“I would rather be in a cycle where people underestimate us,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday. “I think it gives us the latitude to go out and make some big bets.”

Zuckerberg, 28, spoke to a standing-room-only audience at a tech conference in San Francisco in his first interview since Facebook Inc.’s rocky initial public offering in May. The social networking leader’s stock has lost nearly half its value since the IPO, lopping more than $50 billion from Facebook’s market value.

Zuckerberg said the drop “has obviously been disappointing,” but he said it’s a great time to “double down” on the company’s future.

“Facebook has not been an uncontroversial company,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s not like this is the first up and down we have ever had.”

Among other things, Facebook Inc. has repeatedly faced criticism and user rebellion over its policies and practices affecting data privacy.

Wearing a gray T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, Zuckerberg appeared Tuesday in a half-hour “fireside chat” in San Francisco at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference organized by technology blog TechCrunch.

After he began speaking, Facebook’s stock increased 65 cents, 3.4 percent, hitting $20.08 in after-hours trading. That’s on top of a 3.3 percent gain during Tuesday’s regular session.