Mark ZuckerbergSAN FRANCISCO – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t enjoyed seeing his company’s stock get pummeled on Wall Street this summer, but he is relishing the opportunity to prove his critics wrong.
“I would rather be in a cycle where people underestimate us because I’d rather be underestimated,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday. “I think it gives us the latitude to go out and make some big bets.”
Zuckerberg, 28, made his remarks before a standing-room-only audience at a tech conference in San Francisco in his first interview since Facebook Inc.’s rocky initial public offering in May.
The social networking leader’s stock has lost nearly half its value since the IPO. More than $50 billion has been lopped off Facebook’s market value as the company’s shares have fallen from $38 to Tuesday’s closing price of $19.43.
No one has lost as much as Zuckerberg, who has seen the value of his Facebook holdings fall about more than $9 billion. That while hearing more skeptics second-guess his ability to lead the company that he founded eight years ago in his Harvard University dorm room.