CEO Quotes: Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton…

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CEO QUOTES

CEO Quotes from top Chief Executives. There are an assortment of CEO Quotes below and we are adding more all the time. What are some of your favorite CEO Quotes?

Mary Barra – General Motors (GM) CEO. She served as the Executive Vice President of Global Product Development & Global Purchasing and Supply Chain at General Motors.

“If you do every job like you’re going to do it for the rest of your life, that’s when you get noticed.” ~Mary Barra
“The key with autonomous is the whole ecosystem. One of the keys to having truly fully autonomous is vehicles talking to each other.” ~Mary Barra
“Not everything needs changing. Some things need protecting. And that can be just as important, challenging and rewarding as changing the world.” ~Mary Barra
“20 years ago, I was pushed and mentored and given challenging assignments and then supported. That allowed me to have the career path I’ve had.” ~Mary Barra
“I never want to get a job because I’m female. I want to get it because I earned it and I deserve it… Whether my hair is going to be blue or purple, people should be judged on how well they do the job and deliver results and whether they do it the right way. That’s how I like to be judged; most people are like that.” ~Mary Barra
“I started at General Motors at 18 years old as a co-op student at the General Motors Institute, which is now Kettering.” ~Mary Barra

Jeff Bezos – CEO Amazon. Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and the Amazon Supply Chain rivals any company. Great CEO Quotes.

“You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.” – Jeff Bezos
“If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.” ~ Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.
“What’s dangerous is not to evolve.” – Jeff Bezos
“All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.” ~ Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” ~ Jeff Bezos, built the Amazon Supply Chain.
“If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tailwind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.” ~ Jeff Bezos
“One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” ~ Jeff Bezos

Richard Branson (CEO Virgin) CEO Quotes.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. ~ Richard Branson, CEO Virgin
Ridiculous yachts, private planes, and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance. ~ Richard Branson, founder Virgin
Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. ~ Richard Branson
Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to. ~ Richard Branson

Sergey Brin (Co-Founder Google) CEO Quotes.

“You always hear the phrase, money doesn’t buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it’s not really true. I got a new car because the old one’s lease expired.” ~ Sergey Brin
“It’s not enough not to be evil. We also actively try to be good.” ~ Sergey Brin
“We just want to have great people working for us.” ~ Sergey Brin
“As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work.” ~ Sergey Brin

Warren Buffett CEO Quotes.

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” ~ Warren Buffett
“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.” ~ Warren Buffett
“The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: ‘I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love.’ But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.” ~ Warren Buffett
“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” ~ Warren Buffett
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” ~ Warren Buffett
“In the business world, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” ~ Warren Buffett
“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.’ ~ Warren Buffett
“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” ~ Warren Buffett

Tim Cook (CEO Apple) CEO Quotes. Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook to improve the Apple supply chain. Seems that Steve Jobs was a fan of what Michael Dell did with Dell’s supply chain and wanted to explore opportunities. Tim Cook went from Apple’s Chief Procurement Officer and took Steve Jobs place as Apple’s CEO.

“I’d rather Apple cannibalize Apple than somebody else cannibalize Apple.” ~ Tim Cook, brought in by Steve Jobs to improve the Apple Supply Chain.
“I don’t really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple.” ~ Tim Cook
“Let your joy be in your journey – not in some distant goal.” ~ Tim Cook
“For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.” ~ Tim Cook
“We’re very simple people at Apple. We focus on making the world’s best products and enriching people’s lives.” ~ Tim Cook
“You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.” ~ Tim Cook
“We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain… What we will not do – and never have done – is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word.” ~ Tim Cook, Apple CEO Tim Cook Supply Chain guru.

Mark Cuban

“I am telling you, the world’s first trillionaires are going to come from somebody who masters AI and all its derivatives,and applies it in ways we never thought of.” ~Mark Cuban
“Artificial Intelligence, deep learning, machine learning — whatever you’re doing if you don’t understand it — learn it. Because otherwise you’re going to be a dinosaur within 3 years.” ~Mark Cuban
“Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.” ~Mark Cuban

Michael Dell (Former CEO Dell Computers) CEO Quotes.

