Mark Zuckerberg: 'I Just Want to Build Good Stuff'

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Speaking for the first time publicly since the IPO, Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed a slew of issues at Tech Crunch Disrupt, including the freefall in the share price, the opportunity in mobile and search, Zynga's woes, and whether the company would build its own phone.

Hosted by TechCrunch co-founder Mike Arrington, Zuckerberg was in front of over 3,000 people as investors, developers, media and others wanted to know about the long-term viability of the company.

The Facebook co-founder and CEO first addressed concerns about the 50% decline in shares since the IPO in May. "Obviously the performance of the stock has been disappointing," Zuckerberg said.

He spoke at length about mobile, which is how Zuckerberg wants the company to be viewed over the long-haul, given the tremendous growth the company is seeing in its mobile users. Here's a recap of Zuckerberg's highly-anticipated interview:

#TCDisrupt Zuck: How well we do with mobile is how we'll be judged $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

$FB 6 months ago, we didn't run a single ad on mobile.People are underestimating how fundamentally good mobile is for us. #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

#TCDisrupt: There are a lot more people who have phones than have computers.FB mobile users growing more quickly.$FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Zuckerberg went on to talk about the importance of making money, even as he defined Facebook as a mission-driven company.

#TCDisrupt $FB Zuck on not building services to make money."We're a mission driven company."— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

#TCDisrupt Advertisers get good ROI wking/w FB.Definitely true the primary thing that gets me excited is the mission.We need to do both"— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"We have a pretty good compass of what we need to build and what we do need to do." #TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Arrington asked him about how the negative share price performance is affecting morale at the company, and the compensation policy at the company as a result.

"What really motivates people at Facebook is building stuff they're proud of." #TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"A lot of people come to us because you built that, and that's interesting." #TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"The way we do compensation is we translate the cash into the number of shares."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Zuckerberg noted that he thinks it's a good time for people to join, stay, and "double-down on the company."

"I think it's a great time for people to join, and people to stay.I think it's a great time for people to double down."#TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

When asked about mobile, Zuckerberg became noticeably excited, talking about the company's future on mobile and how it can generate revenue through advertising.

"There are going to be more users on mobile and we're going to make more money than we do on desktop." #TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"On monetization, I'm really optimistic.Mobile is a lot closer to TV than it is to desktop."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"I think we know we're going to do well on that [mobile].The question is getting there.We've had a bunch of missteps there." #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Zuckerberg touched on the mistakes the company has made when it comes to mobile, and he noted that building the app in HTML5 was the company's biggest mistake.

One of the biggest strategic mistakes we've made is HTML5, but we're working past that. #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"The biggest mistake we've made as a company is betting too much on HTML5 than native."#TCDIsrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Started work on HTML5 two years ago, but Zuck said that was a mistake.#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

He noted that the work done since abandoning HTML5 for native (apps as we know them) is so much cleaner and faster, especially the iOS app for Apple (AAPL), as well as the app Facebook has for Google's (GOOG) Android.

"On iOS and Android you do so much better just by doing native work, and we needed to do that." #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"We wanted to get this rewrite done as fast as possible."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

.

"Over the coming weeks & months, we can expect to see all the cool things ppl have been working on for past weeks and months."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"Now we are a mobile company.All the code that's being written is mobile."#TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Arrington asked Zuckerberg if he coded anymore given that he's the CEO of a multi-billion corporation, and noted that he still "codes for fun on the side, but out of respect for other folks, I don't code for the main branch anymore." He also said, "Everything I do breaks, but we fix it quickly."

The Instagram acquisition was brought up, and why the Facebook did it when they already had their own mobile camera app.

Zuck on why they bought Instagram:"Super taletned bunch of engineers.100 mln users."They're killing it." #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Over course of discussions with the founder of @instagram, a lot of ways they can work together, but then they needed to figure how— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"Our mission around Instagram is we think it's amazing.We want to help it grow to hundreds of millions of users."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

He wants to keep @instagram independent— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

The subject of a Facebook phone was brought up, which has been rumored about for months. Zuckerberg was quick to shoot it down, saying it didn't really make sense for the company.

#TCDisrupt Zuck: "Building a phone is the wrong strategy for us."— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"Let's say we build a phone, theoretically, we could get maybe 10 million people to use it.It doesn't move the needle for us."— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

He mentioned all the companies that are building hardware (it's unclear whether he meant phone or tablet, though they were talking about phones) and mentioned Apple, Google, Samsung and Amazon (AMZN) as hardware companies.

He touched on the relationship with one hardware maker, Apple, which Facebook already has a strong relationship with. He noted that eight out of the top ten iOS apps are already integrated with Facebook, and the company can go really deep with its iOS integration, as well as Android. Apple announced Facebook integration into iOS 6, its next mobile operating system at its developer conference in June.

Touching more on mobile, he noted a particular interesting fact about how he spends his time.

"I basically live on my mobile device."#TCDisrupt.He wrote the founders letter on his phone.$FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"It's just really clear the stats and my own intuition... you can share more and checkin more with mobile."#TCDisruot— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"We just think that's the future.We're going to do killer stuff with that, others will to."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Moving away from mobile, Arrington asked about Google+ and whether that "pissed him off." Zuckerberg shied away from that, but did talk about search, which he thinks is an "interesting opportunity" for them.

"Search is interesting.We do on order of a a billion inquiries a day, and we're not trying."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"I think that there's a big opportunity for us, we just have to find it."— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"Facebook is uniquely positioned to answer a lot of questions people have."#TCDisrupt $FB— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"At some point we'll do it."(on search) #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"We're doing a lot of stuff on search, but I don't have anything specific to announce."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

The conversation then moved away from search to the desktop platform, notably its partner Zynga (ZNGA). "Zynga's had a rough few quarters," Zuckerberg said, before noting that they're "fundamentally a strong company, but they've lost some share on our platform."

He said that the Facebook platform shouldn't be about building apps inside the platform, but the real value is when information is brought back to the apps. "Spotify is killing it. Airbnb is doing a lot of interesting stuff. Nike+ is doing interesting stuff. RunKeeper," were cited as examples of apps that are benefiting from information outside Facebook's social graph.

The conversation wrapped up with Arrington asking Zuckerberg if he was still having fun and whether Facebook was being underestimated. He noted he was having fun, but it's more about the mission than having fun.

"I would rather be in the cycle where people underestimate us.I'd just rather be underestimated."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"I think a bunch of people are [underestimating us]. There's a huge amount of stuff that we're working on." #TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

"I just want to build good stuff.When u look back 10, 20 years ago, the legacy of this company should be connecting everyone."#TCDisrupt— Chris Ciaccia (@Commodity_Bull) September 11, 2012

Facebook shares jumped on the back of Zuckerberg's comments, gaining 3.5% in after-hours to $20.11 in heavy trading.

Interested in more on Facebook? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock.

--Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York

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