Clint Betts: So first, one and honor
to have you here at Silicon slopes tech
summit in Utah.
Um, it means a lot to have you here,
so thank you so much for being here.
Mark Zuckerberg: Excited to be here.
Love Utah.
I'm glad we were just building a big
data center here up in Eagle rock.
I'm really excited about that.
It's um, so it's like a
billion dollar project.
It's Eagle
Clint Betts: mountain, but, um,
Mark Zuckerberg: that,
Clint Betts: that's why I just want you
to know that's why you got that response.
So you go,
Mark Zuckerberg: rock is in Tahoe.
Eagle rock is awesome.
My bad.
All right.
Eagle rock might be up to a great start.
Right?
Clint Betts: So recently you shared in a
press conference that one of Facebook's
focuses for the next decade is that
it is more important to be understood.
Then be liked.
We just share what you meant by that.
Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah, I mean,
look, it's
the real here.
I'm not, I'm not like
communicating is not my best thing.
Right.
Um, you know, I, I came out here, been
planning for this, I'm excited about it,
and I messed up the name of our
data center within 30 seconds.
So, I mean, look, when, when I got
started with Facebook, I was 19.
And, um, and I, there were so many parts
about building a company that I didn't
know, right.
I didn't, I didn't know anything about
hiring or managing or building a company.
And I certainly didn't really know that
much about, you know, how to communicate
about what we were doing with the world.
I mean, I'm a, I'm an
engineer by training, right?
I, I, I, I love coding.
I like building products.
That's, that's kind of the background.
Um, and, uh, you know, my experience, you
know, kind of growing up and running the
company is.
Know, we went out and talked about what
we did say, some stupid things, get called
out for it and get like kind of
going Jewish in into a shell.
Right.
And, and, and, uh, ended up being really
cautious about how we communicate.
So, you know, it kind of, it worked out
okay for a while for the company because
we, we built products that
a lot of people really like.
And then we weren't winning
because we were communicating well.
We were winning because
the products working well.
I think in spite of the fact that we were
communicating quite poorly about what we
were doing, but broadly speaking for a
long time, uh, the basic approach was,
okay, let's try to not like do anything
that's going to be too offensive.
Right?
And, and we'll kind of explain what we're
doing and broad strokes and talk about the
mission of what we're doing, which is
something that I really believe in helping
to build community and bring
people closer together.
But you know, I think we just shied away
for a long time talking about some of the
things that, um, some of the principles
that we believe in that, that, um, that
are increasingly
controversial in the world.
And I just think that we, for one, don't
have that luxury anymore, um, for, to, uh,
I think that that kind of led for a while
to a sentiment towards the company that
was positive, but fairly shallow.
Because if people, if you're not kind
of out there standing for things that.
Uh, that people care about, then, you
know, it's not possible for people to feel
that strongly about what you're doing.
But, so now, you know, I, I've just, I've
tried to change our approach more recently
and I went out and I enjoy town.
Last year I gave this speech around
our principles around free expression.
And, you know, that's just one of the
areas that I really feel like is under
attack right now.
Um, you know, increasingly, uh, you know,
we're getting called to censor a lot of
different kinds of content that.
Makes me really uncomfortable.
I think that it kind of feels like the
list of things they are not allowed to say
socially keeps on growing.
And, um, and, and I'm not
really okay with that.
I mean, clearly there, there are
definitely a lot of bad things that we
need to go do our job and, and help get
rid of terrorism, child exploitation,
incitement to violence, things that are
going to cause imminent physical harm.
And we invest a ton in this.
So when we have 35,000 people, uh, working
on content and safety, our, our budget on
safety at this point.
Bigger than the whole revenue of our
company was when we went public in 2012
and we're a pretty big company where
there were like a billion people using our
services.
Um, so we're, we're focusing a lot on
that, but at some point I just felt like,
all right, we've got to stand up and
say, no, we're going to stand for free
expression.
And yeah, we'll, we're going to take down
the content that's really harmful, but the
line needs to be held at some point.
And, and I think that this, this is just
an, I think it's unfortunate that this is
such a controversial thing, you know, when
we're not, when I got started in 2004, it
wasn't, um, you know, it wasn't a, uh, a
thing that, that, that people were pushing
back on that much.
And, um, you know, I think that there
probably are a lot of people who agree
with the principles on this and, and, and
want companies to take more of a stand and
make that case.
And that's just one example.
There are a number of other things.
You know, fighting for encryption.
I think that that's a
really important thing.
Um, you know, a lot of people out there
now were saying that, um, tools for
privacy are only important
to help bad guys.
I don't believe that.
I think everyone, you know,
this should be the norm.
I think everyone should have these tools.
Um, so this is going to be, this is,
I guess the new, um, this is the new
approach and I think it's going
to piss off a lot of people too.
