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Zuckerberg's "I'm CEO, bitch" card and the metrics that backed it up
Sean Parker walked a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, in basketball shorts and flip-flops, into Pincus's office at Tribe. The swagger didn't matter: 60-80% of Facebook users logged on every day and the product had nailed trust.
“And, Zuckerberg was just sitting here. This— he really looked like he was like 15 or 16. I think he was 19. And he was in like basketball shorts, you know, Hawaiian flip-flops, had his feet up on my table and gave me a card that said, you know, I'm CEO, bitch. And, and it's just— he was just from another world. He was just so unapologetic. And it just didn't matter because his metrics were amazing. Like, between 60 and 80% of his users logged on every day or just stayed logged on. He had nailed trust.”
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Tribe failed because Pincus stuck heroically to one idea
About 8 of the 10 social networks launched in that era succeeded, but Pincus's Tribe failed because he clung to an overcomplicated idea that got trust wrong. He says he should have copied Facebook's trust model rather than letting pride stop him.
“Stop just sticking heroically to this one idea that's too complicated, got trust wrong, and, and it's not working. And there were probably 10 social networks that launched in that era, and 8 were successful. Like, you know, Bebo was around that time, you know, Michael Birch, he was, he sold for a lot of money to AOL, as you know, Tagged, later MySpace. And I managed to fail with Tribe, like, 'cause I just stuck to one idea when, when everything was working. And so by the time Zuckerberg and Sean walked in my office, I knew enough to invest. I should have copied them.”