FACEBOOK COMPANY PROFILE 1 FACEBOOK COMPANY PROFILE 8 Facebook Company Profile Fardeen Ahmed College of Dupage Intro to Business Elliman Facebook Company Profile Facebook was developed by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates while they were still students at Harvard University. It was founded in July 24, 2004, and it focuses on creating products that help its users interact with one another through mobile phones, computers, and other compatible devices. This company also helps its users learn about the world around them. Users are able to share ideas, opinions, photos, videos, and other activities with audiences that range from friends to the public. Facebook became a great tool for the exchange of ideas, thoughts, cultures, and became a hotbed for innovation. Facebook Incorporation products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus. The company’s major source of revenue is through advertising on its website opportunities. Company’s and small business were able to curate their ads to their preferred demographics to increase the chances of the potential customer to interact with their products. The different types of target markets can be divided based on age, interests, gender, location or preferences. Facebook allows people to connect, share and communicate with each other through their mobile devices and computers. Instagram allows people to share photos and videos customized with filter effects, followers are able to see and interact with the user’s profile. Messenger enables people and businesses to connect and message across various devices. WhatsApp is another messaging application that allows users to message, phone call, video call, and group text for free. (Himatsinghka, 2015). According to the statistics portal, the company employed 25,105 full time employees as of December 2017, this is a significant number for a company that began with only seven employees in 2004 when it initially launched. Facebook has been ranked number one by Glassdoor’s “2018 Best Company To Work In” in the United States of America. There are several reasons why Facebook Incorporation is the best place to work for, this is a testament to the company’s unique and desired workplace practices and environment. (The Statistical Porta, 2018). Employees confirmed that they feel trusted and valued. In an interview with Glassdoor, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook said “that the people who work in Facebook are the most important thing” (CITE THIS CITE THIS). Employees are encouraged to be themselves and to come to always come to work with their best ideas and a driven attitude, in addition, they are also encouraged to foster good relationships with members of their teams. Facebook does not place more importance on hierarchy and titles like managers, or Chief Executive Officer, which is contrary to the general practice of other tech companies. Employees in Facebook are encouraged to critique and question their managers, they are .

1. FACEBOOK COMPANY PROFILE 1
FACEBOOK COMPANY PROFILE 8
Facebook Company Profile
Fardeen Ahmed
College of Dupage
Intro to Business
Elliman
Facebook Company Profile
Facebook was developed by Mark Zuckerberg and his
roommates while they were still students at Harvard University.
It was founded in July 24, 2004, and it focuses on creating
products that help its users interact with one another through
mobile phones, computers, and other compatible devices. This
company also helps its users learn about the world around them.
Users are able to share ideas, opinions, photos, videos, and
other activities with audiences that range from friends to the
public. Facebook became a great tool for the exchange of ideas,
thoughts, cultures, and became a hotbed for innovation.
Facebook Incorporation products include Facebook, Instagram,
WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus. The company’s major

2. source of revenue is through advertising on its website
opportunities. Company’s and small business were able to
curate their ads to their preferred demographics to increase the
chances of the potential customer to interact with their
products. The different types of target markets can be divided
based on age, interests, gender, location or preferences.
Facebook allows people to connect, share and communicate with
each other through their mobile devices and computers.
Instagram allows people to share photos and videos customized
with filter effects, followers are able to see and interact with the
user’s profile. Messenger enables people and businesses to
connect and message across various devices. WhatsApp is
another messaging application that allows users to message,
phone call, video call, and group text for free. (Himatsinghka,
2015).
According to the statistics portal, the company employed
25,105 full time employees as of December 2017, this is a
significant number for a company that began with only seven
employees in 2004 when it initially launched. Facebook has
been ranked number one by Glassdoor’s “2018 Best Company
To Work In” in the United States of America. There are several
reasons why Facebook Incorporation is the best place to work
for, this is a testament to the company’s unique and desired
workplace practices and environment. (The Statistical Porta,
2018). Employees confirmed that they feel trusted and valued.
In an interview with Glassdoor, Chief Operating Officer of
Facebook said “that the people who work in Facebook are the
most important thing” (CITE THIS CITE THIS). Employees are
encouraged to be themselves and to come to always come to
work with their best ideas and a driven attitude, in addition,
they are also encouraged to foster good relationships with
members of their teams. Facebook does not place more
importance on hierarchy and titles like managers, or Chief
Executive Officer, which is contrary to the general practice of
other tech companies. Employees in Facebook are encouraged to
critique and question their managers, they are placed