But, um, but, you know, frankly, the, the
old approaches pissing off a lot of people
too.
So, um, so let's, let's
try something different.
Clint Betts: So there is a lot
of talk that, yeah, please.
there is a lot of talk that social media
leads to, you know, enhanced polarization
in the world.
How do you respond to that?
Mark Zuckerberg: Well, I think
you've got to look at the data.
So first of all, this is
something that I care a lot about.
The mission of the company, like I just
said, is to help people build community
and bring the world closer together.
So.
And the last thing I want is for, for our
products to be used to divide people or,
or, or kinda rip society
apart in any kind of way.
Um, and I think that this is going
to be studied for a long time.
Uh, both how we can develop the products
to most effectively help people, uh, be
open to hearing each other's story and,
and, and, and helping people come together
in ways like that.
Um, that's a lot of what we care about.
And I think that we can continue to
improve what we do to make it positive and
more positive over time.
But, you know, some of the research is now
coming in on this and it goes against the
narrative that, that I think a lot of
people have this mainstream narrative.
There's this study, um, this guy against
cow, um, out of Stanford just released
this, this long study that he, that he,
that he had on, um, polarization effects,
uh, across many different
countries around the world.
And the finding is that while, um,
while social media is obviously a global
phenomenon, right?
And it's, it's in pretty much every
country, and we're not, we're not in
China.
We're not in North Korea, but we're pretty
much in every, in every other country.
Um, that polarization is trending in very
different directions and different places.
While it's increasing in the U S um, it is
flat and a lot of Europe is down and a lot
of other countries.
Um, so if, if, if the main thing that
we're driving polarization around the
world.
We're that now you're, you're giving
everyone a voice and that is somehow
having this negative effect, then it
doesn't really make sense that you
wouldn't see that uniformly everywhere.
So that doesn't mean that there aren't
some issues that we need to work with that
we need to work on.
And I'm certainly, I really care about
making sure that we get that right.
But I do think that as the data starts to
come in, it's refuting some of these kind
of mainstream narratives that
weren't grounded in data in the past.
Um, that hopefully people are open minded
and are willing to look at the data and
aren't so wedded to their narratives
about what technology and the internet and
social media and our company
in particular we're doing.
And, um, that they'll, they'll actually
look at what the data says on this.
Clint Betts: As you mentioned,
you're, you're a product guy at heart.
When you look at the next decade, what
product innovations are you most looking
forward to?
What
Mark Zuckerberg: product
trends are you excited about?
So there were three areas that,
that I'm really focused on.
Um, how long do you want
to take on this question?
Clint Betts: So who wants to,
Mark Zuckerberg: let's, um, I'll, I'll
try, I'll try to keep it a little limited
fridge.
All right.
The first big thing is, I kinda think of,
um, you know, in our, in our social lives,
we have, like, we have public spaces like
town squares or public spaces like that.
And we have private spaces like our, our
living rooms or, um, you know, other,
other intimate, other
private or intimate spaces.
And you know, I think digitally we need
both to, and Facebook and Instagram have
kind of evolved to be the digital
equivalents of the town squares where you
can interact with a lot of different
people that you'd like and lots of
different ways, you know, you can stay
connected with your friends and family.
You can.
Form groups and communities, you can date,
you can start businesses, you can host
fundraisers for like , all the different
types of things that you'd want to do.
Um, but when I look at our private social
apps today, there's still pretty much just
texting.
And I think when you fast forward, um,
that's not going to be how it is in the
future.
Um, you know, I think we're going to have
private social platforms, which are as
robust as the digital town square type
social platforms that we have, but for all
the different ways that we want to
interact publicly, small groups, um, you
know, sharing location and private ways,
interacting with businesses one-on-one.
Um, just being able to hang out, right?
I mean, it's some of the stuff around, um,
video chat, just making Nazi feel more and
more present.
Um, you know, I think that this, this push
towards delivering through technology, uh,
this sense of intimacy is, I think going
to be an increasingly important trend over
the next five to 10 years.
I mean, one, one way that I think about
this is that, you know, one of the first
super powers that the internet gave us was
the ability to connect with anyone around
the world.
It's very different from how
a lot of us grew up, right?
It's, I mean, when I grew up, you
know, still long distance calls were
prohibitively expensive to communicate
with anyone outside into my town or city.
No.
Now we have access to everyone
around the world, so that's awesome.
Right now we're, instead of growing up in
a 10,000 person town, we have a community
of billions of people.
We have access to all this great content.
But I think part of that is
a little disorienting too.
And I think that we all kind of want
a, a sense of intimacy and community.
Uh, and I think that a lot of the next set
of trends are going to be around building.
Social products that
help build that as well.
It's not that the, the digital
town squares are going to go away.
I think they'll keep on growing and, and
we'll, there's a lot more to do there as
well, but, but I think that the, the
intimate spaces are going to be really
important.
