Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…That takes us to the end of the summer. Everybody now has to make a decision. Do they stay in Palo Alto and keep working full-time on Facebook, or do they go back to school? Eduardo never came out in the first place. He did his internship in New York. He goes back to Harvard and starts his junior year. Chris Hughes also goes back to Harvard, starts his junior year, graduates in 2006, and then rejoins Facebook after graduation. Andrew McCollum stays in Palo Alto for a couple of years and then goes back to Harvard later and completes his degree. He takes the Bill Gates’ road-not-traveled option. Dustin never goes back, stays with the company until 2008 when he leaves to start Asana. Mark, I think probably never really even considered going back. At this point, the 70% stat keeps being true despite the fact that they keep opening all these new schools. It keeps being true that 70% of people who have ever signed up are daily active users. I think Mark realizes, oh, I have created one of the most engaging technology applications ever. And certainly at this point, the combination of Sean, Peter, Reid, Mark Pincus, all advising and being part of the company, they know and they have certainly helped him realize that. Adam D’Angelo does go back to Caltech and then through AIM, I guess, remotely helps collaborate with the company until he graduates in 2006 and becomes CTO officially.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.