Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg presents Hacker’s Way before the investors – Part 2

“Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.”

“Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.”

Dissect this Hacker Way and its prospects as Facebook becomes a Wall Street darling.

First, Facebook had $3.71 billion in revenue in 2011. As Facebook’s revenue—and employee base—doubles and triples it will be increasingly hard to just iterate. Facebook will face the same problem as any large company—legacy code. Iterations may mean that Facebook’s infrastructure becomes to sprawling. The big question: Can the Hacker Way scale?

And then there’s the keep shipping motto. That approach has worked well for Facebook even though it sometimes riles up the user base. As Facebook grows it’s going to be increasingly difficult to keep thousands of versions of Facebook in the air.

As far as Facebook’s open code-based meritocracy. I just don’t buy it. Facebook will become a political animal just like all large companies. All you have to do is find an early Google employee vs. one today. Ditto for Microsoft. Companies change and ultimately management mumbo jumbo comes into play.

Earlier this week, financial analysts predicted that Zuckerberg might cross Google’s co-founders and the maker of Oracle Corporation in net worth this year. According to the expert, the IPO will raise Zuckerberg’s dollar worth in tune of $28.4 Billion.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Feb 3 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.