So that's probably one of the big things
that, that, that, that I'm been a most
excited over the next period.
Um, I mean, there's a lot on commerce
that that's gonna be really exciting about
empowering individuals.
Right?
That's kind of what, what I.
What I think our company is about is
we want to give every person a voice.
We want to empower individuals
on the business side.
The way that we think about what we
do is we serve about 140 million small
businesses.
The vast majority use our products for
free on, I think it's about 8 million
advertise with us.
So the vast majority
are using it for free.
But the way that we kind of think about
what we do is that we want every small
business or individual entrepreneur
to have access to the same kind of
sophisticated tools to reach people.
The historically only the
big guys have had access to.
And I just think that there's so much more
to do on this, some in terms of building
out tools, run commerce.
I'm making it so that people can have
control over their money and assets and
move it around.
I mean, that's a lot of what is
happening in the crypto space.
I think there's a lot of interesting
stuff that can happen there.
Um, and we're, we're, you know, we're
in a lot of countries around the world.
Um.
You know, I kinda think that right now
a lot of the payments infrastructure has
been built up very nationally.
So you look at different countries and
it's all, you know, a lot of it is very
country-specific.
It's very hard to do commerce
or move money across borders.
Um, and I've got back can be a lot easier.
So there's a lot of really
exciting stuff to do there.
Um, do I have time for one more please?
Alright, so probably the thing that I
think is the craziest that, that I think
we're going to get in the next 10 years.
Is real, true, augmented reality, um, and,
and, and kind of a more mainstream virtual
reality.
And the reason why I'm so excited about
this is because, I don't know how many of
you have used virtual reality or any, any
of the, the, um, the quest or the rift or
any of the stuff that
we're, we're building.
Awesome.
Yeah.
It's, um, uh, it's, quest is doing, is
doing quite well, and I'm really excited
about that in the community
that's getting built up around it.
So for those of you who've tried this,
when you, what you know, is that the
experience of virtual reality, what it
really is, is it's delivering a feeling of
presence, or do you feel like you're right
there with another person or in another
place, no matter where you
actually are physically, right?
You could be playing ping pong with
someone halfway across the world.
Um, you know, in the future we could be
doing this interview and this could be
like hologram.
You interviewing me.
I, I really think we're going to, we're
going to get that, and that's going to be
way more powerful than just being old
to make a phone call or a video chat.
Um, and, and when you think about some of
the stuff that, that unlocks, and on the
social side, that's like the Holy grail
of experiences of people connecting stuff
that I've just wanted
to build for 15 years.
But, you know, right now we're kind of in
this box and building stuff on a phone.
Um, instead of, instead of actually
getting to build stuff where people
actually feel present.
Um, but think about it for the economy.
Right?
It's today so much of people's opportunity
is tied to, you know, small number of
cities that they may or
may not want to move to.
And then you do move there.
And then like housing is too expensive and
the infrastructure is too congested, and
it's like not that good.
Um, so why it cannot be the case that
people can access any opportunity that
they want living wherever they want.
Well in a future where you can actually,
um, you know, wear normal looking glasses
and be present anywhere that you want to.
Something like that should
start to be possible.
It shouldn't really matter where you live.
You can live in a place that matches your
values, where your family is, that has the
community that you want and access the
opportunities that you want in other
places.
And I think that that's going to be a
huge thing for economic growth and for
equalizing opportunity, not just across
the country, but around the world.
Um, you know, not to mention it should be
good for the environment cause it's a lot
easier for us to move bits around than it
is for us all to commute and move atoms.
All right.
I'm done.
Clint Betts: That's great.
it actually brings up an interesting
point and something I wanted to ask you.
If you were starting a company today,
would you start it in Silicon Valley?
Mark Zuckerberg: No.
Um, no, it's, it's not, you
Clint Betts: should
move to Eagle mountain.
You could start a company.
Mark Zuckerberg: I actually, I love Utah.
It's, I mean, this is the guy to be like
one of the most beautiful state seven.
It's, I, if I had a free weekend, this is,
anyway, um, now look, Silicon
Valley has a, has a lot of.
There are a lot of great things about it.
And there, there are a lot of things
that, um, that, that are not as good.
But, you know, the reason why I moved
out there when I, when I got started with
Facebook was because when I was, you know,
I was 19, I didn't know anything about
building a company at the time.
A lot of the tools.
For building companies weren't
as built out as they are now.
You know, it's, you know, now, uh, you,
you want to reach people, you know, you
have social media, you want, uh,
you, you need to spin up servers.
You have AWS, right?
I mean, it's, back then it was,
it was a lot more complicated.
Right.
And I mean, I feel like
I'm like an old person.
Back then it was, um, but it's, um,
you know, looking at the, the, uh, the
prospect of having to
build out data centers.
Um, and even leasing, starting off and
racking servers and doing all that stuff.
