SAN FRANCISCO, CA - APRIL 30: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the opening keynote at the Facebook f8 conference on April 30, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Facebook is hosting the one-day developers conference for the first time since 2011, with over 1500 developers expected to attend. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Once upon a time, Mark Zuckerberg was just another nerdy Harvard student sipping beer and working on a little Internet project on the side. As we all know now, that small passion project evolved into the multi-billion dollar social media monster that is Facebook.
Speaking with students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Monday, Zuckerberg discussed how crucial it is to have hobbies, CNBC reports. Check out some of his talk below.
[protected-iframe id=”021003766f5de5adc2e78084b8ce9281-3508545-117017491″ info=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fzuck%2Fvideos%2F10103568956499361%2F&show_text=0&width=560″ width=”560″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border: none; overflow: hidden;” scrolling=”no”]
Zuckerberg stressed that companies are impressed when prospective employees come in with side ventures outside of their normal day jobs.
“At Facebook we often ask, ‘What is something that you’ve built that is outside of the jobs you’ve done?'” Zuckerberg said. “Often that’s one of the best ways people can show passion and leadership.”
Zuckerberg continued, saying that passion projects represent a potential employee’s interest and commitment while also helping them learn new skills.
“I probably learned more coding from random side projects that I did than the courses I took in college,” he said.
Well, there ya have it, kids. Zuckerberg, the young billionaire genius is telling you to have fun side projects. No, beer pong doesn’t count. Get out there and be productive.
