Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook comment on eating only what he kills

May 27, 2011: 3:18 PM ET

Yesterday we told you about Mark Zuckerberg's 2011 challenge to himself: "The only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself," the Facebook founder and CEO told Fortune in an interview.

As we detailed, an inkling of "Mark Zuckerberg's new challenge" popped up on his private Facebook page a few weeks ago. On May 4, the 27-year-old billionaire told his 847 friends: "I just killed a pig and a goat."

His friends' reactions, as you might imagine, ranged from concern to confusion to disgust. How did Zuckerberg respond to them? He posted his own comment later that day. Here's the full text of Zuckerberg's May 4 comment on his private Facebook page:

Every year I have a yearly personal challenge. It's a good way to explore different things I wouldn't normally do and challenge myself. Towards the end of last year I reflected a bunch of how thankful I was that we were building so many good things and things have gone well so far and I decided to make this year's challenge around being more thankful for what I have. I struggled for a while about how to implement this, but eventually decided that forcing myself to get personally involved and thank the animals whose lives I take in order to eat them was the best day-to-day way to remind myself to be thankful. So every day when I can't eat meat I am reminded of why not and how lucky I am, and when I do get the chance to eat meat it's especially good. This challenge also has the benefit of making me generally healthier, and I'm also learning a lot about sustainable living.

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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