Um, you know, a lot of the stuff around
raising capital and we were kind of in a
low economically at the time.
It just, it felt like that was really
going to be impossible for someone who had
no idea what they were doing.
And no, no kind of experience.
Doing all that stuff.
And I just think the world
is in a different place now.
I think the infrastructure exists to
be able to do this and more places.
Um, and frankly, I think that there are
a lot of advantages, uh, to building a
company that are not in, um, you know, in
such a monoculture, which, um, which I,
which I think, um, you know, Silicon
Valley is being like an all tech town.
Um, you know, I think it's just, there's.
You know, not as much a diversity of how
people think about things is, is as you'd
like in a lot of ways.
Um, I, I think that there are real
advantages in the infrastructure in
Silicon Valley hasn't caught up.
I mean, housing is way behind
and it's getting more congested.
Uh, I think there were a lot of reasons
why it would be stronger to just start
something in a different
place at this point.
And you know, I like the Bay area, so I'm
not, I'm not like super negative on it,
but I, but I do think on balance, if I
were starting from scratch now, I, I would
not pick the Bay area.
I have to ask
Clint Betts: you this.
Do you feel like you're taking heat
on behalf of the entire internet?
Mark Zuckerberg: That's what leading is.
I, I dunno.
I think we're certainly at the center of a
lot of issues, and when I talked to my, my
peers and folks running other companies,
they certainly feel like they're in
heaven.
They have a lot of incoming as well.
So I'm always very
sensitive on this because.
You know, it always feels very tough.
You know, whatever challenges you're
dealing with, feel very, you know,
they're, they're very personal.
They, you feel that very acutely.
And then other people's challenges,
it's easy to abstract away.
So I always think it's, you need to be
careful about, um, about, about kind of
judging the position that
you're in compared to others.
Um, but objectively, I do think that,
uh, you know, Silicon Valley or the tech
industry and our company in particular
are just at the center of a lot of social
issues.
You know what, I think, I think we have
a responsibility to step up and make
progress on a lot of these things.
There are, there are real questions that
the internet raises, um, you know, around
the democratic process and the integrity
there around free expression versus, um,
safety around privacy and competition
and wellbeing and all these things.
And I just, I mean, we need
to get these right, right.
And, and I think a lot of this, it's not
that any one company can get it right by
themselves.
I think we need.
It needs to be a broader approach, but
it's going to require government as well.
Um, but certainly I feel like we
have a big responsibility in this.
So I, um, you know, I, I just wanna make
sure that we do the best that we can on
this stuff and, and we just take it all
super seriously and weighs on us a lot.
Hmm.
Clint Betts: What are principles
you've lived by as a founder.
Entrepreneur and of those principles,
which ones do you wish you would have
adopted
Mark Zuckerberg: much earlier?
Hm.
So there's a bunch of roles or sharistics
that have developed around hiring, for
example, that, um, I
think had been helpful.
I'm not sure if that's the type of
thing they were asking about, but it's.
Yeah.
I mean, the hardest thing for me early on
was, you know, cause I, I just started off
as I was, I was an engineer or you know,
I wasn't even really an engineer as a
student.
Right.
It's, I thought I was going to be an
engineer when I graduated and , you know,
when you're, when you're building
something yourself, you kind of have all
the meetings in your head, right?
It's like you don't need to
articulate the principles.
So clearly it's like you kind of
can make all the trade offs on.
On everything from architecture to
product, to marketing, to, you know, just
all these things.
And you're, you're kinda just, you
have the context to trade this off.
And I think it's really easy when you,
when you start building something to, um,
to underestimate how much context you need
to put out there and how clear you need to
be about what you're trying to do.
So, you know, most of my mistakes early
on in building the company were about not
being clear enough internally.
About what we were trying to do.
I mean, there's this very famous episode
where we're like in 2006 a couple of years
into building the company, Yahoo tried to
buy us, and so they, they offered a ton of
money and a lot of the people who, who
I'd hired at the point, they were kind of
experienced technology
executives and this was like.
All of their startup
dream come true, right?
They, they joined and then, you know,
within, you know, a year or a few months,
like the, the, the company had the
opportunity to exit for this large amount
of money.
And, you know, I really failed through
that period to communicate what we were
trying to do and what
we, what we stood for.
And in the absence of that, that context.
Then of course it was a rational thing for
people to think that this was like a good
outcome for us to have.
Um, and that was a
really difficult period.
That was actually, you know, the last, the
last few years have been challenging cause
we're w there, there's so many social
issues that were at the center of the weed
to help resolve.
But that was actually the hardest
period for me in running the
Clint Betts: current Liana was harder than
Mark Zuckerberg: that, that piece in 2006.
And the reason, I mean, because
literally our, I mean our.
The team fell apart, right?
I mean, it was, you know, it's, I, I
turned down the software to sell the
company.
