Mark Zuckerberg gave a surprise Q&A session on Tuesday, offering a look at his work life and saying that he "only" works between 50 and 60 hours per week in the office or in meetings.
Zuckerberg spoke from his Facebook page in the Reddit AMA-style Q&A, speaking on both his personal life and whether or not he sees Facebook as something that inhibits face-to-face contact. His answer to how much he worked, however, was of particular interest considering how much many assume he works.
"That depends on what you count as work. I spend most of my time thinking about how to connect the world and serve our community better, but a lot of that time isn't in our office or meeting with people or doing what you'd call real work," said Zuckerberg from the Q&A. "I take a lot of time just to read and think about things by myself. If you count the time I'm in the office, it's probably no more than 50 to 60 hours a week. But if you count all the time I'm focused on our mission, that's basically my whole life."
Zuckerberg even took a question from billionaire Richard Branson, known for being the founder of the Virgin Group. His question was about what the benefits are of connecting the rest of the world to the Internet. Zuckerberg's answer was that the current estimate is that for every billion people connected to the Internet, 100 million will be raised above the poverty line. Not only that, but Zuckerberg also highlighted the potential for entrepreneurs with big ideas who currently lack the basic tools to be able to put those ideas into practice.
In total, Zuckerberg really only answered 15 questions, including one requesting pictures of his dog and one requesting a "sarcasm" button, to which his reply was "Sure, we'll get right on that."
Another interesting topic of conversation was about the $100 million grant that Zuckerberg gave to the Newark and New Jersey public school system. The grant has been widely panned by critics, however, Zuckerberg suggested that the money had gone a long way.
"A lot of good work has come from that grant. The highlight is that the graduation rate has improved by more than 10 percent since we've started our program there," he continued. "The leaders we've worked with in NJ have started many new high performing schools, paid teachers more and have improved the schools in lots of other ways."
