Wunderkind from Facebook talks Hackability

"There's an intense focus on openness, sharing information, as both an ideal and a practical strategy to get things done"

A quote from Mark Zuckerberg, the 22-year old CEO of the internet phenom, Facebook, on redefining "hacker" caught my eye. For those of us who haven't spent time with Facebook, it is making a jump from the place that college kids used to define their online identity, to the place where professionals, groups of common interest, and high schoolers manage their identities and connect with each other. It feels so much more purposeful, less random, than MySpace to me.

Anyway, Zuckerberg was riffing on how "hackability" is really harnessing the power of a larger group, giving them a sense of shared ownership, and enabling them to authentically shape the raw material of a place/technology/community into something that is of value both to them, and the communities they belong to.

"What most people think when they hear the word 'hacker' is breaking into things."

Zuckerberg admits to being a hacker--but only if he's sure you understand that the word means something different to him. To him, hacker culture is about using shared effort and knowledge to make something bigger, better, and faster than an individual can do alone. "There's an intense focus on openness, sharing information, as both an ideal and a practical strategy to get things done," he explains.

The article on Facebook in Fast Company here.