“I started the business with a simple question: How can we make the process of buying a computer better? The answer was: Sell computers directly to the end customer. Eliminate the reseller’s markup and pass those savings on to the customer.” ~ Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers.
“Sometimes it’s better not to ask-or to listen-when tell you something can’t be done. I didn’t ask for permission or approval. I just went ahead and did it.” ~ Michael Dell, changed computing through the Dell Supply Chain.
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Get out there and experiment and learn and fail and get a rate based on the experiences you have. Go for it and when you go for it you’ll learn what you’re capable of, what the potential is, where the opportunities are, but you can’t be afraid to fail because that’s when you learn.” ~ Michael Dell
“Regrets are born of paths never taken.” ~ Michael Dell

Larry Ellison (CEO Oracle) Quotes.

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” ~ Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO
“What is Oracle? It’s people. We rely on our HR department to build this organization, to help find those people, to help grow those people.” ~ Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO
“To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?” ~ Larry Ellison
“If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to ‘be different’.” ~ Larry Ellison

Henry Ford (Former CEO Ford) Quotes.

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” ~ Henry Ford, founder of Ford
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” ~ Henry Ford,
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” ~ Henry Ford

Bill Gates (Former CEO Microsoft) Quotes.

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” ~ Bill Gates
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” ~ Bill Gates
“If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.” ~ Bill Gates
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” ~Bill Gates.
“Humans should be worried about the threat posed by artificial intelligence.” ~Bill Gates
“I am in the camp that is concerned about artificial intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.” ~Bill Gates
“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” ~Bill Gates

Steve Jobs (Former CEO Apple) Quotes.

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” ~ Steve Jobs
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” ~ Steve Jobs
“I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back.” ~ Steve Jobs, 1985.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” ~ Steve Jobs
“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.” ~ Steve Job
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” ~ Steve Jobs
“It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple.” ~ Steve Jobs
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” ~ Steve Jobs
“Strategy is figuring out what not to do.” ~ Steve Jobs
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ~ Steve Jobs

Jack Ma, founder and CEO Alibaba. For those who may not know Alibaba is the Amazon of China. There is great information on the Alibaba Supply Chain.

“You need the right people with you, not the best people.” ~ Jack Ma
“Never ever compete on prices, instead compete on services and innovation.” ~ Jack Ma
“Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world.” ~ Jack Ma
“I try to make myself happy because I know that if I’m not happy, my colleagues are not happy and my shareholders are not happy and my customers are not happy.” ~ Jack Ma
“I want to change history, do something important in my life, and influence individuals like we have with millions of small businesses on Alibaba. Then they love and respect you because you made their life important.” ~ Jack Ma
“If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.” ~ Jack Ma
“Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.” ~ Jack Ma
“I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.” ~ Jack Ma
“My job is to help more people have jobs.” – Jack Ma
“If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.” ~ Jack Ma
“I’m a normal guy.” ~ Jack Ma
“I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.” ~ Jack Ma
“A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can’t.” ~ Jack Ma
“If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.” ~ Jack Ma

Elon Musk, CEO Tesla and SpaceX.

“The supply chain stuff is really tricky.” ~Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
“Everybody around here has slides in their lobbies. I’m actually wondering about putting in a roller coaster — like a functional roller coaster at the factory in Fremont. You’d get in, and it would take you around [the] factory but also up and down. Who else has a roller coaster? … It would probably be really expensive, but I like the idea of it.” ~ Elon Musk
“When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.” ~ Elon Musk
“I’ve thought about it quite a lot … We could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part … The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.” ~ Elon Musk
“With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.” ~Elon Musk
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” ~ Elon Musk
“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” ~ Elon Musk.
“Self-driving cars are the natural extension of active safety and obviously something we should do.” ~Elon Musk
“What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to be a massive social challenge. There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a human]. These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.” ~Elon Musk
“I’m increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”
~Elon Musk
“Pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.” ~Elon Musk.
“If you’re trying to create a company. It’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredient in the right proportion.” ~Elon Musk.
“The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.” ~Elon Musk.
“Don’t delude yourself into thinking something’s working when it’s not, or you’re gonna get fixated on a bad solution.” ~Elon Musk.
“Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” ~Elon Musk.
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” ~Elon Musk.
“There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions.” ~Elon Musk.
“Constantly think about how you could be doing things better. Keep questioning yourself.” ~Elon Musk.
“I think the best way to attract venture capital is to try and come up with a demonstration of whatever product or service it is and ideally take that as far as you can. Just see if you can sell that to real customers and start generating some momentum. The further along you can get with that, the more likely you are to get funding.” ~Elon Musk.
“If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” ~Elon Musk.
“I could either watch it happen or be part of it.” ~Elon Musk.
“If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do… If you don’t do your chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.” ~Elon Musk,
“I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” ~Elon Musk
“It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.” ~Elon Musk.
“Everybody around here has slides in their lobbies. I’m actually wondering about putting in a roller coaster — like a functional roller coaster at the factory in Fremont. You’d get in, and it would take you around [the] factory but also up and down. Who else has a roller coaster? … It would probably be really expensive, but I like the idea of it.” ~ Elon Musk
“People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.” ~Elon Musk.
“I always have optimism, but I’m realistic. It was not with the expectation of great success that I started Tesla or SpaceX… It’s just that I thought they were important enough to do anyway.” ~Elon Musk.
“I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.” ~Elon Musk.
“People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.” ~ Elon Musk
“Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.” ~Elon Musk.
“I would just question things… It would infuriate my parents… That I wouldn’t just believe them when they said something ’cause I’d ask them why. And then I’d consider whether that response made sense given everything else I knew.” ~Elon Musk
“Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.” ~Elon Musk.

