Randi Zuckerberg finds Pakistan friendliest country

LAHORE: The third and final day of AdAsia 2019 belonged to Randi Zukerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. She kept the fully packed hall spell-bound during her one-hour lecture, describing Pakistan as the friendliest country.

She justified her praise for Pakistani nation by citing the names of Malala Yousafzai and Benazir Bhutto, the great women produced by it. This, she added, shows that Pakistan is a country that really honours its women. She said it was a surprise for her to know that Pakistan is the preferred supplier of quality soccer balls to the world. This way, she added, Pakistan is known in all soccer playing countries. Randi revealed that she is also a fan of cricket, which is very close to the hearts of Pakistanis. After showering more praise on Pakistani nation, she started her own story.

Randi said as a child and growing girl, she had a passion for singing. She said she would have studied that art, but for her parents, who wanted her to study at Harvard, from where she graduated. In a lighter vein she pointed out that Mark, her more famous brother, could not graduate from Harvard (He is a college dropout). She said after graduation, she went from California to New York to work at an advertisement agency.

She said while she was settled in New York, she got a phone call from her brother Mark, imploring her to come back to Silicon Valley as he needed help in marketing. She said the invitation meant to work with the family and for free, and she was not prepared to do that. She went to California with the intention of staying there for a week. When she went there, she saw a bunch of youngsters locked in a room day and night; eating cupcakes and brandy. Their passion was overwhelming. They had the idea of connecting people. They were locked in Hukapan where they worked tirelessly and kept to themselves only. She said that instead of one week, she stayed there for 10 years.

“When we started, we were a 12-member team. Today, Facebook has 102 offices with thousands of employees.

“As the chief marketing officer of Facebook, my budget was nothing. You have to work on passion project, exploring it day and night.”

Randi Zuckerberg said during these experimentations, some funny inventions were made. She said one colleague invented a mobile lock that locked the phone on jumping. She said to unlock it, the person had to jump the same way. Many, she added, failed and numerous users were forced to go to Apple to get their phones unlocked.

Randi said since her passion was music, she launched a live Facebook band. She said at the time of launch, there were only two viewers and those were her parents. She said it was a complete flop. A week after the Facebook live launch, she got a call from a very famous singing celebrity, who offered to perform on Facebook live. At first, she thought it was a joke, but she did perform. After that she said many showbiz and sports celebrities appeared on Facebook live and the sit clicked to a huge success. She said only four months after the launch, President Barack Obama expressed the desire to use Facebook live to connect with people. This site is now used by 2.5 billion people in the world, she added. She also revealed that Twitter team emerged as startups of Facebook programme.

She said after this thumping success, she left Facebook and people wondered why she had left. She said she had a very complicated relationship with Facebook. Randi said she did not want to be the only woman in the Silicon Valley setup. She said she wanted to do something for women. A word of advice from her was that when you come up with an idea, it is not necessary that it would be accepted by the users. It could flop as well. She said even a successful technology needs periodic upgrades to stay ahead of competitors.

She revealed that she had two adorable sons, but when they commanded Siri to do things for them, she got worried that her sons would grow up thinking that they can be bossy with women. On the second thought, she realised that in their later life, her sons would go to women for any information they want. She said today everything is media. She said every company now has a content. She said it is now time to invest in video. She asks mobile users to control its use. “None of us would change the world if we constantly remain glued to our phones,” she concludes.

Hukapan, according to one definition, is abbreviation where each word stands for a virtue. H is for heavenly, your spirit is strong. U is for unique, your love of life. K is for keen, your sense of honesty. A is for articulate, a regular wordsmith. P is for pioneer, your adventuresome spirit. A is for adventure, take a new one today. N is for noble, your regal bearing.

Randi Jayne Zuckerberg is an American businesswoman. She is the former director of market development and spokesperson for Facebook, and a sister of the company's co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg. Prior to working at Facebook, she was a panellist on Forbes on Fox. Randi Zuckerberg was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York and graduated from Harvard with a degree in Psychology in the early 2000s. She rose to prominence as an internet entrepreneur, appearing on Forbes on Fox.