2000s
Costolo says Facebook bootstrapped its early social graph by having new users import their Gmail contacts.
“Oh, great. Type in your Gmail password here. And then they went and scraped your Gmail contacts and built your graph.”
Topic
Meta
157 facts from 57 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2004
Benchmark was conflicted out of investing in Facebook's Series A because it had already invested in Friendster.
“Benchmark had invested in Friendster. And so was conflicted out.”
2004
Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com on the evening of February 4, 2004, as students returned to Harvard after final exams.
“So on the evening of February 4th, 2004, after final exams, right when students are coming back, getting into the mode for the new semester”
2004
About 650 people joined thefacebook.com within its first 24 hours at Harvard.
“Within the first 24 hours, 650 people join. There's only 2,000 people in a class at Harvard.”
2005
Accel led Facebook's Series A of $12.7 million at a $98 million post-money valuation in spring 2005.
“Excel comes in, leads to Series A, $12.7 million at a $98 million post-money valuation.”
2005
Facebook earned about $9 million in revenue in 2005.
“Facebook had made $9 million in revenue in 2005 when they were selling themselves.”
2006
Facebook built the first version of News Feed in 2006, when social networks were mostly profile pages.
“in 2006 when we built the first version of News Feed, right, the, like, before that, social networks were basically profiles.”
2006
In 2006 Yahoo offered about $1 billion for Facebook and Zuckerberg's management team wanted to sell.
“in 2006, Yahoo wanted to buy the company for a billion dollars, and everyone on our management team wanted to sell it.”
2006
Zuckerberg says he set up Facebook's governance structure after the Yahoo episode to make it harder to remove him.
“I don't want to get fired from my own company for wanting to build it. So let's try to set up a governance structure that makes it somewhat harder to do that.”
2006
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook built the first version of News Feed in 2006, when social networks were mostly profiles.
“in 2006, when we built the first version of News Feed”
2006
Mark Zuckerberg says Yahoo offered to buy Facebook for a billion dollars in 2006, and his management team wanted to sell.
“in 2006, Yahoo wanted to buy the company for a billion dollars and everyone on our management team wanted to sell it.”
2006
Viacom offered $750 million to buy Facebook in the summer of 2006.
“Viacom, which owned MTV, thought that that was worth $750 million, which is what they offered to buy the company for in the summer of 2006.”
2006
After Yahoo and Facebook shook hands on a roughly $1 billion all-stock deal, Yahoo reported a bad quarter and its stock fell 20%, cutting the deal's value.
“Yahoo announces their quarterly earnings, and they have a bad quarter, and the stock drops 20%.”
2006
Facebook's revenue rose to $48 million in 2006, helped by its display-ad partnership with Microsoft.
“In 2006, with this Microsoft partnership, that jumps to $48 million.”
2006
Facebook launched News Feed to all users on September 5, 2006.
“So by September 5th, 2006, just in time for the new school year, they launch it.”
2007
In October 2007 Microsoft invested $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook, valuing it at about $15 billion, and gained rights to sell its international banner ads.
“in October 2007, Microsoft invests $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook.”
2007
Facebook held its first developer conference, F8, on May 24, 2007, to launch the Facebook developer platform.
“So May 24th, 2007, Facebook holds its first developer conference to launch their developer platform, F8”
2007
In October 2007, Microsoft agreed to invest $240 million in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation and became exclusive third-party display-ad network.
“the big kicker, Microsoft is going to invest $240 million in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation.”
2008
Both Brian Acton and Jan Koum were rejected when they applied for jobs at Facebook around 2008, and Acton tweeted about it.
“And they are both rejected for jobs at Facebook. Brian even tweets about it.”
2008
Facebook tried to buy Twitter for about $500 million in an early acquisition attempt, years before Twitter had revenue.
“The first, I think, was before you joined when Facebook tried to buy Twitter for 500 million. This was years before any revenue.”
2008
Marc Andreessen joined the boards of Facebook and eBay in 2008.
“is why Andreessen ends up joining the Facebook board in 2008, as well as the eBay board in 2008.”
2009
Bret Taylor was an early Google engineer who founded the social network Friendfeed, sold it to Facebook in 2009, and then served as Facebook's CTO.
“He was an early engineer at Google before starting Friendfeed, a social network he sold to Facebook in 2009, where he then served as CTO.”
2010
Costolo says Facebook's ads at the time were AdSense-style sidebar ads on Facebook.com rather than in the news feed.
“Facebook's ads were in the like AdSense ads, they were off to the side on Facebook.com.”
mid-2010s
Choudary says Facebook, Instagram and YouTube were seen as social networking winners in the mid-2010s, all built on the social graph.
“Facebook, Instagram, YouTube were declared as the winners of social networking, and all of them were structured on a s on a simple logic of the social graph.”
