Zuckerberg Talks up Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) shares with `Reassuring’ Remarks

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg, who made his first public appearance in San Francisco since the company's market debut in May, admitted that his venture's performance on Wall Street had been disappointing.

“The performance of the stock has obviously been disappointing,” he said. “We care about our shareholders.”

Looking at ease in a gray t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, the 28-years old entrepreneur made statements clearly aimed at reassuring investors that the company was engaged finding out ways to increase revenues.

The shares in the social networking site rose 4 percent to $20.17 in pre-market trading after surging 3.30% in the previous trading session.

He tended to be dismissive of the negative impression that the company has created in the last few months.

“I would rather be in the cycle where people underestimate us,” he said at the annual conference sponsored by TechCrunch, the technology blog.

In a jocular, half-hour question-and-answer session with the blogger-turned-investor Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg dropped a few hints about Facebook’s plans, and said that the site was handling up to a billion search queries by users every day.

He said that a team of engineers within Facebook was working on improving Facebook’s search tool to vet, for instance, restaurant recommendations from friends. “At some point we’ll do it,” he said.

While there has been a perception of Zuckerberg as a geeky entrepreneur and not really comfortable talking bottom lines and revenues, on Tuesday he sought to dispel that impression.

Building a mission and building a business goes hand in hand,” he said. “We are about doing both.”