Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Helps Build Ford Truck In Detroit

DETROIT, MI — Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg helped assemble one of Ford Motor Co.’s popular F-150 pickup trucks Thursday during his first trip to Michigan, he said Thursday in a post on the social media site he built. Some future buyer will see his name on the inspection sticker.

Zuckerberg, whose first trip to Michigan included a tour of Ford’s Rouge Plant outside of Detroit, said working at an assembly plant is “physically hard.” Among the most important things an assembly worker should do is invest in a good pair of shoes “because you’re essentially walking on a treadmill for 10 hours a day,” he wrote.

While at the plant, Zuckerberg worked the line, adding antennas, cleats and drilling screws, but said “the most interesting part was sitting down with some of the people who do this every day.” That’s how he learned about the importance of good shoes. He said everyone he talked to “told me separately how important it is to have good shoes.”

Focus is also important.

“Every 52 seconds, you have to go through your set of tasks — 650 times a day. You have to be perfect, but the biggest challenge is having the focus to do the same thing over and over again,” he wrote in the post. “The people I met are so good they keep the line running at full speed and listen to audio books or music in one earbud to stay engaged.

“Working at Ford is a long term thing. Most of the workers I met had been at the plant for at least a decade, and a lot of them have kids and friends who work there, too. Someone told me that when you spend 11 hours a day, four days a week together, you end up becoming family and friends outside of work, too.”

He concluded the post by thanking Ford Motor Co. executive chairman Bill Ford for inviting him to tour the plant. “And thanks to the line workers who checked my work,” he said, ending the post with a smiley face emoticon.

Featured photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images