Of course if you are so introverted that you are unable to make eye contact or talk to people it will be a problem, but most of us are not that extreme.
He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and therefore you WANTED to get in if you couldn't.
This created a steady user base that didn't have to be EVERYBODY (as long as people at your school were on you didn't care) and a natural spam filter as there were controls on access to those email addresses. Once those people graduated from college they got to stay on the site.
Zuckerberg succeeded specifically because of the exclusivity that Facebook grew from during a time where every other service was just a spam mine.
Don't forget that each college's network was segregated from each other's.
You couldn't view the full profiles of people at other schools unless you were friends with them, but by default, you could view the full profiles of everyone else at your school (you could set your profile to friends-only, but most people didn't back then). I know that I didn't care that everyone else on my network could see my home address and my phone number on my profile, because I knew that they were all classmates (or professors, but very few of them were on Facebook). After I graduated and networks became less prominent, I locked down my profile to friends-only.
Groups were restricted to single schools (and Pages didn't exist): this kept group sizes small and made them feel cozier. Pretty much every school had a group for most fandoms, and it was a big deal if you were able to be the person who got to create your school's group for your favorite subject. There were a number of groups that were basically memes; I forgot what they all were, but no real discussion happened in the group, and their only value was to be listed on your profile. They were classified as "Facebook Classics", and what would happen was that the meme would take off at one school, then the members' friends at other schools would notice them on their profiles and create versions at their schools, and so on. Again, there was some prestige in being the first person to spread the meme to your school.
And there were some college-specific things on your profile, too. There were fields for your class schedule, and you had a separate "mailbox" field for colleges that had dorms.
Also, the foresight to launch a platform.
Launching news feed despite howling criticism.
Taking the company public with little investor surplus, taking heat on CNBC for a year until the market caught up to what they were doing.
Not putting ads on the site in numbers that turned off users but Having enough to run profitably from an early era
Great hiring.
Edit: Also, I think most people misunderstand the primary benefit of school-by-school rollout. By the time people without .edu addresses wanted into Facebook it was already successful. Their growth plan was premised that if you can get 50% of the people in a network to use something, the other 50% (or close to it) will pile on. You can't do that everywhere all at once across the country, let alone the world. The cliche goes... How do you eat a whale? Bite by bite.
MySpace was a trainwreck. The default layout was horrendous, and each user had their own themes, many of which were unreadable (I remember having to select text just to read it).
What he did right, was providing something that no other service did.
G+ never gained traction because it was always the nerdier also-ran to Facebook. Everyone was already on Facebook and G+ didn't really offer anything compelling to make people want to switch. It had (has?) somewhat better segregation of your friends but keeping track of all of that is too much hassle for most people and doesn't really buy them much. Trying to decide if only your family would appreciate this witty cartoon or if you can also include your work colleagues is not something people want to do on every post.
Facebook's exclusivity initially showed no plans for letting everyone else in. It was basically, if you do not have this type of email account, you can NEVER join.
Then they withdraw to some solitude to recharge.
How?
If you fail completely, you might be trying things too far out of your confidence zone. A mousy introvert isn't going to morph into a charismatic rockstar within a single leap, no matter how much the introvert might want that to be the case. Odds are, he'll seize up and freeze, in which case the only thing he practices is the act of freezing.
Another friend was terrified of public speaking so started doing stand up comedy, and now helps run one of the regular shows in a pub here.
You have to put in the hours to an extent, it's not just a case of trying a couple of times and giving up. Alcohol helps to a degree, but obviously don't go crazy with it. Probably hanging out with extroverts and taking note of what they do helps as well.
It simply takes practice.
Popular kids have been 'honing' their social skills literally since they were 4 years old. They have been paying attention to other people.
Notice how the sociable kids might have done more poorly in class, whereas the introverts maybe did better? The sociable kids are attuned to relationships. While your thoughts were on the math problem, theirs were on 'how xyz is not paying attention to me, and why'.
There are people you can hang out with. If you try to stay 'in the present' and actually practice paying attention to their thoughts and emotional signals, they will like you.
Unless you literally have autism, there's a 100% chance that you can be sociable. Also - take heart with the fact that most people find it difficult to interact with others. Want to know a secret: many extroverts, who are socially attuned, are actually quite nervous among others, always watching what they say, being deliberate with their actions. So don't feel alone. You're in the majority.
