REAL ESTATE NEWS

LAS VEGAS—Randi Zuckerberg has revealed lessons from focusing on entrepreneurship, resilience, company culture and what she learned from her time at Facebook.

During the keynote at ICSC Las Vegas on Monday, the sister of the billionaire businessman spoke about the importance of "reclaiming the narrative" of her own life, explaining how taking on marathon and ultra-marathon running became part of that process. She connected the experience of endurance racing to the realities of building companies and navigating change in the technology industry.

"There are so many parallels between ultra-marathons and business," she said. "It is how well you handle the constant hurdles that come at you."

Zuckerberg said the unpredictability of endurance racing mirrors the pace of Silicon Valley, where leaders are constantly forced to adapt to new technologies, changing markets and unexpected challenges. She emphasized that having enough will and perseverance are often more important than having a perfect plan.

"That's the kind of person I want to be in business with," she said. "Someone who has so much grit in them that they will work to get to the finish line."

One of the more personal moments of the discussion came when Zuckerberg described reaching mile 188 during an ultramarathon and struggling mentally and emotionally to continue. She recalled a crew member refusing to let her move forward until she said something positive about herself.

"The only thing I could think to say was, 'I have juice in my pockets,'" she said, which brought laughter from the retail audience.

She used the story to illustrate how many people struggle with self-confidence even while continuing to perform under pressure in business and life.

Zuckerberg also reflected on her time helping build Facebook in its early years, which is something that took time.

"Everything that looks like an overnight success starts tiny and small and scrappy and is decades in the making," she said.

She described the company's early days, when a small team worked above a restaurant and employees were encouraged to think entrepreneurially regardless of their role. Zuckerberg pointed to Facebook's internal hackathons as a key driver of innovation, explaining that employees were expected to pitch ideas outside of their day-to-day responsibilities.

Many of the company's early products and initiatives came out of those hackathons, she said, adding that the culture encouraged employees to take ownership and act like entrepreneurs inside the organization.

"If you build that internal culture, it bleeds out into everything that you have," Zuckerberg said.

She also stressed the importance of establishing a workplace culture to attract talent, arguing that companies often underestimate how much this shapes long-term success.

"We became known as a place that was fun and innovative to work," she said. "That started to attract the top talent."

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Source: GlobeSt/ALM