Indra Nooyi, Pepsi CEO.

“I pick up the details that drive the organization insane. But sweating the details is more important than anything else” ~Indra Nooyi
“Just because you are CEO, don’t think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization. I’ve never forgotten that.” ~Indra Nooyi
“The one thing I have learned as a CEO is that leadership at various levels is vastly different. When I was leading a function or a business, there were certain demands and requirements to be a leader. As you move up the organization, the requirements for leading that organization don’t grow vertically; they grow exponentially.” ~Indra Nooyi
“An important attribute of success is to be yourself. Never hide what makes you, you.” ~Indra Nooyi
“There is nothing like a concrete life plan to weigh you down. Because if you always have one eye on some future goal, you stop paying attention the the job at hand, miss opportunities that might arise, and stay fixedly on one path, even when a better, newer course might have opened up.” ~Indra Nooyi

Larry Page, (co-founder of Google) CEO Quotes.

“My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they’re having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society. As a world, we’re doing a better job of that. My goal is for Google to lead, not follow that.” ~ Larry Page, co-founder Google
“Google will fulfill its mission only when its search engine is AI-complete. You guys know what that means? That’s artificial intelligence.” ~Larry Page
“Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.” ~ Larry Page
“The ultimate search engine would understand everything in the world. It would understand everything that you asked it and give you back the exact right thing instantly. You could ask ‘what should I ask Larry?’ and it would tell you.” ~Larry Page
“We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.” ~ Larry Page
“One of our big goals in search is to make search that really understands exactly what you want, understands everything in the world. As computer scientists, we call that artificial intelligence.” ~Larry Page

Frederick W. Smith (founder and CEO of FedEx) CEO Quotes.

“Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves – and by which they are willing to be judged.” ~ Frederick W. Smith (Fedx CEO)
“A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service: The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” ~ Frederick W. Smith
“My innovation involved taking an idea from the telecommunications and banking industries, and applying that idea to transportation business.” ~ Frederick W. Smith

Sam Walton (Former CEO Walmart) CEO Quotes.

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves it s amazing what they can accomplish.” ~ Sam Walton, Walmart CEO.
“I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they’ve been.” ~ Sam Walton, built the Walmart Supply Chain.
“If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them—not that they are working for you.” ~ Sam Walton, made logistics a competitive descriminator.
“There is only one boss – the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” ~ Sam Walton.
“We’re all working together; that’s the secret.” ~ Sam Walton.
“Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm – always.” ~ Sam Walton.
“When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don’t do a hula on Wall Street. It’s been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. “Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?” ~ Sam Walton.
“I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company.: ~ Sam Walton.
“Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.” ~ Sam Walton.
“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” ~ Sam Walton.
“Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.” ~ Sam Walton.

Jack Welch (Former CEO GE) CEO Quotes.

An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. ~ Jack Welch
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’t have to manage them. ~ Jack Welch
When you become a leader success is all about growing others. ~ Jack Welch

Oprah Winfrey Quotes.

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

Mark Zuckerberg (CEO Facebook) CEO Quotes.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
“By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.” ~Mark Zuckerberg