2010
CJ Desai cites Meta's pivot toward mobile in early 2010 as an example of a company moving fast on a platform shift.
“Back in, uh, early 2010, when Meta made the pivot towards, uh, mobile, are you pivoting fast?”
2011
In early 2011 Andreessen Horowitz bought an estimated $80 million or more of pre-IPO secondary shares in companies like Facebook, Twitter and Groupon.
“they deploy what was I think like over 80 million dollars into buying pre IPO secondaries in these companies.”
2012
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion.
“In 2012, they bought it for a billion dollars.”
2012
The hosts calculated an 88% annualized return on Facebook's Instagram acquisition, the highest on their list.
“That puts it at an 88% annualized return for Facebook. Yeah.”
2012
David Rosenthal says Facebook initially encouraged social commerce apps around its IPO, then cut off their feed distribution.
“What happened was Facebook saw this going on right around the IPO. They wanted to goose commerce happening on the platform leading up to the IPO.”
2012
Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars in April 2012, shortly after Instagram turned down Twitter's offer.
“hey, Instagram just sold to Facebook for a billion dollars. And I remember thinking like, oh, man, that's rough for us.”
2012
Brad Gerstner said Facebook became Altimeter's largest investment in 2012, when its stock traded around $17 a share after its IPO.
“I remember Facebook became our largest investment in 2012 when it went on the cover of Barron's at $17 a share post-IPO.”
2012
Daniel Ek believes that at Facebook's IPO the hardware cost to onboard each user was about a dollar, and says it would likely be far higher for a social network today.
“I believe at the time of Facebook's IPO, it was something like the cost for Facebook to onboard a user was like a dollar a user or something like that in like hardware cost”
2012
Facebook's early mobile strategy used a native shell containing a web-based HTML5 platform so one codebase could update apps across phones.
“you basically build a native shell and you build this web-based platform in it.”
2012
Facebook paused feature development for roughly a year to rewrite its mobile apps natively.
“we're going to pause feature development of the company because it's hard enough to do a rewrite.”
2012
A host says Facebook's roughly $100 billion IPO valuation in May 2012 fell by about 50% over the following months.
“what happened to IPO at $100 billion market cap over the next three months? You have a 50% drawdown.”
2012
Zuckerberg says the in-feed ad format had not yet been invented when Facebook faced the shift to mobile.
“Like, let's be clear, the feed ad had not been invented yet.”
2012
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook's early mobile strategy used a native shell wrapped around a web-based HTML5 platform so one version could ship across phones.
“So you basically build a native shell, and you build this web-based platform in it”
2012
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook paused feature development for about a year to rewrite its mobile apps natively around its 2012 IPO.
“we're going to pause feature development of the company because it's hard enough to do a rewrite”
2012
Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion on April 9, 2012, during its IPO quiet period.
“on April 9th, 2012, during the quiet period, Facebook acquires Instagram for a billion dollars.”
2012
Facebook priced its IPO at $38 a share on May 17, 2012, the top of its range, raising $16 billion at a $104 billion market cap.
“Thursday night, they priced the IPO at $38 a share at the very top end of the range after the roadshow.”
2012
Facebook's stock bottomed at $17.68 on September 4, 2012, down 53.5% from its IPO price.
“ultimately bottoms out on September 4, 2012 at $17.68, down 53.5% from the IPO price.”
2013
In Q4 2013, Facebook reported that mobile advertising was 53% of revenue and total ad revenue grew 76% year over year.
“Facebook announces that mobile advertising is now 53% of revenue and total ad revenue for the company grew 76% year over year in the fourth quarter”
2013
Facebook acquired the Israeli company Onavo in 2013, which gave it visibility into app usage on mobile phones.
“in 2013, Facebook acquired a small Israeli company called Onavo.”
2014
The acquisition documents reportedly included a clause giving Jan Koum and Brian Acton full vesting acceleration of their stock grants if Facebook introduced advertising on WhatsApp.
“if Facebook ever implements advertising on WhatsApp, that the two of them”
2014
Facebook announced the WhatsApp deal at $19 billion, which rose to about $22 billion by closing because Facebook's stock price increased.
“$19 billion total consideration. By the time the deal actually closed, Facebook stock had run up and it was $22 billion in total value.”
2014
Of the WhatsApp purchase price, about $4.5 billion was cash and close to $14 billion was Facebook stock.
“Four and a half billion of that is in cash. Close to 14 billion of that is stock, Facebook stock consideration for WhatsApp.”
2014
Facebook's accounting for the WhatsApp purchase allocated about $2 billion to users, half a billion to trade names, a third of a billion to technology and $15.3 billion to goodwill.
“$2 billion was for the users that they acquired. Half a billion dollars for trade names.”
2014
Harari says that around 2014 the managers of Facebook and YouTube told their algorithms to increase user engagement.
