The Business of Business

It should be known that every big business started out as a small business. IBM. Microsoft. Apple. Amazon. Facebook. All of these enterprises saw a visionary spearhead his way onto the global stage from more modest beginnings. Especially the last company.

It may be known through Hollywood how Facebook started but the real ideal behind the corporation was some college kid who made his fantasies into rigid reality.

Mark Zuckerberg is a small businessman in his mind. All of his moves may seem major but they have a small-business-mindedness. Each of his companies may generate billions of dollars, but he operates like he heads a hardscrabble startup in every action he takes. He excels because he knows that he is living check to check like anyone else. Though his checks may be larger than most of the populace, they represent a daily reminder that if he doesn’t produce, he’ll be at the dorm room level looking back on what could have been.

Zuckerberg’s determination to craft beautiful web pages is his small business mind directing him where to go. Now, the deals are big. Now, he must weigh the fates of thousands of employees, millions of investors, and billions of users. He does so with aplomb. He relishes his role as CEO of Facebook. His big brain thinks big about the small stuff. Whether it’s how a friend links a song to another’s Wall or how many people watch on Facebook Live, he concerns himself with the possibility that every business person should remember: make it better. Make the stream better, make the world better, make life better.

For all of the bullet wounds that try to stop Zuckerberg, he has an armored tank that prevents those rounds from penetrating: rationality. He has used the faculty of reason to take a small business and extend it to the world. He showcases a great deal of bravado in his moves. He should don a laurel on his head for all of the ways that he has improved human life. The connections that he has made to increase his dividends are the envy of small businesses and big businesses alike. At such a young age, he has performed feats that people twice and thrice his age will never achieve. Zuckerberg is the shining example of creating wealth. Before a thing is consumed, it must be created. That is an attribute of the human, functioning brain. By thinking like a small business maven, Zuckerberg finds himself in new situations that reflect the thought process of someone dealing with thousands and maybe millions of dollars.

He is like the full grown tiger who devours elephants but started as a cub who licked up termites. Zuckerberg has gone through stress and strife to reach the levels of spectacular success. By just starting a company in college, encountering lawsuits, and flack from factions who say that he violates privacy, and people who find that Facebook distorts political issues, Zuckerberg has been able to bypass all of this awful offal.

Small businesses should be taking notes from Zuckerberg who is the ultimate small business billionaire. He puts forth an idealism that embodies the struggles of a small business and permits those ideas that propel him to do more. Because isn’t that the idea? What small business wants to be small? Sure there are businesses that will never attain multi-billion-dollar status but they seek to and plan like they’re pulling in over ten figures in a fiscal year. That’s how every business person should carry out his or her roles. They should consider their enterprise like the number one company in the world. Now, of course there will be millions of businesses that will never see more than a few hundred thousand dollars in profits. However, the ones who toil and grind until they reach the billionaire boys and girls club should be venerated.

Effort is a major component to whether a business person grabs at the big dollars. But it’s not the only component. Hustle, drive, and selfish greed remain the ingredients that constitute a meal of money writ large. Mr. Zuckerberg now knows that he must demonstrate how small business people not only pull themselves up from their bootstraps but that they must sew the cotton to make their socks. They must manufacture the boots that go on their feet replete with the straps. Then they can pull themselves up from them with blouse and trousers preceding the boots (which also had to be produced).

Mark Zuckerberg is the exemplary small/big businessman because he knows from whence he came. His own selfishness propelled him to the accomplishments that he enjoys today. His own self-interest is what has elevated him from a hooded, brilliant college student to a t-shirt wearing tech tycoon. To say that he is not a small businessman in his mind is to sell the man short. He is a powerhouse in the midst of a wasteland. Since he permits small businesses to flourish through a multiplicity of applications, he should be applauded for his actions. Zuckerberg should be seen as the small businessman mind in a big businessman’s body. His thoughts remain on advancing the once fledgling Facebook into the mega-corporation that it is.

Zuckerberg’s ability to scope out other businesses (that started small) like Instagram and Oculus VR, prove that he is centered on uplifting firms that he could profit from every year. He makes big wagers to see if these things not only pay off fiscally but spiritually. He must have some connection on a soul level with the enterprises he snaps up on a regular basis.

The business of business is of course to make money. On whatever level that a business is classified, the owner(s) of such enterprises must be ready to generate funds. It is up to Zuckerberg to be selfish, ambitious and greedy. These terms need not only defining but updates. To be selfish means to not exploit people but the earth. Ambition is the want to make oneself better and the willingness that goes with it. Greed is the insatiable desire for more. Zuckerberg embodies all of these ideals. And he should be rewarded morally as the small businessman who made a gigantic success.