Jakarta, CNN Indonesia — Social network Facebook currently has nearly 1.5 billion active users worldwide and the company has long targeted India as a location for massive product expansion. Why India?

The answer is, because of Steve Jobs.

Yes, Facebook has its own “people” who represent 21% of the world's population. India is considered an easy target for Facebook as it is considered the second country with the highest population density, with over 1.5 billion people.

One problem is certain: around 800 million people in India do not have access to the Internet. Next, Facebook is trying to encourage the availability of the Internet for Indian citizens, which will ultimately benefit Facebook.

Read also : 11 surprising facts about Steve Jobs

However, in addition to the quantitative problem of the Indian population, so important for the development of Facebook, founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed another “secret” explaining why India matters so much to the company he founded in 2004.

“India is one of the most important parts of our company's history. I haven't revealed this story to the public, only a handful of people know about it,” Zuckerberg said during a panel session. questions and answers some time ago during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi. Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, United States.

“Early in the company's growth, we hit some tough times and a lot of people wanted to buy Facebook. The person I was looking for was one of my own mentors, Steve Jobs. He said, to reconnect with that that I believe in the company's mission, he suggested “I went to a temple in India that he had visited to think about Apple's vision,” Zuckerberg said.

He then followed the advice of the founder of Apple. He traveled to India for a month, meeting many people, exploring how society is connected, and Zuckerberg admitted that he immediately “fantasized” about new ways to connect people around the world.

“My trip to India made me believe that what businesses can do can definitely strengthen the connectivity capabilities of society. I always remember this experience over the last 10 years, when we founded Facebook,” said continued Zuckerberg.

Citing the BGR website, Jobs, in the early years of founding Apple, reportedly spent about seven months traveling in India.

The memories shared by Zuckerberg are considered very meaningful because these two individuals admired each other.

Even in Walter Isaacson's Jobs biography titled “Steve Jobs”, Jobs mentioned Zuckerberg as the first person he admired in Silicon Valley.

“He felt an unusual kinship with Zuckerberg,” Isaacson wrote. (td/td)