14 DAY TRIAL // Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, plans to boost personnel numbers up with 50% till the end of the year. He was quoted by Bloomberg saying that the company intended to take advantage of the financial and economic crisis to round up all the best engineers the market has to offer at the moment.
Zuckerberg said that “No one else has been hiring. […] It’s been a great environment for us because the economy has helped out,” talking about the recent financial prognostications that the company made. According to Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook revenue will grow by 70% compared to 2008 values.
The firm has been doing so well lately that it has moved base to a new building in Palo Alto, California. Despite this, the new building is not at the standards some people may think, “The thing I want to remind people of is we’re way closer to the beginning than the end,” Zuckerberg stated. “A lot of times buildings can be a signal that you’ve made it. I would rather that our building feels much more like a very large garage,” talking about the fact the offices looks pretty ordinary, and nothing like the flashy Google headquarters.
Currently at around 1,000 employees, the company intends to expand ranks to accommodate the new plans in ownership. Even if not on a precise timeline, Zuckerberg has more than once confirmed that he wants Facebook to reach the 1 billion-user mark in the near future. At the moment, it registers 250 million users.
After receiving more than 600 million dollars worth of funds from various investors, the financial state of the social networking giant seems to be more than adequate for an expansion. Also, since May, the social website has topped MySpace to become the largest social network on the web, drawing in more and more users and advertisers every day.