Despite all the “stuff” he’s taken since Facebook went public, Mark Zuckerberg is now a big advocate of IPOs.
The hoodie-clad CEO, who spoke at Wednesday’s TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference, said he has done a 180 since the time he used to be “afraid” of going public and advised others to stay private as long as possible.
Now, he would tell companies like Twitter to embrace Wall Street.
“I’m the person you want to ask last how to make a smooth IPO,” Zuckerberg said jokingly, referring to Facebook’s “turbulent” first year as a public company.
Still, he said he now has great respect for the process, which actually made him rethink his entire company. He referred to the fact that after going public Facebook built a mobile business.
“We took a lot of [stuff]” for subpar mobile products, he said.
Of course, it’s easy for him to embrace public markets now that Facebook is riding well above its $38 debut price from May 2012. In fact, the stock closed Wednesday at an all-time of $45.04.
His appearance is becoming a yearly tradition, and last year before the
TechCrunch event, Facebook stock was below $20.
Zuckerberg also revealed that he was sweating in his hoodie when
Facebook’s stock was diving last year.
“I was worried people would leave the company or people would be really demoralized,” he said.
Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer also was interviewed at the San Francisco event, and touted her company’s own mobile growth — 350 million smartphone and tablet users.
Interviewer Michael Arrington also had her sign a copy of Vogue, the one featuring a glamorous photo spread of the executive, which had drawn plenty of attention.