3. departments that are best suited for them based off the skills set
that they most excel in. This kind of freedom is what drives
employee engagement, it also helps no credit is not given based
on titles but instead based on skills and the quality of work an
employee produces.
Employees in Facebook are driven by the company’s mission
which is, “To give people the power to build communities and
bring the world closer”. Employees reported in an interview
with Glassdoor that they get new challenges every day which in
turn helps them learn new things and develop as individuals and
employees. They claim that they always look forward to
working in the company each day (CITE THIS CITE THIS CITE
THIS, use exponents and do a bibliography).
The leadership in Facebook is fairly transparent. To keep in line
with the company’s mission statement “to build a community”,
Facebook leaders work to remain transparent and connected.
Every other week the leaders of Facebook hold Q&A session
with the employees to address their questions and concerns
about topics that are relevant to the company at that given time.
The Facebook users also have an opportunity to give
suggestions on how the company can improve its services.
During such meetings, Mark Zuckerberg reveals some of the
company’s secrets and devlopments to the employees which
include the company’s goals and the status of new products that
have not yet been released. Such a level of trust is one of the
most important values in the company (Dan Zarrella, 2010).
The Facebook company offers competitive compensation for it’s
workers. According to research done by the University of
Columbia and Michigan State University individuals with
higher incomes feel less sad (CITE THIS CITE THIS). In
Facebook Incorporation, on average, a software engineer makes
about $126,780 every year while the lowest paid software
engineer intern is paid $7,080 per month, which is roughly
$85,000 a year. There are also other benefits for Facebook
employees such as a reliable and comfortable source of
transport to and from work, free food, laundry services, a good

4. and vibrant office environment, and on-site dental and health
care centers (CITE THIS CITE THIS). Company employees are
extremely happy because of "the baby" cash they are given,
which comes out to around $4000 and up to seventeen weeks for
maternity and paternity leave (CITE THIS CITE THIS CITE
THIS). It is also one of the first companies to offer egg-freezing
coverage to its employees, an offer that is redeemable up to
value of $20,000 (CITE THIS CITE THIS ). There are parental
leave policies that even the CEO of the company takes
advantage of (Himatsinghka, 2015).
The employees that are union members in Facebook are caterers
and security guards. They are not direct employees of Facebook
but they work for other firms which have a contract with
Facebook. However, Facebook’s direct employees are not
members of any unions. The need for union memberships among
Facebook employees has never occurred since they have one of
the best working conditions and they are treated fairly by their
employers.
The top five shareholders of Facebook are, Mark Zuckerberg
who is also the founder and the face of the company, he owns
11.92 million class A shares and 392.71 million class B shares
of Facebook. Dustin Moskovitz is another founder of Facebook
who owns 48.9 million shares of the class B category. Eduardo
Savarin who is a founding member of the social network owns
6.1 million shares of the class A category and 47.2 million of
the class B categories. Jan Koum owns 14.2 million class A
Facebook shares. Sheryl Sandberg is the fifth shareholder who
has 1.5 million shares class A which are indirectly held by a
trustee and 2 million class B shareholders (Himatsinghka,
2015). (TALK ABOUT FACEBOOK going public and how that
positively impacted their revenue, also talk about how their
shares fluctuate in response to controversies (privacy
controversy), argue that their shares are overall not that
volatile, and currently all tech companies are struggling to meet
their expectations from Wall Street).

5. The revenue of Facebook grew from 7.87 billion dollars in 2013
to 40.7 dollars in 2017. In the year 2017, the company’s net
income was 15.9 billion dollars which ranked it as number one
amongst all social media companies that year in terms of annual
revenues. Most of Facebook’s revenue is gotten from
advertisement since there has been a shift towards online
marketing and e-commerce from the year 2016(CITE THIS
CITE THIS) (ADD GRAPHIC OF FACEBOOK REVENUE)!!.
The marketing mix of Facebook considers demographic,
geographic, and psychographic segmentation factors to
adequately understand the preferences and engage with the
target market, and as a result, their revenues increase (CITE
THIS CITE THIS). Facebook advertises its products to the users
based on the way they operate their accounts. This strategy
helps direct marketing agencies and businesses to a tailored and
specific audience that is more likely to interact with their
advertisement. (Dan Zarrella, 2010).
Facebook has a project called Building 8, its goal is to develop
and advance hardware. The hardware being developed aims at
artificial intelligence, areas of connectivity and
virtual/augmented reality. Building 8 is an investment expected
to increase the revenue by a strong digit value and increase
earnings growth of over 20% per year (CITE THIS CITE
THIS)..
Continual design and innovation of products and services are
one of the managerial objectives of Facebook. Social media
apps and networks are continuously being developed and
improved upon for an optimal user experience. The management
ensures that these products are in line with the company’s goals
and mission. This approach of continuous innovation is so that
the companies will continue to have a competitive advantage.
The marketing strategies are also adjusted to accommodate the
new products and services so that the target market is reached.
The management of Facebook also ensures that the products and
services provided meet the quality requirements of the
customers. This is done by small teams that continually improve

