozen past-and-present Facebook indispensables --

including now-departed cofounders Adam D'Angelo and Dustin Moskovitz -- trekked to a beach in Goa, India, for a week-long family celebration. Everyone dressed in costumed splendor; Zuckerberg looked fetching in a maroon silk sherwani. Women flashed henna tattoos. The groom arrived on horseback.

The elaborate Indian ceremony, a Bollywood spectacle with a big helping of Silicon Valley, presented a rare, vulnerable moment for the Facebook infrastructure -- one rogue wave could have taken out much of the site's brain trust. But it also offered a point of reflection for the crew. \"All of us together, in that beautiful place,\" one attendee recalls. \"We've come so far. Literally.\" Slideshow

Behind the Scenes at Facebook's Grown Up Headquarters

Facebook, which is just turning six, has achieved a level of maturity most wags thought would never come. Somewhere along the road to becoming the platform of choice for 400 million users in every country on earth, the company grew up. Baby photos now dot the worktables at its Palo Alto headquarters. Chefs provide free gourmet fare in the company cafeteria. And the founder, who once coded the site while dashing between makeshift offices in a beat-up car that didn't need a key, now mingles with his 1,200 employees, recruited and supported by a real HR person, in a new

135,000-square-foot office space. \"We used to stand outside of Stanford looking for engineers to help us,\" laughs Chris Cox, vice president of product, and creator of the original news-feed feature.

Today, Facebook feels the way Google, Intel, and

Microsoft likely did at similar stages in their own life cycles -- still agile enough to invent the future, but sufficiently stable to handle some real turbulence. In fact, Zuckerberg has been studying those companies, and their histories, closely. \"There are advantages to being both bigger and smaller,\" he tells me. \"But the cool thing is, we're in our sweet spot now.\"

For Zuckerberg, sweetness translates as pure power, which is now Facebook's to lose. Having all but vanquished MySpace, and pushing Twitter ever closer to becoming a mere utility for ego-streaming, Facebook lords over the social-media landscape, with no pretenders in sight. The company more than doubled its user base last year, a scale that's hard to fathom until you hear, as I did sitting in Zuckerberg's conference room the day after the earthquake, that Facebook users were updating their statuses with the word \"Haiti\" some 1,500 times a minute. But part of the genius of Facebook is that it has used this seemingly unassailable position to double down on its commitment to improving itself, even in the least-visible aspects of the site. Despite the grim economic outlook early in 2009 -- \"We didn't know how bad things might get,\" says Zuckerberg -- the young CEO did what every great Valley CEO has done in down years: sink money and time into continually perfecting \"the product.\" Zuckerberg grew Facebook's engineering ranks by 50%, and those teams, though increasingly staffed by greenhorns, unveiled features and products at a record pace -- from the very practical (tripling site speed) to the profound (the

launch of peace.facebook.com). At the same time, the company encouraged its people not to fear the monstrous thing they had created. \"If you roll out a feature to 10 million people and 10% don't like it, that's a lot of hate mail,\" says Mike Schroepfer, VP of engineering. But not enough to threaten the site's existence. (A recent revision to its privacy policy was, relative to past experiences, largely uncontroversial.) And although the company achieved cash-flow positive status for the first time last year, that wasn't the primary goal. \"What 2009 was about for us was making the site better and growing users,\" says Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg himself, a majority stakeholder who cannot be shoved aside, exemplifies the way that crushing the competition has freed the company to gamble even harder. \"A lot of companies are set up so that people judge each other on failure. But I'm not going to get fired if I have a bad year. Or a bad five years.\" It's an attitude he hopes will outlast him, and will liberate even those who are less insulated. \"I don't worry about making things look good if they're actually not,\" he says, nodding to invisible investors in the room. \"So many businesses just get so worried about looking like they might make a mistake that they get afraid to take any risks.\"

WHEN FOUNDED 2004

CEO NUMBER OF

HEADQUARTERS

Mark EMPLOYEES

Palo Alto, CA

Zuckerberg 1000+

Facebook

total revenues for most recent fiscal year $500 million (estimated)

what the company is most famous for Developing Facebook.

why it's innovative

With more than 350 million users around the world, Facebook has become the platform of choice for major brands, political candidates,

scrapbooking moms, and social causes looking to \"engage\" and \"converse\" rather than merely \"sell\" and \"broadcast.\" web

http://www.facebook.com/ blog

http://blog.facebook.com/

facebook

http://www.facebook.com/facebook

It is inside Facebook's engineering ranks that the company's love of risk really reveals itself. \"We move very fast,\" says Andrew \"Boz\" Bosworth, an engineer who heads up Facebook's \"boot camp,\" a six-week introduction into its code and customs that he calls a \"cultural indoctrination\" for incoming engineers. \"And we definitely fight. We expect people to be passionate, and they're going to fight to make their case.\" In fact, \"fight,\" along with \"entrepreneurial\" and \"impact,\" are words one hears constantly on the Facebook campus. Bosworth arrived via Harvard -- he was Zuckerberg's teacher in an artificial-intelligence class -- and Microsoft, an environment he suggests is less than inspired. (\"It's a world like 'insert product specification, receive code,' \" he says.) At Facebook, by contrast, \"it's free form. If you're not coming up with new ideas, then you're just along for the ride.\"

