CS50 Lecture by Mark Zuckerberg - 7 December 2005

On 7 December 2005, Mark Zuckerberg joined CS50 for a guest lecture about Facebook and computer science. With Professor Michael D. Smith. Shared with permission.

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David J. Malan

[leopardduck]

Crazy that Mark Zuckerberg gave a lecture on computer science and only like 20 people showed up

[commercio]

This feels like a rare look into a very important piece of history.

[davidr]

Several thoughts
1. His communication skills and intelligence at the age of 21 is off of the charts.
2. He clearly saw the greatness in Google and Amazon back in 2005.
3. He was very open in his lecture here. He was not holding any information back.
4. If you could go back to 2005, what questions would you ask him?
5. These Harvard students asked some very high quality questions back in 2005.

[rekeroni]

It's crazy how few people were in that massive lecture hall. All my CS classes are almost fully packed. It goes to show how competitive it is now.

[smartereveryday]

Watching this in 2021 is fascinating. I just played the whole thing while editing a video. Seems like a nice guy with good ideas who is trying hard.

[stellar]

I undersand why he added a Like button on facebook

[GddEityawesome]

This is proof that the current mark is actually a synth. He used to be much more human than right now

[grandhighwizard]

This guy seems smart. He should steal data or something

[MucciciBandz]

Did he just start his lecture by saying "Yo"?

[szechjuan]

Professor: Here's a great influence in computer science, creator of an already popular social platform. He will be lecturing you today

Mark: Yo

[_sonicfive]

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Mark Zuckerberg discusses how he navigated computer science education to scale Facebook
06:58 Scaling the website without exponential expansion.
14:57 Leverage small amount of money to get powerful technology
22:04 Successful companies start with a core idea.
28:49 Facebook overcame caching and network issues to improve photo uploads
35:28 Facebook values CS knowledge in both tech and business
41:51 Facebook's wiki-type profile feature fell short, leading to a better summation method.
48:17 Facebook is launching a feature that allows people to clarify their relationships with others through bi-directional, factual statements.
54:31 Facebook growth is driven by human desire to look up people
1:00:38 Take the hardest courses to challenge yourself and learn the most.

[muhammadshayanusman]

Harvard: "Mark Zuckerburg is a good influence"
Mark: "This is like the first times I have been to a lecture at Harvard..."

[alistairblaire]

It's crazy how fast it all happened. I started college in 2003 and I believe I made a Facebook account in 2004 when they added my university. You could go in and add your specific courses and use it to easily contact people in your classes. Just a year later Zuckerberg is giving lectures? Currently I've disagreed so much with the company's actions that I've since deleted my account, but I still find it amazing how quickly Facebook took over the world.

[maximus]

"its really important to do something instead of worrying about what end result will be" -mark zuckerberg

[budmb]

40:57 “If people feel like their information isn’t private, then that screws us in the long-term…” - Mark Zuckerberg (2005)

[ZombieProdigyUS]

Unbelievable how this was recorded for all of us to view 15 years later...

[pedrojosecastro]

Back in 2005 he was a guest speaker for 10 students, and now this lecture has been watched by more than 2.4 million users! I think the lesson here is to never feel discouraged by a small audience and for sharing your knowledge. You never know who, where and what can you reach. Great video to watch!

[lucaciandrei]

The interesting thing is that in this video he's like just 21 years old, but talks with an experience of a senior software engineer. I'm amazed of how well he knows the system, and also, how well he managed to fix the problems, and do bear in mind that it's like 2004, where internet data wasn't that available... with most of the problems they've battled... it's awesome.... no wonder he went with Facebook where he went... he definitely was in charge of the situation!

[ReplayEcho]

I’m actually glad I clicked on this video. Lot of useful information to anyone who is interested in carving there own way in the tech world.

[inancgumus]

15:02 — small people have significant leverage.
22:31 — don't be just too careful; it's more useful to make things happen and then apologize later.
24:51 — surround yourself with smart people.