“the managers of Facebook and YouTube, they told their algorithms. Your goal is to increase user engagement”
2014
Meta began its Reality Labs work in 2014 and its FAIR fundamental AI research effort around 2012 to 2013.
“So the Reality Lab stuff that we started in 2014, really. The FAIR stuff around, you know, fundamental AI research.”
2014
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's Reality Labs work began around 2014, alongside its FAIR fundamental AI research group, which started around 2012 to 2013.
“the Reality Lab stuff that we started in 2014, really, the FAIR stuff around, you know, fundamental AI research”
2014
Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus 34 days after agreeing to pay $19 billion for WhatsApp in early 2014.
“they had so much conviction that the future was AR and VR that 34 days later, they paid another $2 billion for Oculus.”
2015
Facebook had just started Facebook AI Research with Yann LeCun joining, when Raghu began working with Google Brain.
“Facebook had just started the the Facebook AI research effort with with Yann LeCun joining them, and and that was that was basically it.”
2016
Zuckerberg says public sentiment toward Facebook turned persistently negative after the 2016 election.
“after 2016, after the election, basically there was not a month for a while where the sentiment about the company was positive.”
2016
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's political miscalculation beginning in 2016 was a 20-year mistake, longer than the year-and-a-half IPO-era mobile stumble.
“the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake.”
2016
In 2016 Alex Hardiman joined Meta to lead a team helping micro sellers in low-bandwidth parts of India get online and transact through social commerce.
“It was 2016, and I decided to go to Meta to lead a team where we were helping micro sellers in low bandwidth parts of India come online for the first time and transact using social commerce”
2016
Alex Hardiman says that at Meta after the 2016 election she worked on ranking accurate information, which Facebook's News Feed was not designed to do.
“How do we classify and algorithmically rank accurate, high-quality information? That's just not what News Feed was meant to do.”
2017
One host calculated that the roughly $1 billion price for Musical.ly equaled about $10 per monthly active user, versus about $25 to $30 per US user that Facebook earns per year.
“But when you think about it, it's only $10 per monthly active user.”
2017
In May 2017 the European Commission fined Facebook over 100 million euros for providing misleading information during its review of the WhatsApp acquisition.
“In May of 2017, the European Commission fines Facebook over 100 million euros for misleading it during the antitrust process during the buyout of WhatsApp”
2017
Joelle Pineau moved from academic AI research to industry in 2017, saying the kinds of research questions available were already diverging.
“I decided to make the jump in in 2017 because already we were seeing a divergence in terms of the type of research questions that you could take on.”
2018
Jan Koum announced in April 2018 that he was leaving WhatsApp and Facebook, forgoing about $400 million in unvested stock.
“April, the next month, Jan announces on Facebook that he is also going to leave WhatsApp and Facebook. He leaves about $400 million on the table.”
2018
The UK government report on Cambridge Analytica found a quiz taken by 320,000 people exposed public profile data of 87 million Facebook users, according to the hosts.
“the quiz was taken by 320,000 people. Since those people had access to friends, the total surface area was the public profile data of 87 million Facebook users.”
2018
After its July 2018 earnings call, Facebook's stock fell 19% in one day, erasing $119 billion in market value, then the largest one-day loss in history.
“They dropped 19% in one day. They wiped out $119 billion in market value”
2018
Data from up to 87 million Facebook profiles was improperly obtained and given to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
“The data of up to 87 million Facebook profiles was improperly obtained and handed over to Cambridge Analytica.”
2019
In early November 2019 Facebook and Instagram began testing Reels, a TikTok competitor inside Instagram, in Brazil.
“Facebook and Instagram launched a test of a new feature in Brazil, in the Brazilian market that they're calling reels”
2019
Facebook's settlement with the FTC was $5 billion and came with a 20-year monitoring window.
“the number is $5 billion. And David, there is one thing that it comes with, and that is a 20 year window that they are monitoring Facebook.”
2020
At the time of recording, Ben Gilbert cited 1.5 billion monthly active users for WhatsApp, making it the largest messaging network, versus 2.4 billion for Facebook and 2 billion for YouTube.
“Facebook has 2.4 billion MAUs. YouTube has 2 billion. WhatsApp has one and a half, making it the largest messaging network.”
2020
The hosts estimated that about $20 billion of Facebook's roughly $70 billion in revenue came from Instagram in early 2020.
“So Facebook's current market cap, around $540 billion. They do about $70 billion in revenue. So 20 of this 70 comes from Instagram.”
2020
Steven Bartlett says Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story after an FBI warning of possible Russian interference, and that the story later proved real.
“Facebook deprioritized it, stopped it going viral and suppressed it. Turns out it was a real story and it wasn't fake.”
2021
Zuckerberg says he chose the Meta name as a brand evoking the future Meta is building, not as a way to run away from Facebook's reputation.
