Zuckerberg brings humor, tech-savvy insight to UB audience

With a mix of candor, humor and keen social media insight, Randi Zuckerberg quickly engaged an enthusiastic UB audience last night, sharing her experiences being on the early front lines of Facebook, running her own media company and realizing a dream of performing on Broadway.

Zuckerberg is CEO of Zuckerberg Media, the former marketing director for Facebook and sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. She also is the author of several books, including the best-selling “Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives.”  

She spoke in Alumni Arena on the North Campus, as part of UB’s 2016-17 Distinguished Speakers Series.

Zuckerberg’s lecture was sponsored by the School of Management’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Executive MBA Program.

“My dream was not to go into technology,” Zuckerberg told the audience. “My dream was, actually, to sing on Broadway. And that came about by chance. It’s important to be authentic to who you are and put yourself out there because you never know what opportunities are going to come to you.”

After graduating from Harvard University in 2003, Zuckerberg started out in marketing in New York City.

“My psychology degree led me to marketing and business,” she told the audience. “I started out with Ogilvy & Mather and digital marketing was my first assignment. It was not what I was hoping for or was even something that I was interested in.

“It was around then that I started getting texts, phone calls, emails from my brother, who was trying to get me into something called “The Facebook,” which he had started in college. Well, I wasn’t interested. I told myself I would never work for my brother.”

Zuckerberg changed her mind and soon found herself at Facebook, joining her brother’s small, but dedicated group.

“This was 2005. All they ate was Red Bull and Twinkies. There were about 12 of us in an office and it was still very much kind of a "brogrammer" culture, if you will: very, very few women, especially in senior positions. And it was definitely a bit of a fight, especially as a nontechnical employee, to be heard at the same level in Silicon Valley.

“But everyone was totally focused on it. There were all-night coding sessions, which eventually led to once-a-month hackathons, where everyone had to work on one thing — which couldn’t be part of your job. It had to be a passion project.”

Zuckerberg said the hackathons began to produce workable, then amazing ideas.

“Half of Facebook’s features today came from hackathons. I had two ideas, one of which was Feedbomb, an ‘80s rock cover band that played for free. Which we did. The other, was a question: Could there be a 24-hour news feature that lived inside of Facebook?”

Zuckerberg’s idea turned into Facebook Live, which initially didn’t seem to go anywhere.

“Then a few weeks later, Katy Perry’s agent called: ‘Katy wants to use Facebook Live to launch her world tour.’

“After some disbelief, we called her back and the tour launch was a huge success. That led, a few months later, to President Obama wanting to do a town hall meeting on Facebook Live. We also ended up doing things like brand advertising and having a ‘Game of Thrones’ premiere on Facebook Live, which just really took off.”

Zuckerberg said the early successes at Facebook taught her about marketing and the value creativity brings to the workplace.

“We were able to accomplish these things because all of us were in a work culture where no one was afraid to fail. A good idea can come from anywhere in the company — which I carry with me today.”

After a six-year stint at Facebook, Zuckerberg found that Silicon Valley began to lose its luster.

“I found it very difficult to have a side interest in Silicon Valley,” she said. “I was really coming into my own at Facebook, but I might have had a buffer of a few more years to learn those lessons at a different company or in a different industry.”

She quit Facebook in 2011. “I also knew that I was never gonna be ‘Randi Zuckerberg — her own thing’ as long as I worked there,” she said.

In 2013, she launched Zuckerberg Media, a marketing firm and production company. Since then, she’s written two books: “Dot Complicated” and “Dot,” an illustrated children’s book. Dot has been optioned by the Jim Henson Company for an animated TV series, of which she is an executive producer. Zuckerberg also has a SiriusXM business radio show.

In 2013, she gave a TEDx speech to Broadway producers in New York about leveraging social media to broaden reach and sales.

The producers from the hit musical “Rock of Ages” saw her talk and decided to bring her in to consult for the show. But when they Googled her, they found an old video of Zuckerberg tearing it up with Feedbomb. Instead of consulting, they invited her to perform a lead part in the show for a limited run.

“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a lifelong dream come true,” she told the audience. “I had kind of tried to push down my creativity for too many years in order to be taken seriously in Silicon Valley.

“Singing on Broadway was a great experience, one that I would not trade for anything.”

Zuckerberg concluded her talk by emphasizing the major role that social media now plays in current events and everyday life.

“Social media means that everyone is a media company now,” she said. “There is nothing between you and millions of people but one button, so we all have the same opportunity to have our message heard.

“But, you can also undo your career with just one Tweet. It has happened. Anyone who is online, their voice travels farther and faster than ever before.

“That makes it ‘dot complicated.’ So you need to think — as a business or for yourself: What kind of content are you putting out there? What is your mission?”

Zuckerberg then delivered her insights on the importance of “Untangling our Wired Lives.”

“All of us need to put up boundaries around technology and build a life that is tech-interdependent. We need a healthy relationship with tech — which includes unplugging. Coming from me, I know that must sound strange,” she told the audience.

“When we’re constantly connected, our minds don’t have the space to be creative and recharge. I try to go for a run every day without my phone so I have time every day with only my thoughts.”

Zuckerberg closed by singing a Broadway-quality song to the audience, celebrating the ‘dot-complications’ of our fast-paced, digitally-enhanced lives.