Um, the management team who are a bunch
of, of, of pretty experienced folks.
Um, but who hadn't spent a lot of time
working in Facebook, weren't, weren't that
steeped in what we were trying to do.
Um, you know, the group basically fell
apart within, within, I think it was 18
months after that, every single
other person on the management team.
Either quit or it was just so
dysfunctional that I had to fire them and
and most of them quit.
And that was really challenging cause I,
I think I was just like 22 at the time.
So again, it's like I was just, I hadn't
learned, you know, most of the lessons
that I have learned to
this point on managing.
Um, but yeah, I kind of feel like when you
have internal team cohesion and you have a
team that believes in something, you
can get a lot of things done and you can
handle a lot of adversity.
But when you break that, when that starts
to break down, um, I think it was very
hard to get things done.
And, you know, even so through the other
big challenges that we've had to navigate
over time, um, you know, not just the last
couple of years, but, um, you know, after
we went public where we had a big business
model challenge, we were transitioning
from a desktop and web
based business to mobile.
Um, our, our app wasn't in this
space that I wanted it to be.
We didn't have ads in newsfeed yet, so we
weren't sure if that was going to work.
Um, we went public and our market cap got
cut in half, and like within the first
year, and people doubted whether we were
gonna be able to make this transition to
mobile.
And, you know, empirically, that's not
a crazy thing to doubt because a lot of
technology companies basically die or
really lose their way during these big
technology shifts, right?
So, of which going from web
to mobile was certainly one.
Um, but you know, through that period,
we were able to maintain very good team
cohesion internally.
Everyone had a strong sense of mission.
They knew what we were there to do.
Uh, they believed in the products.
Uh, they cared about connecting people and
bring the services to more people around
the world.
Um, so it actually, it didn't end up being
that, that challenging of a, of a period
in the grand scheme of things.
Um, you know, not that many people quit.
Uh, people saw through the, the, the
challenge that we needed to go, that we
needed to go do, and we came out of that.
Well, um.
But the internal team cohesion
thing is a really big deal.
I think that, and that's probably
applicable to all the different companies
that you're all working on, and I'm sure
you all have your own versions of these,
these stories, but, um, you know, if you
can be clear about the principles and make
sure that the, the team is aligned on
that, you can perform miracles and without
that, it just, everything
becomes so painful.
Clint Betts: Who are your mentors?
Who do you call for advice?
Mark Zuckerberg: Um.
Well, there are, I think that it's
different people for different things.
I become more religious.
Really.
Yeah.
Um, I think that there's a, I mean, that's
not really a mentorship thing, but it's,
um, but I do think that there's a scale.
I don't know, the last few years
have been really humbling for me.
I, I thought I like knew a lot
about how to build something and.
I don't know.
I think that there's just a comfort in
knowing and having confidence that there
are things that are bigger than you.
And I mean, to me that's what like giving
people a mission is when, when you're,
when you're building a company, right?
It's, and that's like why, why?
Talking about principles and, and laying
that out so clearly is so important.
Mmm.
I mean, it's also why, I mean, I have
so much faith in democracy overall.
That's why I care so much
about giving people a voice.
Right?
It's, it's.
You know, I, I, I don't know.
I think at some point in order to move
forward, given how complex modern society
is and all the challenges that we face,
you have to believe in things that are
bigger than yourself, no
matter what form that takes.
And, um, so I, I mean, I personally
haven't, I grew up, I'm Jewish and, you
know, I, I mean, it's, I grew up with that
and that culture has been really important
to me, but I mean, but certainly I think
it's a combination of the challenges that
we've been through as a company.
And, um.
And having kids.
Right.
So now, I mean, I have two girls, four and
two, and I just want them to grow up with
those traditions too.
So yeah.
Anyhow, probably that's kind of a
different answer than you were probably
expecting.
Maybe not even an answer to the
question, but bill sort of relevant.
Clint Betts: Yeah,
that's, that's incredible.
You're religious.
I love it.
What can you teach us about creating
mission and values for a company?
You've talked a lot about that already,
but, um, I mean, how do you actually
create a mission?
How do you actually create values
for a company that means something?
Mark Zuckerberg: Well, I
dunno if you create them.
So, so early on, someone gave
me this advice, uh, that.
I, I w we were talking about
like, um, values early on.
I was like, Oh, I think it's kind
of corporate to write down values.
I was really wrong about that.
Um, you really want to be
clear about what you stand for.
Um, but, um, I don't know.
Maybe it's both corporate and do you want
to be clear about what you stand for?
But it's, and
so someone gave me this advice,
which was, you have values.
So you better just write down what they
are because if you write down like it's, I
mean, I think companies write down
sometimes what they want their values to
be and then it's dissonant with what you
actually believe and how you actually
operate.
And part of building a company is trying
to communicate to a group of people, both
internally and outside the company what,
um, you know how you're going to operate.
