Mark Zuckerberg: Steve Jobs gave Facebook advice on focus

The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs gave advice to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, according to a recent interview. Zuckerberg also reacted to Jobs' compliment about him.

Last week, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as the company's COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down with PBS broadcast journalist Charlie Rose. The interview aired earlier this week and contains many juicy details on a variety of topics.

One of the subject matters discussed was the late Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs. Zuckerberg touched upon the conversations he had with Jobs, including the advice he apparently asked for, and was given:

Charlie Rose: So what were the conversations like? I mean, here is someone who's --

Mark Zuckerberg: Oh, I don't know. I mean, he -- he's amazing. He was amazing. I mean, he -- I had a lot of questions for him on --

Charlie Rose: Like what?

Mark Zuckerberg: How to build a team around you, right, that's focused on building as high quality and good things as you are. How to keep an organization focused, right, when I think the tendency for larger companies is to try to fray and go into all these different areas. Yeah, I mean a lot just on aesthetics and kind of mission orientation of companies. I mean, Apple is a company that is so focused on just building products that -- for their customers and users. And -- and that's like -- it's just such a deep part of their mission is build these beautiful products for their users. And I think we connected a lot on this level of, okay, Facebook has this mission that's really more than just tryhing to build a company, right, that has a market cap or a value. It's like trying to do this thing in the world. And I don't know, a lot of it I just think we connected on that level.

Steve Jobs was recently quoted as saying: "I admire Mark Zuckerberg." The young man also noted how he felt about this statement:

Mark Zuckerberg: There is this quote I think in the book that just came out about him where, I mean, it's --

Charlie Rose: The Walter Isaacson book.

Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah. I mean, it's -- and I took it as this amazing compliment. He said, I admire Facebook because you guys don't want to sell out.

It's clear Jobs and Zuckerberg had a deep business relationship, and probably even a personal one on some level. Let's hope Apple and Facebook continue their newly rebuilt relationship despite the passing of Steve Jobs.

See also:

Social Enterprise | iPhone | Hardware | Mobility | Smartphones | Tablets
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