The sparring -- which takes place at meetings, in prototype demos, and in constant online conversations, and often gets mischaracterized as staff revolt -- focuses routinely on the small issues, such as how to make the main page less cluttered. But the big-picture stuff also looms large. \"I didn't realize it from the outside, but the change in going from a [college-student-only] site to being open to the world was extremely controversial,\" says Paul Buchheit, who came to Facebook last August after his company, FriendFeed, was acquired. \"Most people [at Facebook] thought it was a bad idea and was going to ruin the site.\" Buchheit, a Valley legend, was an early Google employee who helped develop Gmail and coined the Google motto \"Don't be evil.\" He sees Zuckerberg's decision to push Facebook ahead -- despite a big buyout offer from Yahoo sitting on the table -- as a defining moment. \"They basically gambled the whole company on that one step.\"

Facebook recruitment videos like this one give prospective employees a window into the company's culture. Now at work on next-generation infrastructure at Facebook, Buchheit is a living cautionary tale about how hard it is for big companies to scale. He cofounded FriendFeed after a short post-Google recovery period. By the time he left Google, \"the pipeline for releasing features was getting really long. If I checked in code now, it might be live to the world in three months.\" It felt good to move quickly again. \"At FriendFeed, if we had an idea, we could make it live right away. That's how I enjoy developing things,\" he says. The benefit to waiting is a stable system. The cost comes in time to market, in the ability to deliver even an early version of a

future killer idea. \"People underestimate the cost of slowing things down and focus instead on the benefits of the increased stability,\" Buchheit says. \"But you think differently about a product that takes so long. If you're not sure if it's a good idea or not, you are reluctant to try it out.\" Facebook has weekly product updates, but if you really want to test something, you can push your code out daily to a group of users to test. \"We win our fights through prototyping,\" says Bosworth. \"We get our ideas out there.\"

Zuckerberg, like Buchheit and Bosworth, is keenly aware of the importance of rapid deployment and iteration, even as the company has become too big for staffers to shout updates to one another across the room. At the heart of the process is the notion of \"hacking,\" which Zuckerberg insists is not about breaking and entering: \"It's about being unafraid to break things in order to make them better.\" Buchheit, a strong internal voice for hacking, describes it as a mix of arrogance and curiosity. \"The root of the hacker mind-set is 'There's a better way,' \" he says. \"Just because people have been doing it the same way since the beginning of time, I'm going to make it better.\" After years of making and remaking the site, pride of ownership takes a backseat to the sheer rush of creation. \"It's like castles in the sand,\" designer Soleio Cuervo says of the countless product changes that happen over the course of a week, month, and year. \"What we make won't last, but we make things fast and get to test our ideas quickly with real users. We're in it for the impact.\"

Determined to keep that mind-set alive as the company grows, Facebook has raised the all-nighter to an art form. \"Hackathons,\" which started when the site was just a handful of friends around a dining table, are now all-hands meetings held every other month or so. Any project, any idea is on the table. If you can find some friends to work on it with you, go for it. The company provides food, music, and beer. It sounds like so much code-boy BS, except that most everyone shows up, even the lawyers. Even Zuckerberg. And the sessions have produced an astonishing array of popular site features, including video messaging and chat. Bosworth's boot-camp training comes in handy for the hackathons, since at any given time some 40% of engineers are brand new. \"We get them working on every area of the site, so they know different code, different products,\" he says, adding that ultimately, cross-disciplinary teams naturally form around good ideas. \"If you can get it into prototype, we can evaluate it.\" The boot-camp system also yields a healthy measure of empathy for just how hard others are working. \"It's easy to think you are the only one doing something important if you don't know how tough everyone else's projects are,\" Bosworth says.

New ideas, better products, and more users are still on Zuckerberg's mind for 2010. There are more mundane chores as well: The site is so large now that the Facebook crew is in the midst of cleaning up years' worth of the underlying code -- a multigenerational hodgepodge of so-called spaghetti, which could pose a threat to site stability and product development down the road.

Yet the real target for 2010 may well be Google, for which Zuckerberg has always professed a profound admiration. After I ask about the big, hairy goal for user growth I've heard he has set for 2010, he refuses to put a number on it. \"We don't like to talk about that sort of stuff,\" he says. \"Three-hundred-and-fifty million is good. But when you compare it to everyone in the world, it's just a start.\" Nevertheless, he can't help but mention Google and its 800 million users. Shooting for that? Smile. No comment. But it's the number that hides in plain sight for everyone at the company. \"We always have a big dragon to slay,\" one staffer tells me, \"and this year it's Google.\"

Even more than an assault on a hero-competitor, Facebook's growth is a shot across the bow of Dunbar's number, a wonky theoretical limit to the number of people one can supposedly maintain stable social relationships with -- like how a dinner-party conversation becomes unwieldy with too many people at the table. Dunbar's number is brought up at Facebook nearly as often as \"risk\" and \"impact,\" and all three concepts are inextricably linked: Can the site maintain its groove under the weight of all those users? \"We really believe that if the world becomes more open and

transparent, things will be better,\" says Zuckerberg, reverting to tech evangelist. Then he mentions Facebook's engineer-to-user ratio, a point of serious hacker pride. \"We're at the spot where each engineer is personally responsible for at least a million users,\" and growing, he says, tracing an upward line in the air. He gives me a \"That's impressive, right?\" look before pointing out that Google needs 10,000 engineers to serve its 800 million customers -- a much lower ratio. \"Yeah,\" he smiles. \"I think the next few years are going to be a very fun period for the company.\"