“But I'm only going to do this when we come up with a brand that is going to be evocative of the future that we're trying to build, because we run towards something.”
2022
Ben Thompson says Apple's privacy changes structurally damaged Meta's advertising business and justified a lower valuation.
“the Apple changes were very devastating and they're structurally devastating and so they deserve a significant haircut on their valuation”
2022
Ben Thompson notes that Meta laid off 11,000 people, which he says only returns the company to its headcount from about nine months earlier.
“they laid off 11,000 people which only brings them back like nine months”
2022
Meta shipped the Quest Pro headset the year before Quest 3 was announced, at a much higher price than Quest 3.
“obviously we shipped Quest Pro um last year, but it was one 500, um.”
2022
Zuckerberg says Meta lost around 80% of its market value when its AI and Reality Labs investments coincided with a recession.
“losing half of your market cap is quaint compared to losing 80% of your market cap or whatever it was.”
2022
In February 2022, Meta lost about $232 billion in market cap in a single day, a record at the time, after warning of Apple's App Tracking Transparency impact.
“The actual number is they lost $232 billion in market cap, the new largest in history, surpassing their previous record.”
2023
Meta's Codec Avatars research project builds a computer model of a person's face and body from scans taken in many expressions.
“And we've built a computer model of sort of each of our faces and and bodies, and, um, the different expressions that we make.”
2023
Mark Zuckerberg says Codec Avatars are more bandwidth efficient than transmitting full video because the headset sends only an encoded version of the user's expression.
“it's also actually much more bandwidth efficient than transmitting a a full video, or especially a 3D immersive video of of a whole scene like this.”
2023
Meta is working on a phone-based scan that would take two to three minutes and produce avatars of similar quality to the current detailed scans.
“But overall, have the whole process just be two to 3 min and then produce something that's of the quality of what we have right now.”
2023
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta has received feedback that cartoon-style avatars in Workrooms feel less realistic to some users in meetings.
“people have a hard time with the fact that the avatars are so expressive and and and don't feel, you know, as as realistic in that environment”
2023
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's hand tracking progressed faster than he expected, and Meta built a piano-learning demo that uses it.
“We've been able to get way further on hand recognition in a shorter period of time than I expected”
2023
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta memorializes accounts of deceased users for families but does not give families access to private messages.
“Like, we're not gonna give the family access to someone's messages, you know, for example.”
2023
Meta is building a plain assistant called Meta AI that can be used in any chat thread and has no avatar face.
“It's called just Meta AI. It's simple, it, you know, you can chat with it in any of your threads. Um, it doesn't have a face, right?”
2023
Meta created an AI dungeon master character embodied by Snoop Dogg as part of its early AI personas.
“Snoop Dogg is the dungeon master, which I think is just hilarious.”
2023
Meta made AI characters based on Jane Austen and Marcus Aurelius for its initial AI launch.
“we made, we made one of Jane Austen and and one of, uh, Marcus Aurelius”
2023
Meta is developing AI Studio, a platform intended to let anyone create AI characters like other user-generated content.
“we're also working on this platform that we call AI Studio. That's gonna make it so that, you know, over time, anyone will be able to create, you know, one of these AIs”
2023
Mark Zuckerberg describes Llama 2 as infrastructure for building products rather than a consumer product itself.
“Cause Llama two, by itself, it's not a consumer product, right? It's more of a piece of infrastructure that people could could build things with.”
2023
Meta Platforms reported 2023 revenue of $135 billion and operating income of $47 billion.
“Their revenue in 2023 at the end of the year was $135 billion, operating income of $47 billion.”
2024
Clara Shih expects consolidation among foundation model startups, arguing Meta's open-sourcing of strong models added pressure on closed-model companies.
“I think it maybe made more sense before before Meta really lit a fire in the industry by open sourcing such a such a good set of models.”
2024
AWS made Meta's Llama 3.1 available on Bedrock on the day it launched, and Garman describes a tight partnership with Meta.
“we just launched, uh, Llama 3.1, uh, on the day it launched, and we have a really tight partnership with Meta”
2024
Steven Bartlett says Mark Zuckerberg published a letter regretting his cooperation with the FBI and government when they asked him to censor content on Facebook.
“with the FBI, the government, when they asked him to censor things on Facebook”
2024
Meta's family of apps is used by roughly 3.3 billion people daily, according to the discussion.
“More than 3 billion people use them on a, you know, near daily basis. Right? It's like 3.3 billion on a daily basis.”
2024
Zuckerberg says Meta has four apps with at least a billion users each, with Threads possibly becoming a fifth.
“now we have like four apps that have a billion people or more using them”
2024
Meta Platforms had about 4 billion monthly active users and over 3 billion daily active users across its apps at the time of recording.
“Meta has 4 billion monthly active users. And daily active users are over 3 billion.”
