Mark Zuckerberg on why experience isn't that important

“I started Facebook when I was 19, so I can’t really believe that experience is all that important or else I would have a hard time reconciling myself and the company. At Facebook, we invest in people that we think are just really talented even if they haven’t done that thing before.”

For Facebook, this applies to people who are fresh out of university all the up way to Facebook’s CFO David Ebersman who took the company public, even though he had never taken a company public before.

As Mark explains, the key to hiring well is to just hire really talented people. And you can often assess raw talent from the different things they’ve done, such as side projects and other accomplishments.

“I think what’s important is to not believe that someone has to have specifically done the job they’re going to do in order to do it well.”

Mark also points out that when you constantly create opportunity for your employees regardless of their experience, it keeps your best people engaged and attracts the best talent to your company.

Full video: Y Combinator “Mark Zuckerberg : How to Build the Future” (Aug 2016)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Mark Zuckerberg insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Mark Zuckerberg"