'We’re obviously in a tough cycle now, and that doesn’t help morale,' Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg: Facebook in tough cycle

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an end run around questions about his youth and the company’s fallen stock price in a rare TV interview that aired Thursday morning.

The much-discussed social media entrepreneur sat down for a pre-taped interview on the "Today" show, but didn’t dive into detail about how his company is trying to rebound after seeing its Nasdaq share price fall more than 40 percent from May’s initial public offering price of $38.


“We’re obviously in a tough cycle now, and that doesn’t help morale. But at the same time people here are focused on the things that they are building,” Zuckerberg told interviewer Matt Lauer.

Facebook has hit the 1 billion monthly-active-user threshold, Zuckerberg announced in a Thursday morning status update on his Facebook profile. With a reach like that, Lauer asked him to explain why his company isn’t “killing it making money.”

Zuckerberg didn’t accept the premise.

“Well, I think it depends on your definition of ‘killing it,’” he said. “We are making billions of dollars and we’re a public company now so I can talk about that. The future is really gonna be about mobile and the opportunities for growth there.

“We do have the most-used mobile apps,” Zuckerberg added, when asked if Facebook has been slow to capitalize on the platform. “There’s 5 billion in the world who have phones, so we should be able to serve many more people and grow the user base there.”

The roughly seven-minute segment also delved into the personal life of the somewhat-secretive CEO, who made a business out of getting other people to share private information, from marital status to likes and dislikes. Zuckerberg said he’s got “maybe about 20” of the gray T-shirts he wears often and added that his philosophy is to only be in the press when he’s got something to say.

He also pulled the curtain back slightly on his surprise wedding in May.

“The wedding was an awesome thing. We intentionally didn’t want a lot of attention, so what we did was, my wife and I planned it as a surprise. And I sent out this email to all of our friends, telling them that I was having this surprise party for her for graduating from medical school,” he said.

“It was a really small wedding, we had it in a backyard, it was 80 or so people, but it was really nice,” he said. “If people want to write about it after, fine, but I just wanted to make it so that we could enjoy the moment because that’s what it’s about.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 8:50 a.m. on October 4, 2012.

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