INTJ
The “Zuck”. Were taking a look at Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, the face behind Facebook. I captured a nice shot of Zuckerberg laughing. That laugh does actually come out quite often in interviews. But you’ll notice they look more or less the same each time. I presume you don’t follow Zuckerberg on a daily basis so you might be more familiar with the movie “The Social Network” where Jesse Eisenberg (an INTP, stay tuned for this future post) plays Mark Zuckerberg. You get a glimpse of what Zuckerberg is kind of like. Yeah, I’ll refer to Mark as “Zuckerberg” – just seems more iconic and fun.
There’s been a bit of debate on Zuckerberg’s type – mainly between INTJ and INTP. These two types are highly intellectual types and gravitate into the fields of software, programming, technology and the like. The nerdy types if you will.
The majority of online sources does lean INTJ and after deliberating on this assessment myself – I’ve concluded Mark to be a solid INTJ. Ambitious, self-confident, strategic long range thinkers. They’re natural leaders, a little rigid yes. But this where the INTP differs – INTP’s have no desire to lead or follow. INTP’s are also much more flexible than INTJ’s.
Just like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg is a college drop out. There’s really nothing to infer from this, just a little fun fact. Zuckerberg is Introverted Intuition (Ni) dominant followed by Extraverted Thinking (Te), then in the tertiary slot is Introverted Feeling (Fi), finally we get to his inferior function – Extraverted Sensing (Se). Of course if you aren’t familiar with cognitive functions, this would all sound like gibberish to you. But we live in an age where we can watch Zuckerberg in interviews and yes even in court hearings.
I think we hear more Te when we see Zuckerberg up on stage either as a guest or hosting a conference. It’s that Ni that’s a little bit more operational and behind the scenes, Zuckerberg’s private life – the intellectual sphere we just aren’t allowed to touch. I find this to be very common with INTJ’s – it’s their organizational systematic abilities that seem more obvious to the human eye.
Now when we see Zuckerberg in his comfortable state he looks like an INTJ. When we see Zuckerberg in a really uncomfortable state, he still looks like an INTJ. I mean he barely expresses anything at all – I’ve seen him sweat under pressure and sometimes this is all we have to really work with. There’s no other personality type that expresses this pattern as much as INTJ’s do. So if you’re looking for more you won’t see it in Mark’s facial expressions. You will have to dig into his mind and even this is really hard to reach unless you know Zuckerberg personally.
I personally know a few INTJ’s – the first thing I notice is introversion. They exhibit confidence in their silence though and I find them always ready to engage in anything theoretical.
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
Mark Zuckerberg