2024
The hosts say a Meta executive's enthusiasm for their Nintendo episode led to Mark Zuckerberg joining their live Chase Center show.
“Without the Nintendo episode, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't join us in Chase Center.”
2025
Daniel Whitenack says one of Apple's top AI researchers, Ruoming Pang, was hired away by Meta in July.
“Apple's kind one of Apple's top AI folks, Roaming Pang, was poached by Meta.”
2025
Daniel Whitenack says articles reported a total compensation package of around 200 million dollars over several years for the Apple researcher hired by Meta.
“sort of total compensation package over x number of years of like 200 million or something.”
2025
Chris Benson says Meta has recently hired people from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Apple.
“Meta, in particular, has been known the last, you know, couple of months. Uh, for pulling people from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Apple, now”
2025
Chris Benson says Meta is gambling heavily on assembling a superstar AI team that outpaces the market.
“they're gambling a lot of, a lot of money that they're going to be able to put together a superstar team that will outpace the market.”
2025
Dohmke says top AI engineers, including the Windsurf team and people courted by Meta, receive offers comparable to professional basketball players' contracts.
“get offers that match professional basketball players. Some of them even have agents helping them to land a new contract”
2025
Host Rana says Meta canceled its fact-checking program at the beginning of 2025.
“So at the beginning of 2025, Meta canceled its fact checking program.”
2025
Tim Crawford observed that OpenAI, Oracle and Meta are pushing toward ever larger AI models, and he expects enterprises to shift toward smaller, more specific models.
“it's kind of crazy when you look at the whole OpenAI, Oracle, Meta, and they're just driving toward bigger, bigger, bigger.”
2025
Nilay Patel read a 2025 remark from Mark Zuckerberg to Ben Thompson that businesses would soon tell Meta their goals and get results without making creative or targeting choices.
“you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account. You don't need any creative, you don't need any targeting, you don't need any measurement.”
2026
Nilay Patel said Meta announced that one manager would oversee fifty individual contributors.
“think Meta announced that, like, one manager will now oversee fifty ICS”
2026
Chris Benson says Meta has moved to entirely closed models, and that it had been the leader of the US open-model contingent.
“meta, you know, with meta walking away, they're, they're now going entirely closed, and that was kind of leading the US. contingent.”
2026
Woodson Martin says he recalls Microsoft, Meta and Uber announcing a pullback from AI-first-for-everything strategies.
“I think Microsoft, Meta, Uber, like all these companies who were like, wow, maybe we went too far too fast”
2026
The host said that Amazon had banned Meta's new Muse AI agent from shopping on Amazon.
“In the last couple days we've had Amazon ban Meta's new Muse AI from shopping on Amazon”
2026
Stephen Bisaha cited continued large tech-industry investment in artificial intelligence, including data centers, as one reason economists expected higher GDP growth.
“First, there is the continued massive investment from the tech industry into artificial intelligence.”
Undated
The hosts say Facebook failed to buy Snapchat after Mark Zuckerberg offered only about $3 billion.
“And Facebook wasn't able to buy Snapchat. Zach only offered three billion.”
Undated
Leone says Sequoia had a chance to invest in Facebook early at a high price and later missed its multibillion-dollar rounds.
“We had a shot of Facebook early on at a very high price.”
Undated
Courtland Allen's first application to Y Combinator was a Facebook app called Fmail, a Gmail-style email app inside Facebook.
“the very first one was this company called Fmail, which stood for like get this Gmail for Facebook”
Undated
Greylock's David Zhao, a board member of both Digg and Facebook, introduced Kevin Rose to Mark Zuckerberg.
“we had a common investor, Greylock. And David Z, who was at Greylock, who was on our board and also on the board of Facebook, was like, hey, you guys should get together”
Undated
Jason Calacanis says Chamath Palihapitiya built Facebook's growth team and that the idea of growth hacking did not exist as a term before then.
“he built the growth team and he was like i don't there is no equivalent of growth”
Undated
Daniel Ek recalls that Facebook (now Meta) once had over 100,000 content moderators, and uses it to show that moderation adds large variable costs.
“at one point in time Facebook or now Meta had over 100,000 content moderators actually working for them.”
Undated
Mark Zuckerberg says the first version of Facebook was mostly text, with one photo per profile and lists of interests.
“I started working on social networks when they were primarily text, right? The 1st version of Facebook, your profile, you know, you had one photo, and the rest of it was like lists of things that you were interested in.”
Undated
Facebook's first campus was the former Sun Microsystems campus, according to Bret Taylor.
“When Facebook went from having a building in Palo Alto to having a campus, it was Sun Microsystems old campus.”
Undated
Bret Taylor later became Chief Technology Officer at Facebook.
“Later, he'd be named Chief Technology Officer at Facebook and work in another office building with a storied Silicon Valley past.”