6. and innovate products and social network services and ensuring
their quality is up to standard. The company also collects
information from its users and address issues customers relay
related to their products and improve their products based on
the feedback. This also helps the company to retain the
customers and potentially add new users as well (Thompson,
2018).
The management has also retained productive employees and
also scouts for talented and innovative new employees. This
help Facebooks Incorporation acquire and maintain a
competitive advantage in the tech industry with their talented
and versatile workforce. Retaining employees long-term also
helps in bringing a sense of stability to the organization.
The strategic location of Facebook Incorporation is a
managerial objective to acquire the best talents in the
computing technology business. The headquarter is located in
the heart of Silicon Valley, which provides access to the best
talents the country has to offer. Most of its overseas offices are
in urban areas which continues to maintain the image of
Facebook being a global phenomenon. Locations for the
different bases for Facebook are chosen to ensure there is a
nearness to markets and other vital resources (Thompson, 2018).
The company also has adopted open space and strategic layouts
in its facilities to encourage brainstorming among team
members and interactions that are creative. The office layouts
are adapted to enhance communication among members of the
organization and ease movement of materials, equipment, and
people working in the organization. These interactions are
crucial for the development of products in Facebook
Incorporation. The facilities that contain web servers have
standard industry layouts to optimize productivity, maximize
utilization and capacity. Facebook Incorporation compensates
workers who enroll in Ph.D. programs in fields that could
prove to be an asset to the company. Employees are allowed to
work part-time and also study at their respective. This type of
program is another way Facebook acquires and retains talents.

7. This program gives the company the opportunity to acquire
high-quality talent and hires for the future (Thompson, 2018).
Facebook Incorporation has become one of the leading
companies in social media. It has become one of the most
popular social media across the globe and is continually
innovating to improve its products and retain its competitive
advantage.
(WRITE about lawsuits against the company, especially when
mark z had to testify in congress for the privacy scandal, and
also mention. Russia and elctions scandal).
(TALK ABOUT corporate projections/ plans for the future).
(talk about wi-fi balloons for underprivileged communites and
CITE IT. Talk about their philanthropy and how it helps them
maintain their status as one of the most global social media
platforms in the world.
Works Cited
Dan Zarrella, Alison Zarrella. The Facebook Marketing Book.
O'Reilly Media, 2010.
Himatsinghka, Adarsh. "Management of Facebook." Principles
of Management (2015).
<https://www.academia.edu/14957205/MANAGEMENT_OF_FA
CEBOOK?auto=download>.
Kirkpatrick, David. The Facebook Effect: the Inside Story of
the Company that is Connecting the World. New York: Simon
and Schuster Paperbacks, 2011.
The Statistical Portal. "Facebook Annual Revenue and Net
Income from 2007 to 2017." Statista.com (2018).

8. <https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-
revenue-and-net-income/>.
Thompson, Andrew. "Facebook Incorporation Operations
Management." Panmore Institute (2018).
Surname: 8
Facebook Company Profile
Fardeen Ahmed
Course Title:
Number:
Section:
The company I chose to analyze in this project is
Facebook. It is an American firm which offers online social
networking services to its users globally. It was founded by
Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz,
and Chris Hughes while they were students at Harvard
University (Brügger 4). The company headquarters are situated
in Menlo Park, California. Over the years, Facebook has grown
to become the biggest social networking site worldwide with

