Zuckerberg gave a 20-minute speech in Chinese. What did he say?

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Still wearing his signature grey short-sleeved T-shirt and blue jeans, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared at the Shunde Building of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management yesterday. To the surprise of the outside world, Zuckerberg had a 20-minute conversation with the host in Chinese, in which he elaborated on China's innovation issues, Facebook's recruitment in China, and Facebook's future development.

Why learn Chinese?

"First, my wife is Chinese. She speaks Chinese at home, and her grandmother only speaks Chinese. I want to talk to them. A few years ago, my wife and I decided to get married. I asked her to teach me Chinese, and she was very surprised. Second, China is a great country, so I want to learn it. Third, Mandarin is difficult, and I have always spoken English, but I like challenges."

Zuckerberg said that although his Chinese is very poor, he practices it every day.

It is reported that the company originally just wanted Zuckerberg to say a few simple words in Chinese to adjust the atmosphere, but unexpectedly Zuckerberg couldn't stop at all.

Why come to Tsinghua?

During this visit to Tsinghua University, Zuckerberg attended the meeting as a member of the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management Advisory Committee.

“I care a lot about education, and I have done a lot to support education in the United States. I hope that joining Tsinghua SEM will provide me with a good opportunity to learn about and support education in China.”

Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management recently announced the list of members of the School Advisory Committee for the 2014-2015 academic year. This year, the School Advisory Committee has three new members and five new successors. In addition to Zuckerberg, there are two new members, namely Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM.

Any advice for student entrepreneurs?

“I think the best companies are founded not because the founders want to start a company, but because the founders want to change the world. If you just want to start a company, you will have many ideas, but you don’t know which idea is the best and will have the greatest impact on the development of the company. But on the other hand, if you want to change the world, you will start a business only when you have a good idea, so that you can build a good company.”

Zuckerberg used his own experience in founding Facebook to illustrate this point:

"In 2004, I wanted to connect everyone at Harvard. I've always wanted to connect people around the world. When I founded Facebook, we were excited to help students connect the world. Other companies didn't believe we could do it, but we did, and now we have 1.3 billion users."

Zuckerberg believes that the most important thing in the process of starting a business is not to give up. "You may also need to make very difficult decisions, such as firing some employees. Giving up is easy, and most people will give up. Only a few people will persevere."

How do you view China’s innovation?

Zuckerberg generally gave positive comments on Chinese innovative companies:

"I think China has many innovative companies. I had dinner with Lei Jun of Xiaomi last night. Xiaomi is a very honest company that has grown very quickly. They have very good products and they are very cheap. I think Xiaomi will grow very quickly. In addition, Tencent's WeChat is also very big. Some Chinese people use WeChat and QQ. Taobao creates job opportunities. I think China has many innovative companies."

Facebook's plans for China

Zuckerberg said Facebook will start recruiting in China next year and the company had hired 20 Chinese students last month.

"(In fact) we are already in China. We help Chinese companies grow their overseas customers. Chinese companies use Facebook ads (to connect with the world). Lenovo has used our ads to sell new mobile phones in Indonesia. In addition, we want to help other countries in the world connect with China. Hangzhou and Qingdao also have Facebook pages. We work with cities to develop pages and share Chinese culture."

Facebook's challenges and future prospects

Zuckerberg believes that Facebook's challenge was once "mobile":

"In 2012, our biggest challenge was probably that we needed to turn Facebook into a mobile company. It wasn't like that before. In 2012, our growth was very slow, our revenue growth was very slow, and everyone was unhappy, but we (successfully) turned Facebook into a mobile company, and now we have 700 million users using Facebook on their phones."

Regarding the future development of Facebook, Zuckerberg believes that it must rely on new technologies to connect the entire world:

"Facebook is ten years old this year. I asked what we should develop in the next ten years. I think we should develop three things: first, we want to connect the whole world, so we want to help everyone use the Internet. Second, we want to develop artificial intelligence. Third, after everyone uses mobile phones, I believe the next platform will be virtual reality. Oculus is the first product, and we hope to have many other products."