Undated
Bret Taylor says Facebook's 'move fast and break things' culture meant giving people permission to iterate and experiment.
“the sort of maligned now move fast and break things, but I actually think at the time, what that really meant was giving people permission to iterate and experiment.”
Undated
Taylor says he struggled to scale his role as Facebook's chief technology officer until Sheryl Sandberg gave him blunt feedback that led him to loosen his sense of professional identity.
“I was struggling a bit as chief technology officer of Facebook, and I was struggling with basically scaling.”
Undated
Meta partnered with EssilorLuxottica, maker of Ray-Ban, to build its smart glasses.
“we're going to work with a great partner, Esselor Luxottica. They make Ray-Ban.”
Undated
Mark Zuckerberg says he asked Meta's glasses team to make Meta AI the primary feature of the Ray-Ban glasses after shipping them.
“I think we should probably pivot this and make it so that meta AI is the primary feature of it.”
Undated
Zuckerberg says Meta had been working on its holographic AR glasses project for about 10 years.
“This is, like, some huge project. We've been working on it for 10 years.”
Undated
Zuckerberg started Facebook at school and moved to Silicon Valley with Dustin and a few others.
“I started Facebook in school, came out to Silicon Valley with Dustin and a handful of people working on it at the time”
Undated
By open-sourcing its data center designs through Open Compute, Meta helped standardize the supply chain, making hardware cheaper to produce.
“because of that, the supply chain is standardized around our designs, which means that it's like way more supply, way cheaper to produce.”
Undated
Zuckerberg estimates Meta might be about twice as profitable if it owned the computing platforms its apps run on.
“I think we might be, like, twice as profitable if we own the platform or something.”
Undated
Zuckerberg says he expects Apple to be Meta's primary competitor in the next platform generation.
“Now, there are advantages of doing a closed and integrated model. I think Apple will have a place for sure. I expect them to be our primary competitor.”
Undated
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta partnered with EssilorLuxottica, the maker of Ray-Ban, to put technology into everyday glasses.
“we're going to work with a great partner, Esselor Luxottica. They make Ray-Ban.”
Undated
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's open-sourcing of its hardware designs through Open Compute made them an industry standard, which he says saved the company billions of dollars.
“what we were able to do with things like open compute were get it to become the industry standard.”
Undated
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta may be roughly twice as profitable if it owned its platform rather than paying the costs of Apple and Google's mobile platform rules.
“I think we might be like twice as profitable if we own the platform or something.”
Undated
Meta's apps are used by about 3.3 billion people daily, according to a figure stated during Zuckerberg's segment.
“It's like, it's like 3.3 billion on a daily basis.”
Undated
Rabinovich estimates that Magic Leap, Microsoft, Meta and Apple have collectively spent close to $100 billion on mixed reality.
“Cumulatively to date, between Magic Leap and Microsoft and Meta and Apple, I think we're getting close to $100 billion”
Undated
Lütke said he uses Meta Ray-Ban glasses for conversations with AI.
“I have conversations with my Meta Ray bands right now.”
Undated
Lütke credited Meta's open-source AI models as an island-enabling gift, and said Anthropic's models have a different tone from OpenAI's.
“Meta with its open source models and giving us incredible gifts in conformity to the open source ideals”
Undated
The Winklevoss twins settled their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for $65 million, $45 million of it in pre-IPO Facebook stock.
“They settle for $65 million, 45 million of which is paid in pre-IPO Facebook stock.”
Undated
Bret Taylor was chief technology officer at Facebook, co-CEO of Salesforce, and is now chair of OpenAI's board.
“He was also CTO at Facebook, now Meta, co-CEO at Salesforce, and now serves as chairperson at OpenAI”
Undated
Rana El Kaliouby says Bret Taylor started a company that was sold to Facebook and another that was sold to Salesforce, where he became co-CEO.
“You started and sold a company to Facebook, so you spent some time there. You started another company and sold that to Salesforce and became the co-CEO.”
Undated
Joelle Pineau says Meta has a strong culture of open protocols that predates its AI team.
“There's a strong culture towards open protocols at Meta that predates the AI team.”
Undated
Joelle Pineau says Meta does not necessarily open-source its production models because that would expose it to undue attacks.
“We don't necessarily open source the models that are running into production. That would open us up, I think, to undue attacks”
Undated
Joelle Pineau says Meta released successive Llama language models and that each generation improved significantly, partly through community contributions.
“we release Llama one, Llama two, Llama three, and so on. And every generation gets significantly better.”
Undated
After her first stint at The New York Times, Alex Hardiman worked at Meta for several years and then at The Atlantic before returning to the Times.
“Then I left and I went to Meta for several years, then went to the Atlantic and then came back to the New York Times.”
Undated
Asha Sharma was previously chief operating officer at Instacart and vice president of product at Meta, where she ran Messenger, Instagram Direct, Messenger Kids and Remote Presence.