9. over one billions subscribers across all nations. Mark
Zuckerberg who was the key architect was 23 years old when he
developed this application while he was studying psychology at
Harvard University (Tagg and Philip 350). Since he was a
profound computer programming wizard, he had initially
developed various networking sites and apps such as
Coursematch that allowed users to view students taking similar
degrees and Facemash which allowed users to rate other
students based on their attractiveness.
Accordingly, the history of Facebook is marred with
controversies and complex dynamics. The original idea was
Facemash which was developed to allow Harvard students to
rate the attractiveness of their classmates (Knautz and Baran
1048). Since the development violated the university policies by
accessing student profiles and pictures without their consent, it
was shut down two days after its launch and Mark was lucky to
avoid suspension from the college. However, it had already
gained over 450 subscribers who managed to vote over 20,000
times in that short span which encouraged him to go on with his
programming ventures (Castañeda, Markie and Erin 399). It was
in 2004 when Zuckerberg first registered thefacebook through
http://www.thefacebook.com and later launched it in February
the same year. Initially, it allowed Harvard students who
subscribed to post their pictures and brief personal profiles
about their lives such as classes, share interests, connect and
share courses users were undertaking. Users joined using the
Harvard email and within a month over 50% of the students had
joined (Quesnell 8). Tentatively, the popularity of the app
increased exponentially and soon other universities including
Yale and Stanford were allowed to join. As a result, by June
2004, over 240,000 students across 30 schools had signed up
which attracted the interest of MasterCard which started to pay
for its exposure and publicity.
However, the initiative was facing legal suits from other
partakers who believed Mark Zuckerberg had stolen their initial
idea. Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya

10. Narendra had been working with him on a related project and
later he quit and started working on an individual project which
was related to what the team was undertaking leading to a legal
suit against him for recompense. The suit ended up being settled
out of court in 2008 with each of the three mates allotted 1.2
million shares in the firm worth $300 million based on IPO
trading in that time (Hoffmann, Nicholas, and Michael 205).
Settling the suit allowed the company to engage in advancing its
products without further disruptions which lead to the addition
of the wall to subscriber's profiles which has gone to become a
very critical aspect of social networking using the platform.
Furthermore, by September 2004, it had reached over 1 million
members although Myspace was still ahead of it with over 5
million users at that time (Brügger 8). It became a public traded
company in 2012 with its initial public offer raising $16 billion
which ended up boosting its market value to $102.4 billion
(Knautz and Baran 1049). It overtook Google Inc., which was
holding the record for an internet company IPO trading after it
went public and raised $1.9 billion in 2004.
Besides, access to Facebook is free of charge for
subscribers but it is able to generate income through
advertisements on the platform. It allows new users to join the
website, upload pictures, join other groups as well as initiate
groups that they can regulate. Besides, it has other components
such as a timeline where subscribers can post contents about
occurrences in their lives and friends can respond (Rodriguez
12). The status aspect allows the user to update to their social
network friends about their location and situations. Again, the
news feed allows subscribers to alert friends about changes in
their profile pictures and statuses. The site also allows members
to chat with each via private messages while at the same time
being able to signal their approval of content on the platform
through the likes and comment button. Moreover, the beauty
about the social networking site is the insistence by the
founders on transparency and avoidance of false identity by
forbidding such violators (Weedon, Nuland and Stamos 27). It

11. is because the company believed that forming personal
relationships, sharing ideas and building long-lasting networks
ought to be based on transparency and honesty. The peer to peer
connections also facilitates businesses to reach their consumers
with relevant products.
Currently, privacy remains the biggest challenge for
Facebook. It set in 2006 when the firm introduced the
NewsFeed which captured all changes that member's friends
lists made on their profiles. After a mass public outcry from the
subscribers, it rapidly implemented privacy controls which
allow users to regulate what will appear on the NewsFeed
(Castañeda, Markie and Erin 400). Despite these controls,
privacy in Facebook remains one of the most debated issues in
social networking circles due to the recent admissions by the
company that data and information about users were accessed
by companies for targeted advertising and politicians during
campaigns across the globe. It also continues to receive
criticisms over the complexity of its privacy policies as well as
the constant changes they keep making on them (Castañeda,
Markie and Erin 396). Despite these shortcomings, the platform
offers a variety of services that are critical to users.
The company has also invested in strategic ventures that
are critical to its success. For instance, acquisition of WhatsApp
which was announced initially in 2014 and resulted in
WhatsApp founders attaching a $16billion price tag on it with
$4billion in cash $12billion in Facebook company shares.
Conversely, Facebook ended up paying $21.8billion to acquire
it which remains one of the most strategic ventures that it has
invested over the years (Weedon, Nuland and Stamos 27). It
also launched the Marketplace in 2007 which allows business
users to post classified products and services to the large
networks globally. Besides, it acquired Instagram on April 9,
2012, for over $1 billion for the app with $300 million in cash
and the balance in Facebook shares (Hoffmann, Nicholas, and
Michael 202). The app had only 30 million subscribers and no
revenues during the acquisition.