So I kind of think what you need to do.
Is is just write down an encode code
and try to encode that and capture that.
And, and you, you need to, you
need to be honest about it, right?
And it's, it's not like it shouldn't be,
you know, some crap about how you wish you
operated or some platitudes.
It should actually be how you operate.
And I also, I guess in writing down
values, I've always thought that, um,
there is this tendency to just write down
platitudes, write stuff that no one really
disagrees with, right?
Be honest.
Okay.
Yeah.
Obviously you should be honest, right?
Everyone should be honest.
If you're not going to be honest,
don't work at our company.
Leave.
But that's not really a trade off, right?
It's, you're, you're not like the, you're
not like giving something up to be honest.
So that's not, I think that that's kinda
hard to, to kind of have, I mean that,
that, that should be a given, right?
Not one of the things that, that kind of
defines the company is having a different
culture.
Um, so, you know, I think you want, you
want values that people can legitimately
disagree with.
So inside our company, um, you know, our
values are things like move fast and be
open.
Uh, you know, ironically, I mean, I'm,
I'm, I'm up here talking about how, uh,
you know, the, the external communication
of the company hasn't been good over time.
And I think that that's true, but I think
the internal communication since that
Yahoo episode that I was talking about is
actually been a strength of, of kind of
how we built up the, the company.
And that's because at every step along the
way, we've erred on the side of being more
open internally.
Um, you know, we always, I mean, I do a Q
and a with, with all employees every week,
um, where not only will I answer pretty
much any question that anyone has, but we
go out of our way to get
the hardest questions.
We, we've built up new processes over time
as the company has scaled, so that way,
um.
You know, we, people can now vote on
the top questions that they want to get
answered.
People can submit questions anonymously,
and then, you know, the top of the Q and,
a, I'll take the top five voted questions
to make sure that I'm answering the
hardest thing.
So it's all these things kind of build up
this culture inside the company where you
are.
You're just really open
about what's going on.
You answer the questions
honestly, and that sets a tone.
Um, and of course it just makes
information available to people broadly if
they can ask me anything and it makes it
so I as a CEO can know what people are,
are honestly wondering about around the
company, which is a valuable signal for me
in running the company.
Now, that's not the only
way to run a company.
I think you can, you can
legitimately disagree with that.
Right?
I mean like Apple for example, is on the
complete opposite side of the spectrum and
they're obviously
extremely successful too.
All right, so, so be open, I think is
something that one can disagree with, but
as how we operate, it's authentic to
us and therefore I think it's a good
articulation of a value.
It's been valuable to write that down
because that way, as we've scaled, we've
been able to encode and build up more
processes and tools to make sure that we
can live up to that value at scale.
So
Clint Betts: we've been talking a lot
about at this conference over the past two
days, mental health and just the
challenges of the loneliness of building a
company and being an entrepreneur.
The loneliest and loneliness
of being a founder.
What it takes, the fact that when you're
building it, nobody cares what you're
doing.
You had a little bit different experience.
A lot of people cared.
But most people, um, you know, as they're
growing a company at the very beginning,
you know what I mean?
It's very lonely.
And that leads to mental health issues
and the, and there's also criticism that
social media leads to
mental health issues.
How do you stay grounded?
Mark Zuckerberg: I don't know.
I think a lot of it is some of the stuff
that will, personally, I, I'll talk about
the social media part to
talk about that in a second.
I'm going to, um, I mean, for me, it's, I
think the answer to this is probably the
answer.
Uh, you know, I, I can answer your
mentorship question now, but it's, um, but
I think the, the answer the way I
Clint Betts: expected bill Gates,
Mark Zuckerberg: not God.
Clint Betts: But I'm cool.
I'm glad.
Mark Zuckerberg: I was not
saying that God is a mentor.
That would be like the opposite of
what I was trying to get across.
Um, and bill Gates has been, especially on
the philanthropy side, he's, um, um, he's,
he's a huge role model both in how he
built the company and as a model for me
personally, in terms of once you've built
something that is successful, what are you
supposed to do next?
Um, and one of the main lessons that
he taught me is you should start early,
right?
Because philanthropy, just like any other
skill that you want to build up takes
practice.
And.
You know, if this is something that I want
to dedicate more of my time to in 10, 15
years, then you know, we better start
now and get practice on how that works.
But no, I mean, I think, um, you know,
part of staying grounded is like, you
know, you, you need, I think you need to
understand the context that you operate
in.
And, um, you know, work is important and
you know, a lot of you are doing really
important things and I hope that the stuff
that we're doing has a positive impact and
has an important impact on people.
Um.
But, but at the end of the day, you know,
we're all people and you know, you need,
you know, your family and your friends
and, uh, communities around you of, of
things that are interesting
to you that are not just work.
And, um, and I think we all need to feel
like we're parts of things that are bigger
than ourselves.
