Zuckerberg admits Facebook wasted two years Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, admitted the social networking company had "burned two years" betting on the wrong mobile technology, in his first public comments since the company's poor stock market debut in May. Mr Zuckerberg said one of the company's "biggest mistakes" was its bet on mobile web-based technology, when it should have built directly on the Apple and the Google smartphone platforms. "It is really painful," he said, at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. But he promised a new Android app would be released "soon," following the recent successful launch of a new iPhone app. He avoided talking about the financial details of the initial public offering, but said the stock's decline since flotation was "disappointing." Facebook stock hit an all-time low of $17.73 after opening at $38 in May. It closed 3.3 per cent higher at $19.43 yesterday and rose to $20.08 in after-hours trading following his remarks. Mr Zuckerberg emphasised that the company was now integrating mobile into every aspect of its business and had made several internal changes to product development to keep it in focus. He said these were based on data and his own intuition. I live on my mobile device. You know the founders" letter in the S-1? I wrote that on my phone," he said. We are a mobile company now. He also addressed Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, the mobile photo app, for the first time since the deal was announced in April. After the two companies had been collaborating he said a tension developed over how much Instagram relied on Facebook for distribution and how much time Facebook devoted to Instagram over other partners, so the two companies decided to merge. But Mr Zuckerberg said he would not force Instagram into Facebook's infrastructure. He repeatedly denied that Facebook would make its own phone. Besides mobile, Mr Zuckerberg said that Facebook would also, at some point, do more work on search, edging the company further into Google's territory. "We do 1 billion queries a day and we're not even trying," he said. Most of those searches are for people, as well as businesses and apps. Mr Zuckerberg said there was a "big opportunity" for Facebook to develop the capability further so users could search for restaurants, or for others working at a company where they were considering a job. Pressed on how the falling share price had affected employee retention and morale, he said: "Well, it doesn't help." Mr Zuckerberg reiterated that Facebook was focused on the long term. "Facebook has not been an uncontroversial company in the past," he said, adding later: "I'd rather be in the cycle where people underestimate us."