13 lessons from working directly under Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook

Executive overview

Noah Kagan was employee #30 at Facebook and worked directly under Zuckerberg for nine months. He distills 13 operating principles he observed — covering hiring, product decisions, culture, and long-term thinking.

Most apply to any founder or team lead, not just tech startups.

The core insight: a single obsessive goal, A-player hiring, and strategic long-range thinking compound into outsized results.

The 13 principles

1. Focus on one big goal. Every decision filtered through a single question: does this drive user growth? If not, it didn't happen.
2. Have a massive vision. Zuckerberg turned down $1B from Yahoo because his vision was to connect the entire world — not to exit.
3. Only hire A-players. Customer support staff held PhDs. The test: are they regularly impressing you and challenging your assumptions?
4. Move extremely fast. Ship constantly; let customers surface what's broken. Waiting too long to launch is the bigger risk.
5. Treat employees well. Free food, dry cleaning, parking tickets — these remove small distractions and signal appreciation. Recognition works too; it doesn't have to be money.
6. Scratch your own itch. Work on problems you personally want solved. Starting in sectors you don't care about makes everything harder.
7. Don't listen to customers on product features. The newsfeed caused an uproar but transformed Facebook. Customers don't always know what they need — understand their goals, not their requests.
8. Pay attention to details. Zuckerberg emailed Kagan at 3am about a missing period. Spot-checking signals the standard without requiring you to check everything forever. Document expectations so the team knows the bar.
9. Give employees ownership. State the destination and the boundaries, then let people run the plays. Coach from the sideline; don't call every move.
10. Hire fast, fire fast. Zuckerberg removed people aggressively. Use paid two-week trials to evaluate before committing.
11. Don't say "user." Treat customers as people. Keeping that connection prevents the detachment that kills product empathy.
12. Work on what you'd do for free. Zuckerberg could have sold for billions and stopped. Intrinsic motivation outlasts financial motivation every time.
13. Be strategic. Move fast day-to-day, but maintain a three-to-five year view. Zuckerberg saw mobile, newsfeed, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus early. If you're not a strategic thinker, hire someone who is.