What Mark Zuckerberg Told Me — East West Origins

I was sitting in the audience at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, the biggest conference venue in the city. It was 2017 and I was attending my fourth annual Facebook sales conference.

Mark Zuckerberg had just given us a rousing talk about the future of Facebook. Each year, ‘Uncle Zuck’ comes to our annual GMS (Global Marketing Solutions) conference to answer questions directly from Facebook’s global sales and marketing organisation.

That year, around five thousand people had flown into California from every single office — from Facebook Colombia to Facebook Ireland to Facebook Thailand.

Towards the end of his speech, it was time to open up for an audience Q&A. I got up from my seat and started making my way to the microphone. I was walking through a crowd of thousands, but felt completely alone.

Despite being a relatively seasoned Facebook veteran at that point, I still felt the lump in my throat and the heaviness in my legs as I mustered up the courage to ask Mark Zuckerberg a question.

I was 26 years old and filled with imposter syndrome. Despite having worked at Facebook for four years, it still felt like a dream and I always joked about having snuck through the application process.

I was the youngest person on Facebook’s Global Partnerships team and often thought I didn’t deserve to be there.

Step by step getting closer to the microphone, that voice in my head kept saying…