And I just think that that's important.
And, and, um, you know, so my family and
friends have been an incredibly important
part of how I've stayed grounded.
Um, but.
Yeah.
And I, and I do just think, you
know, just managing your time.
Well, it's, it's, you know, it's, I mean,
you're, you're all doing jobs where the
reactive incoming in anything that any one
of us is doing could take all of our day.
And I think making sure that you just have
the discipline to say, no, look, I, I'm
going to deal with reactive stuff for this
amount, but I need to spend a bunch of my
time just on stuff that's
going to push the ball forward.
And, um, and then.
At some point you have to go home and
yeah, stuff comes up and you don't always,
you know, I'm not trying to put my girls
to bed every night, and if some nights I
don't get to, but generally, like, I'm,
I'm, you know, you, you want to try to
draw some boundaries so you can do that.
Um, that's, that's important to me.
Um, all right, so
so let's go to the social
media side of this now.
Maybe a little more.
Little more concrete.
But um, we've studied this a lot.
I mean, cause cause obviously I want
our products to be good for people.
Right.
And the, the research on this is that,
like anything, you know, not all internet
use or social media use is the same.
If you're using products to stay connected
with people and you're having meaningful
interactions.
Um, then that is associated with a lot
of positive aspects of wellbeing, right?
You, you feel more connected, you feel
happier, you feel less lonely over time.
That's correlated with, you know,
feeling healthier, better outcomes there.
But if what you're doing is, you know,
you're using the internet or, um, you
know, or even if you're just using our
products to, um, you know, just scroll
through content passively and, uh,
you know, it's just have fun, but.
Yeah.
Not, not actually interact with people.
It's not that that's bad.
It just isn't associated with the same
positive aspects of wellbeing that
connecting with people is.
So I just think what, what our company is
about is giving people a voice, helping
people connect.
It's, it's that duality of
those two things together.
And on the connection side, I just always
want to make sure that that stays front
and center.
So, you know, a couple of years ago we
made some really big changes, um, in our
products that.
You know, it was like one change.
The changes were, were designed to make
sure that, you know, in Facebook and
Instagram, um, you know, the content that
you're seeing is generally going to be
about your friends.
Things that are going to encourage
interactions between people that are going
to be meaningful.
Um, we made one single change that wiped
out 50 million hours of viral video
watching a day in order to prioritize
more content from people's communities.
Because, you know, if we showed the viral
videos, people would spend more time in
the products, but then at the end they
would tell us, Hey, you know, I'm not
necessarily getting from
Facebook what I want, right?
I know you guys are, are the company
that's supposed to help me connect with
people.
And you know, there are lots of
places I can go to watch your videos.
I come to you because I want
to help connect with people.
Um, so yeah, I mean, we, we, we took down
the amount of usage and, and I think, um,
I mean, what was it?
It was a couple months later, we had.
It was the biggest stock drop in
the history of the stock market.
I think we lost like $100 billion of
market cap in a day, and when we report on
it.
So, but I mean, look, it's, you know,
I think w we're, we're here to do good
things in the world, right?
So, I mean, that's, you know, we're, we're
gonna, we're gonna focus on, um, on, on
what we think is going to deliver
the best experience for people.
And, um, and, and I think that that
research is also, it's, that also has
mapped to how I think
about my girls using.
Um, my, my daughter's using, uh, uh,
products for example, like I'll let them
do video chat with, with their families
because that's about connecting with
people.
I think that that's great.
But in general, you know, not as much
of the know, just passive content
consumption.
Clint Betts: You seem like a very
intentional person and, you know, as you
go about and, and I'm sure you had good
intentions, uh, you know, and all the
products you've launched and, and
purchased and, you know, launching
Facebook and all these different
things, how would you, how do you manage
unintentional consequences.
Mark Zuckerberg: Well, I feel like this
has probably been the biggest lesson of
the last couple of years or few years is,
um, you have to be more proactive, right?
So you don't want to think about what
we're doing, you know, either in terms of
fighting different kinds of harmful
content or things like that, or, um, or
certain privacy issues.
Just because of where we
came from as a company.
We had a, we had, we used to have a more
reactive stance, which, you know, made
sense when I was, when I was a
student in a dorm room, right?
So, you know, people would post stuff
and you know, back then we didn't have a
business that could support having tens
of thousands of people on a safety team.
And the AI technology hadn't evolved
to the point where, where you could
meaningfully, you know, write a machine
learning algorithm that, um, that could
identify some of the bad stuff.
But at some point along the
way, that changed, right?
We're, we're now, it is possible for
us to make those investments and the AI
technology, while it's not perfect
yet, and it's still requires a lot of
investment to get to
where we want it to be.
Um, you know, now in, it is better to
the point where we can do a lot more
proactively.
