When Facebook.com founder Mark Zuckerberg took some time off from Harvard back in January 2004, he had no idea what a phenomenon his idea would become. Today, with no plans to go back to school anytime in the near future, he is recruiting Stanford students to follow in his footsteps.

“We’re making a bunch of money, so we’re willing to hire as many smart people as we can find,” Zuckerberg said, as he looks to expand beyond his current team of 40 workers.

Big bucks may await Stanford engineers who want to work for the Web site full-time, as several Facebook.com employees are making over $100,000 annually. However, students who want to continue to take classes at Stanford can earn $20 an hour, while Facebook.com pays for their tuition.

The Web site’s statistics are staggering, as it breaks new traffic records daily. Yesterday, the site had a record 200 million hits by 8:30 p.m. and there were 325,000 users logged in at the same time. The site has 4.5 million users at 2,027 schools.

Zuckerberg was eager to point out his site’s similarity to the $81-billion-worth of Google, which he estimated as receiving 200 to 250 million hits per day.

“People think of Facebook.com as a little site run by a couple of college students, not as a company,” he said.

Zuckerberg has been strolling around White Plaza and the Gates Computer Science Building talk to students by recruiting around their interests. He will be outside the building today for the same purpose.

“When you join a start-up, you’re not in it for the money — you’re in it for the stock,” he emphasized. “Everyone who works for us owns a part of the company and if we ever go public, we could be worth a lot.”

Former Stanford graduate student Scott Marlette agreed with this analysis. Marlette was a student in the Electrical Engineering Department for nine months when he decided to leave Stanford to go work for Facebook.com.

“If I had waited 12 months to join the company, the opportunity would not be there,” Marlette said. “I am very happy with my decision.”

Among his considerations in joining the Facebook.com team were the small size of the company, the equity, stock options, ability to make an impact and good money. Marlette also had offers from Microsoft and Adobe, which were monetarily comparable to his Facebook salary, but without the estimated value of his stock options.

“There wasn’t a whole lot motivating me to stay in school,” Marlette said. “I feel like I’ve learned more in my three months here than my nine months at Stanford.”

Zuckerberg said he is also happy in his current school-less state.

“I’m going to be taking a least a couple more years off [from college],” he said. “Now I have 40 people working for me. I can’t really just leave...it wouldn’t be fair.”