This week, Mark Zuckerberg posted a lengthy open letter on his Facebook page about his vision of the company’s future, in which he explained his intention to build a global community.
“For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families,” Zuckerberg wrote. “With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community — for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement and for inclusion of all.”
While Zuckerberg has said that he does not plan to run for political office, much of the letter’s contents would not be out of place in a campaign stump speech.
One the eve of Facebook’s IPO in February 2012, Zuckerberg laid out his plans for investors in a letter that took on similar themes, though was not as detailed.
At that time, Zuckerberg shared his desire to bolster relationships between individuals, writing, “People sharing more — even if just with their close friends or families — creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others. We believe that this creates a greater number of stronger relationships between people, and that it helps people get exposed to a greater number of diverse perspectives.”
In his Feb. 16, 2017 letter, he led with the idea of utilizing Facebook to build support systems in real life. “Online communities are a bright spot, and we can strengthen existing physical communities by helping people come together online as well as offline,” Zuckerberg wrote. “In the same way connecting with friends online strengthens real relationships, developing this infrastructure will strengthen these communities, as well as enable completely new ones to form. … These communities don’t just interact online. They hold get-togethers, organize dinners and support each other in their daily lives.”
Five years ago, Zuckerberg highlighted Facebook’s ability to connect users to business and the economy, and to help people build better and more engaging products. However, in his 2017 letter he also talked about…