“She was previously COO at Instacart and VP of Product at Meta, where she ran Messenger, Instagram Direct, Messenger Kids and Remote Presence.”
Undated
Gabe Pereyra worked on a large language model team at Meta around the GPT-2 and GPT-3 era before co-founding Harvey.
“when I was working at Meta on their large language model team, this was around GPT two, GPT three, you kind of saw these models getting better.”
Undated
Pereyra worked on large language models at Meta before Harvey.
“I was working on large language models at Meta.”
Undated
Rene Haas says hyperscalers including Google, Microsoft, Meta and AWS are building their own AI chips, with Google's TPUs spanning several generations.
“You'll have hyperscalers doing their own chips, whether that's Google TPUs, and that's gone on for a number of generations, Microsoft, Meta, AWS,”
Undated
Joelle Pineau says the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team she led at Meta grew from about 100 people to roughly 600.
“the fundamental AI research team I was leading grew, you know, from maybe a hundred people to to 600 people or so.”
Undated
Reid Hoffman says early doubters of Facebook argued its users were college students with no money.
“In the Facebook case, people said, Oh, yeah, there's a lot of activity, but it's all college students, um, and they don't have any money”
Undated
Neeley says Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix have deployed specific AI at scale for roughly fifteen to twenty years.
“Many of the companies in the 2,000 s, like Meta, used to be Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix. They've been deploying specific AI at scale in the last fifteen, twenty years.”
Undated
Chris Benson says Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, long championed open-source models in Western countries.
“Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, has long, uh, at least within Western countries, uh, the United States, long been the kind of the champion of open source models.”
Undated
Yann LeCun, described as one of the three godfathers of AI, spent about a decade at Meta doing research.
“Yann LeCun, who is famously one of the three godfathers of AI, um, and a and a major, uh, luminary in the field, uh, had spent a decade at Meta doing research.”
Undated
Yann LeCun left Meta, followed by significant changes in Meta's approach to AI.
“Yann LeCun left Meta and and a lot of change ensued in terms of how Meta was approaching AI.”
Undated
Chris Benson says Meta has turned to a closed-source model family called Muse Spark, where its future effort will go.
“they have turned to a closed source model family. Now it's called Muse Spark, and that's where all of their effort will be going forward.”
Undated
Cory Hymel cited a roughly $2 billion Windsurf deal for its top 20 engineers, and Meta paying an AI engineer $3 million a year, as examples of the AI talent war.
“Meta or Google buying Windsurf for 2 billion, only to get their top 20 engineers, or Meta paying AI engineer $3 million a year to come in”
Undated
Cory Hymel said Meta bought Scale mainly to get its CEO and a small group of top AI engineers.
“or them purchasing scale just to get the CEO and his, you know, little band of top”
Undated
Nilay Patel said there are reports that Mark Zuckerberg wants managers at Meta to lead teams of fifty people empowered by AI.
“Mark Zuckerberg, there there are reports that he wants managers to have teams of fifty empowered by AI somewhere inside of Meta.”
Undated
Nilay Patel said Meta's Muse gives each user a cloud computer with eight gigabytes of RAM and storage and a web browser that an AI agent can use.
“and the power of Muse is that Mark Zuckerberg has given everybody eight gigs of RAM and eight gigs of storage in the cloud with a web browser.”
Undated
Tim Cadogan says one-on-one texts to friends and family work better than broadcasting a fundraiser on Facebook or Instagram.
“Because the one on one relationship is so much more powerful than blasting it out on Facebook or Instagram.”
Undated
Schmidt says Mark Zuckerberg spent billions on virtual reality before pivoting to AI, as an example of founder power.
“Let's use Mark Zuckerberg, who clearly controls his company. Um, he decided one day to work on virtual reality. He spent billions of dollars largely, which didn't work very well, and then he pivoted to AI”
Undated
Jamie said the Cambridge Analytica scandal resulted in a $5 billion fine against Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
“Cambridge Analytica resulted in 5 billion dollar fine to Meta/Facebook.”
Undated
Jamie said Meta had just received a $25 billion penalty from a New Mexico state court.
“Uh, just this week, they got 25 billion dollar penalty from a New Mexico state court.”
