Monday, August 13, 2012

Mark Zuckerberg And Steve Jobs Have One Weird Trait In Common


Most successful founders of tech companies spread their wealth and invest in startups as angel investors.

But you rarely see stories about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doing so.

In fact, you don't see stories, period.

That's because he simply chooses not to invest in startups, we have heard from several people close to him.

Zuckerberg is running a site that serves nearly one billion people a month—about half of whom show up every day. This requires an enormous amount of focus.

You know whose name also never comes up in stories about angel investors?

Steve Jobs. Like Zuckerberg, Jobs was known for his singular focus on Apple—especially in the period after he sold Pixar to Disney, which happens to be when Apple began its iPhone-powered rise to the top.

Here's the simple math on why it's not in Zuckerberg's interest to play angel investor on the side.

He could easily invest $1 million in a startup, which might—might—sell for $100 million.

In return, Zuckerberg would devote some of his time and energy to helping that startup.

But for Zuckerberg, who is running a company that is already worth tens of billions of dollars, $100 million is a rounding error.

Instead, Zuckerberg is constantly heads down solving Facebook's problems—as any good CEO is.

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