12. The company is managed by a board of directors which is
led by Mark Zuckerberg who is the founder, Chairman, and
CEO. He is responsible for setting the overall direction and
strategies for the firm by leading the designing of the
company’s services and product development. Besides, Sheryl
Sandberg acts as the Chief operating officer tasked with
overseeing the company’s day to day business operations
(Quesnell 12). She was the vice president of Global Online
Sales and Operations at Google before moving to Facebook. She
holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Dave Wehner
acts as the Chief finance officer who leads the firm's financial
aspects, facilities, and IT teams. He had served Facebook as
vice president, Corporate Finance and Business Planning when
he joined the company. He holds M.S. in Applied Physics from
Stanford University. Besides, Mike Schroepfer serves as that
Chief Technology Officer. He is tasked with leading the
development of technological strategies and teams that facilitate
the firm to connect with over its 1 billion subscribers and work
towards improving artificial intelligence aspects of the app
(Rodriguez 20). He was the vice president of engineering at
Mozilla Corporation before joining Facebook. He holds MSC
Computer science from Stanford University. The board of
directors is composed of Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg,
Marc Andreessen, Kenneth Chenault, Jeffrey Zients, Susan
Desmond-Hellmann, Reed Hastings, Peter Thiel, and Erskine
Bowles.
Moreover, the company’s organizational structure is a
variation of the traditional organizational structures adapted to
suit the needs of the operations that are mostly technological
and innovation based (Castañeda, Markie and Erin 398). It has a
well-developed matrix structure which allows it to address its
needs for creativity and invention. The structure has three
categories including the corporate function, geographical
divisions, and product based divisions. The corporate based
divisions include the CEO, Finance and Accounting, Operations,
IT, Security, Human resource management, Marketing and

13. Publicity (Tagg and Philip 345). Under the geographic
divisions, the firm's operations are divided based on North
America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,
Asia and the South Pacific regions. The product-based structure
categories operations based on the family of apps, new
platforms and infrastructure, and central products and services.
Nonetheless, the company organizational structure remains a
hindrance by making it difficult to implement directives through
the matrix structure it adopts (Brügger 10). It is because of the
variations in regional management plans developed based on the
geographical divisions despite these divisions being critical in
ensuring the company is able to fulfill sociocultural and
political variations among its clientele networks.
Overall, Facebook has ended up becoming a very powerful
tool which is able to surpass personal profiles to how businesses
can make use of the site as well as political movements. It also
allows developers to generate revenues for themselves and for
Facebook through virtual and digital products offerings such as
games. It also has well laid out leadership structure that
facilities creativity and innovations which are the core tenets of
the company as it serves both U.S and international clients.
Despite all these advances, Facebook ranks lowly among
customer satisfaction surveys due to privacy issues. Thus, to be
able to gain the trust of subscribers, Facebook has to adopt a
less sophisticated privacy policy that will be easy to
comprehend for the clients.

14. Work Cited
Brügger, Niels. "A brief history of Facebook as a media text:
The development of an empty structure." First Monday 20.5
(2015).
Castañeda, Araceli M., Markie L. Wendel, and Erin E. Crockett.
"Overlap in Facebook profiles reflects relationship
closeness." The Journal of social psychology 155.4 (2015): 395-
401.
Hoffmann, Anna Lauren, Nicholas Proferes, and Michael
Zimmer. "Making the world more open and connected”: Mark
Zuckerberg and the discursive construction of Facebook and its
users." New Media & Society 20.1 (2018): 199-218.
Knautz, Kathrin, and Baran S. Katsiaryna. Facets of Facebook:
use and users. De Gruyter, 2018.
Lincoln, Siân, and Brady Robards. "10 years of Facebook."
(2014): 1047-1050.
Quesnell, Andrew. "Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg." (2018).
Rodriguez, Carla. "Beyond the wall: affective extension on
Facebook." (2017).
Tagg, Caroline, and Philip Seargeant. "Facebook and the
discursive construction of the social network." The
Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication,
London: Routledge (2016): 339-353.
Weedon, Jen, William Nuland, and Alex Stamos. "Information
operations and Facebook." version 1 (2017): 27.