Facebook Changes Its 'Move Fast and Break Things' Motto

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage at the company's F8 conference.

Image: Facebook

By Samantha Murphy Kelly2014-04-30 18:00:41 UTC

Facebook's mantra for developers has long been "Move Fast and Break Things." It meant that new tools and features on the platform might not be perfect, but creation speed was key, even if there were some missteps along the way.

Now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to be a little more careful in getting it right the first time. As a part of his keynote presentation at the F8 Developers conference on Wednesday, he announced Facebook is now embracing the motto "Move Fast With Stable Infra."

SEE ALSO: 'Facebook's F8 Conference: What to Expect

"We used to have this famous mantra ... and the idea here is that as developers, moving quickly is so important that we were even willing to tolerate a few bugs in order to do it," Zuckerberg said. "What we realized over time is that it wasn't helping us to move faster because we had to slow down to fix these bugs was slowing us down and not improving our speed."

It might not be as sexy as the former saying, but it's a promise to users to make new tools less buggy.

""It might not have the same ring to it and might not be as catchy... but it helps us build better experiences for everyone we serve and how we operate now."

In fact, Zuckerberg said the company will be making a major effort to fix bugs faster than ever before.

"A firm commitment that we'll be able to fix all major bugs within 48 hours," he said, noting that with more than a billion users on the platform, this will also pose challenges.

"Move Fast and Break Things" has appeared on posters throughout the company's offices and was even featured in Facebook's IPO paperwork.

"As most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's cofounder and CEO, wrote in a letter to investors before the company went public in 2012.

But the company has been moving away from this approach. Most recently, an executive told Bloomberg it was taking on a new philosophy.

“In the past we’ve done more stuff to just ship things quickly and see what happens in the market,” Brian Boland, VP of product ads at Facebook, told Bloomberg in an interview about the long-rumored rollout of video ads. “Now, instead of just throwing something out there, we’re making sure that we’re getting it right first.”

Mobile was a main focus of Zuckerberg's keynote, and it's not surprising: just last week, he said during a Q1 earnings call that it has 1 billion monthly active users on mobile and emphasized mobile is a key focus to its long-term growth strategy. Mobile advertising now makes up 59% of Facebook's total ad revenue, up from 30% one year ago.

Zuckerberg's keynote will be followed by a full day of sessions focused on mobile ads, push notifications and mobile games.

The last F8 conference was held in 2011 when the company unveiled Timeline and Open Graph.

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Topics: Apps and Software, Facebook, Mobile, Social Media