Episodes
- 15 Dec 202510 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)2h 47m
- 28 Oct 2024Meta6h 18m
- 30 Sep 2024Acquired LIVE from Chase Center (with Daniel Ek, Emily Chang, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg)2h 25m
- 18 Sep 2024The Mark Zuckerberg Interview1h 29m
- 22 Jul 2024Microsoft Volume II4h 49m
- 18 May 2023Spotify CEO Daniel Ek1h 39m
- 6 Dec 2022Stratechery (with Ben Thompson)1h 55m
- 4 Oct 2022ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis2h 19m
- 28 Sep 2022Benchmark Part I3h 44m
- 15 Mar 2022Altimeter (with Brad Gerstner)1h 53m
- 30 Aug 2021Kevin Rose from Web 2.0 to Web31h 40m
- 10 Aug 2021Andreessen Horowitz Part II2h 55m
- 27 Jul 2021Andreessen Horowitz Part I2h 6m
- 17 Dec 2020Special: Acquired x Indie Hackers1h 51m
- 28 Oct 2020Twitter (with Dick Costolo)1h 25m
- 16 Jul 2020Pinduoduo1h 55m
- 17 Mar 2020The Top 10 Acquisitions of All-Time1h 51m
- 18 Feb 2020Sequoia Capital Part II (with Doug Leone)1h 8m
- 29 Jan 2020WhatsApp1h 52m
- 9 Dec 2019TikTok1h 43m
- 5 Sep 2024Yuval Noah Harari: This Election Will Tear The Country Apart! AI Will Control You By 2034! The Dark Truth Behind Meta & X!2h 1m
- 28 Sep 2023#398 – Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse1h 12m
- 23 Oct 2026#2570 - Mystery Boys2h 46m
- 29 Oct 2026Midterm Spending Blitz, GDP & Inflations Reports, Israel Election Deadlock & Iran War15m
- 29 Sep 2026AI for Process, People for Heart: GoFundMe’s Tim Cadogan25m
- 17 Dec 2024Collective Learning With Generative AI27m
- 15 Oct 2024Never Too Much AI: Upwork's Andrew Rabinovich33m
- 17 Nov 2025Why Your AI Strategy Is Failing: Fortune 500 CEO Advisor Explains | CXOTalk #90058m
- 21 Oct 2025CIO Advice on AI: How Chief Information Officers Can Lead in 2025 | CXOTalk #89852m
- 19 Mar 2026Strategy Summit 2026: Why AI Means Radical Change30m
- 28 Sep 2026The SaaSpocalypse that wasn't, with Atlassian's CEO1h 22m
- 20 Apr 2026Canva's CEO on its big pivot to AI enterprise software1h 12m
- 30 Mar 2026Okta's CEO is betting big on AI agent identity1h 13m
- 11 Sep 2025Sierra CEO Bret Taylor on why the AI bubble feels like the dotcom boom55m
- 7 Aug 2025GitHub's CEO says AI coding is ‘here to stay’58m
- 21 Oct 2026Eric Schmidt: The Age of Agents, Superintelligence, and Why Europe Is Falling Behind43m
- 25 Feb 2026Reid Hoffman: Shaping the AI Era, Investing in Transformation and Calling on Europe55m
- 1 Apr 2026How AI is reshaping Wall Street37m
- 11 Feb 2026The “ChatGPT moment” for agentic AI39m
- 17 Dec 2025‘Like Disneyland when it just opened’: Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI revolution24m
- 1 Oct 2025How Harvey is reinventing legal work with AI36m
- 27 Aug 2025Inside how The New York Times leverages AI40m
- 20 Nov 2024How agentic AI will save customer service, with Bret Taylor38m
- 22 Jan 2026No Priors Live: Building Durable Software in the AI Age with MongoDB President & CEO CJ Desai36m
- 5 Dec 2025Scaling Legal AI and Building Next-Generation Law Firms with Harvey Co-Founder and President Gabe Pereyra44m
- 29 Aug 2024Cloud Strategy in the AI Era with Matt Garman, CEO of AWS42m
- 22 Oct 2024Tobi Lütke - Building Islands of Innovation - [Invest Like the Best, EP.394]1h 7m
- 3 Sep 2024Bret Taylor - The Agent Era - [Invest Like the Best, EP.386]1h 28m
- 8 Aug 2024OpenAI’s Bret Taylor: Your business can’t wait until AI is perfect39m
- 28 Aug 2025How 80,000 companies build with AI: products as organisms, the death of org charts, and why agents will outnumber employees by 2026 | Asha Sharma (CVP of AI Platform at Microsoft)57m
- 14 Mar 2024Transforming Data into Business Solutions with Salesforce AI CEO, Clara Shih58m
- 27 Aug 2026Closing the Skills Intelligence Gap in the AI Era - with Cory Hymel of Andela26m
- 14 Oct 2026Governing AI Agents: Alan Chan of GovAI on Monitoring, Agent IDs, Rogue Agents & Preparing for RSI2h 17m
- 7 Oct 2026Software That Never Breaks: OutSystems CEO Woodson Martin on Building Enterprise-Grade Apps at ...1h 10m
- 4 Jun 2026Breaking down the 2026 Stanford AI Index Report47m
- 7 May 2026The Myth of Model Wars: Open vs Closed AI in 202642m
- 1 Aug 2025Workforce dynamics in an AI-assisted world44m