Originally published on Business Insider on January 29, 2015 By Jillian D’Onfro.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had the perfect response to an analyst who questioned the company’s focus on spreading internet access across the world. It happened Wednesday night during Facebook’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
Analyst Carlos Kirjner from Bernstein asked Zuckerberg why Facebook focused so much on its nonprofit partnership Internet.org when emerging markets are harder to monetize.
“Mark, during your remarks in every earnings call, you talk to investors for a considerable amount of time about Facebook’s efforts to connect the world — specifically about Internet.org,” Kirjner said. “Can you clarify why you think this matters to investors?”
Without missing a beat, Zuckerberg delivered a zinger:
“Well, it matters to the kind of investors that we want to have,” he said.
Facebook, Zuckerberg says, is a mission-focused company whose goals extend beyond making money. The goal of Internet.org is to bring affordable internet access to parts of the world that don’t have it.
“We wake up every day and make decisions because we want to help connect the world, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Zuckerberg said on the call (transcript via Seeking Alpha, which has these comments listed under Facebook CFO David Wehner’s name). “So part of the subtext of your question is that yes, if we were only focused on making money, we might put all of our energy on just increasing ads to people in the US and the other most developed countries. But that’s not the only thing that we care about here.”
Zuckerberg then went on to say that, in the long-term, Internet.org provided a solid business opportunity as well as a solid mission, even if Facebook could not tell investors exactly when that investment would start paying off.
“We are here because our mission is to connect the world, and I just think it’s really important that investors know that,” he said.
- 707.206.6211
- christina@littlewingconnections.com