A Look Back at Zuckerberg’s Letter to Shareholders

With Facebook�s (NASDAQ:FB) stock off more than 25% since its IPO, Mark Zuckerberg is not a favorite CEO on Wall Street. Yet he did provide a clear manifesto on his approach — in a letter to shareholders, which was included in the S-1.

So I read it over again and found some interesting tidbits:

�Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.�

My Take: This is how the letter starts! And the scary part is the term �social mission.� What public company has this? None.

�We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television — by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society.�

My Take: Well, it looks as though there�s not much talk about things like monetization. Instead, Zuckerman’s main focus is on much grander issues, such as changing the world.

�We hope to change how people relate to their governments and social institutions.�

My Take: It seems he wants to be a revolutionary, not a CEO.

�Simply put: We don�t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.�

My Take: Most public CEOs would get fired for saying something like that.

�As we become a public company, we�re making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfill it.�

My Take: Not sure what �commitment� means here. But this is the only sentence where Zuckerberg mentions public shareholders at all.

Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPO Playbook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He also is the author of �The Complete M&A Handbook”, �All About Short Selling� and �All�About Commodities.� Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli or reach him via email. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.