Steve Jobs once told Mark Zuckerberg to visit an Indian temple when Facebook hit a 'tough patch'
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Mark Zuckerberg once spent nearly a month traveling around India because Steve Jobs suggested it would help him reconnect with Facebook's mission.
Zuckerberg shared the story for the first time publicly on Sunday during a town hall with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India.
The Facebook founder and CEO described a "tough patch" in the early days of Facebook, when some people thought he should sell the company to one of the interested buyers. So Zuckerberg went to see Jobs, who he described as one of his mentors. Jobs, he said, told him to visit a temple in India that he had visited.
"...he told me that in order to reconnect with what I believed as the mission of the company I should visit this temple that he had gone to in India early on in his evolution of thinking about what he wanted Apple and his vision of the future to be," Zuckerberg said during the town hall, according to a video of the event.
"So I went and I traveled for almost a month, and seeing the people, seeing how people connected, and having the opportunity to feel how much better the world could be if everyone had a stronger ability to connect reinforced for me the importance of what we were doing and that is something I've always remembered over the last 10 years as we've built Facebook."
Zuckerberg, of course, didn't end up selling Facebook, and instead opted to take the company public. Now, nearly 1.5 billion people use Facebook each month, and the company currently has a market capitalization of over $254 billion.
"You went to a temple with a lot of hope, and look how much you've achieved since then," the Indian prime minister replied, according to a translation from NPR.
Skip to the 1-minute mark to hear Zuckerberg talk about visiting India:
NOW WATCH: How to tell if your Facebook has been hacked
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- A centenarian who starts her day with gentle exercise and loves walks shares 5 longevity tips, including staying single
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- "To sit and talk in the box...!" Kohli's message to critics as RCB wrecks GT in IPL Match 45
- 7 Nutritious and flavourful tiffin ideas to pack for school
- India's e-commerce market set to skyrocket as the country's digital economy surges to USD 1 Trillion by 2030
- Top 5 places to visit near Rishikesh
- Indian economy remains in bright spot: Ministry of Finance
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market