Mark Zuckerberg gets celebrity treatment at Harvard University
(CBS) - Harvard University was abuzz from the triumphant return of famous dropout Mark Zuckerberg. The co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook made a campus visit Monday as part of a recruiting tour of the East Coast.
Zuckerberg met with 200 students, who were chosen based on resume submissions, at Harvard's Farkas Hall.
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Mark Zuckerberg tours the East Coast for talent
Before the event, Zuckerberg held an informal press conference, where reporters asked about the timing of his visit to Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"There's a lot of really smart people here, and a lot of them are making decisions on where they're going to work when they graduate in the next couple of weeks. This is a great time to come," said Zuckerberg.
When asked if Boston would see a Facebook office soon, Zuckerberg said, "hopefully at some point soon, but no plans in the near future." While that answer might disappoint Boston natives, Harvard students aren't fazed. The famous dropout got the full celebrity treatment on campus.
"Everyone is very smitten with Mark," senior lecturer in computer science David J. Malan told Harvard Magazine, "and are quite proud of his origins at Harvard and in particular in the computer-science department."
Last week, undergraduate Julia C. Winn told The Harvard Crimson, "He's a celebrity now."
When asked about the future of Facebook, Zuckerberg said, " the last five years were about helping people get signed up and stay connected with their friends." The 27-year-old billionaire continued to state that the next step would be about products.
Zuckerberg continued on to MIT, where a reporter from the Boston Globe asked what Boston could do next time to keep a company like Facebook from moving to the Silicon Valley.
"The thing that I wanted from our investors was to work with people who had experience building companies," Zuckerberg responded, but added that there were great companies that started on the East Coast. "Facebook did start at Harvard. I think Dropbox started when Drew [Houston] was at MIT."
This is Mark Zuckerberg's first visit to his Alma mater for the first time since famously dropping out in 2004 to work on Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif. The tour will finish on Nov. 8 at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.