I'm past 30, grew up as a archetype semi-aspie geek kid with little interest in social matters, preferring books to social settings. My preference is to my own company, still, but I'm comfortable in social settings, I'm a fluent communicator and commended for my presentations when I give them out. I'm also blessed or cursed with a complexity that makes me look perpetually 15 years old - and I'm short. Yeah, goodbye professional credibility based on halo-of-appearance. The upside is I can introduce my two kids early in any conversation, thus signaling my actual age and status - which usually results in a sudden episode of massive cognitive dissonance to my amusement.
So, there are handicaps, and, there are social skills. The dynamics underlying social skills can actually be learned from books - but, like any craft, actually acquiring a functioning ability takes practice. For me, I would split matters under "social capability" to three categories: 1. Self-confidence and Dealing with anxiety 2. Individual interactions 3. Group dynamics.
1. Dealing with anxiety and acquiring self-confidence. For me this is first and foremost a physical activity consisting of a) good posture b) calm and friendly air and c) deep breathing for calming the nerves. A corollary to this is the functioning of mirroring in any social setting - you start to behave, as others percieve you to be [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)]. So, if you appear first as mousy, people treat you as mousy, making you feel more moysy. If you appear as confident and amicable, people treat you as confident and amicable, and you start to feel more confident and amicable.
I actually had to take a few months of personal trainer lessons to fix my posture and gain some physical fitness (I requested a program consisting of mostly of body weight exercises and I can't recommend them enough).
If you don't have a good physical posture, and don't have at least a minimal exercise routine, these will actually help a ton. I can give some references on materials if anyone likes.
On anxiety and introspection - zen meditation helps. "Sit down and shut up" by Brad Warner was a good, no-nonsense, introduction. No mystical crap.
2. For me the best resources have been interaction with colleagues and friends, Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people" and the courses http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-conversation-work... and http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/negotiating-the-best-.... The last is about self-confidence -as some interactions are confidence plays, it really, really helps a ton to be aware of the rules.
The hardest part for me, still bugging me, but the most important one as well: remembering people's names! This is absolutely the fundamental cornerstone of every interaction.
3. Group dynamics is a bit different. The simplest rule is: do what everyone else is doing. Go sit at the same table. If there is someone you don't know, introduce yourself. Here also comes the "how conversation works" great course into play. There are different kinds of conversations - learn what they are.
One of the secrets of human relationships that I only got recently that the relationships are things that are in peoples head's. There is no "single relationship" - each relationship is composed of the presentation of the interaction in the head of each participant. This means, that although you may feel awkward, the other person might feel the interaction is natural and pleasing. This is where mirroring, and keeping confident pose comes into play. If the interaction goes on for a long time, you start to mirror the other persons view of the relationships. But, there are still two copies of the relationship - in both of your heads.
So, I would suggest, step 1: air of confidence - good posture and smile. Wait for serendiptous things to happen. Make sure you are dressed neatly and so on - this is part of the mirroring dynamic.
Someone might feel "But that's not authentic me" - sorry - you can't change the humankind or basic psychology of those around you, you can only adjust and learn.
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/05/bill-gates-how-to-succe...
President Obama is a self proclaimed introvert, as is Warren Buffett.
Essentially, the two riches men in America and the leader of America are self proclaimed introverts.
If you like to be alone with your thoughts, and feel 'exhausted' after interacting with people - you're an introvert.
If you like to always be around others, and get 'charged' from it, and don't like being along - you're an extrovert.
Personally - I have no problem being around people, no problem giving public talks - but I prefer solitude and contemplation to being around crowds.
Introverts I think are more direct and less socially attuned than extroverts, who are very high in EI usually. Salespeople know how to handle people and would never yell and scream at anyone - ever - in any situation - they're personality won't allow it - because 'yelling' is burning massive amounts of 'social capital'. It's the opposite of being 'popular'.
As far as 'public speaking' - I think both could be equally good because it's not really a 'social' thing per sey. It's not 'interaction'. Public speaking is interacting with an 'object' - the crowd.
My bet is that introverts are more direct in their demands - possibly being aggressive. An extrovert narcissist will stab you in the back politically without ever doing anything to make them dislike you or burn political points. I find extroverts will avoid direct confrontation as though it's an instinct - again it burns social capital.
I'll also bet 90%+ of HN readers tend introverted. Extroverts would see absolutely no value in commenting/discussing with people with whom they have no relationship.
Introverts are more likely to value 'ideas' - extroverts value 'relationships'.
Depending on what you are hustling - often - people will buy something or not mostly depending on how charismatic or 'likeable' the person hustling it is. 90% of business relationships are based more on the personalities than the underlying mechanics of the deal because most businesses really are commodities of sorts.
And none of them were/are phds
Just because some introverts have seen success does not mean that all introverts starting a company will share in the same amount of success. It can, just as being an extrovert can, enable you or inhibit you.