So as one example, you know, I was talking
before about like actually the truly bad
types of content that
you want to get rid of.
Like, like terrorist propaganda
for recruiting people.
Um, you know, we built an AI system, um,
along with this counter terrorism team,
uh, that we have at the company that now,
uh, we, we were able to flag and identify
and take down, um, you know, 99% of the
terrorist content that we take down, um,
our systems get before.
Anyone sees it on the service.
So it's like someone posts it down.
Okay.
and so I kind of feel like once you have
the ability to do stuff like that, you
also have the responsibility to do that.
And I'm not, I just think frankly,
we were a little late to that.
It wouldn't have been possible to do
this stuff in 2012 when we went public.
Right around that time I'm going again.
It's like our whole budget on this stuff
today is greater than our whole revenue
was there.
So, you know, we couldn't have done
back then what we're doing now.
And the AI was not ready yet.
But you know, it's, I think a lot of this
stuff, we really started ramping up very
seriously.
Um, and in 2016, 2017 and I think maybe
should have been possible starting in 2015
to get ahead of it.
And.
I mean, you know, this is important stuff.
So do I wish we'd started
a couple of years earlier?
Yeah.
So I think that that's the big lesson.
Same thing on the privacy
side with developers.
Um, and, and some of the, the issues that
we had, like this is, this is the lesson
from Cambridge Analytica, right?
If it's, you had a developer who people
gave access to the data and then the
developer turned around and sold the data.
It was against our policies.
But, you know, rather than waiting for
someone to report that we should've had
systems that could proactively.
Uh, go and, and, um, and identify,
you know, more suspicious behavior.
And now we've built up a
lot more of that stuff.
But you know, for the next set of issues
that are going to come in the future,
we're going to judge ourselves by, you
know, it's, you obviously can't identify
everything in advance, but are we thinking
through what the unintended consequences
might be and being more proactive
about finding those issues?
I do just think we have a
responsibility to do that.
We
Clint Betts: started this conversation
around the idea that Facebook and
something that you said that it's, it's
more important to be, um, understood than
liked.
What would you have us
understand about you, Mark
Mark Zuckerberg: Zuckerberg?
I dunno.
I think part of, I think I'm, I haven't
been great about communicating about the
company.
I'm especially bad about
communicating about myself.
Um, it's, there's an
awkwardness to it, right?
It's, um, but I think probably the biggest
misperception is, you know, I mean, I, I
hope this comes across, but like, I
really care about what we're doing, right?
It's, I mean, the, the decisions that
we're, that we're, that we make when
they're, when they're controversial and
it's like, I didn't get into this because
I was trying to build a business or.
Sell a bunch of ads or make money.
I happen to think that advertising is a
great model, so that way you can offer
everyone a service for free.
Because if you want to give every single
person in the world of voice, then you
want people to be able to afford that.
But like for me, this was, this was never
about, um, uh, about, about kind of that
side of things.
And I just think there are.
I think some people just assume that every
company must only care about that, about
making money.
And so, and any kind of policy or any
decision must only be motivated by that.
Um, or I think some people might just be
kind of willfully ignoring kind of the
obvious approach that we take for
stuff in order to, um, to smear us.
But I, I do just think in
general, um, you know, this.
The principles around empowering
individuals, leveling the playing field,
giving everyone a voice, not
just the powerful people.
The powerful people are always
going to have a voice, right?
It's, I mean, it's always the people who
are criticizing and saying that more stuff
needs to be censored or never.
The people who, who, um, are actually at
risk of being censored themselves, but
they have their ways of getting stuff out.
Um.
So, I don't know.
I, I kinda just feel like someone needs
to stand up for giving everyone a voice.
Someone needs to stand up for making sure
that individual businesses do have the
same tools and abilities that,
that larger businesses have.
Because at the end of the day, I mean,
the way that we create an economy and a
society that's stable is you want
broad-based economic success that comes
from small businesses everywhere
succeeding, not just to a handful of
companies.
No.
By the way, that's important
for social cohesion too, right?
It's like, I mean, how many of the small
businesses that people build are end up
being kind of physically the hubs in
their communities that help bring people
together in addition to supplying jobs.
Right?
So that needs to happen.
So I dunno that that's,
that's like, that's me.
That's what I care about.
Clint Betts: All of it.
Mark Zuckerberg: So
Clint Betts: this is my last question for
you, cause it, cause I know you have to
go.
You're young.
We're actually very close to the same age.
Our lives are quite a bit different.
I did recently paid off my
student loans last month.
Mark Zuckerberg: Um, congratulations.
Clint Betts: But I wonder if you think
about, even though you are young, if you
think about what you want your legacy to
be, what would you want your legacy to be?
Mark Zuckerberg: Well, that, I mean,
the, what I, what I just talked about.
I mean, it's, um,
I mean, I, I do believe that a lot of
the debates that are being had right now.
Around like, I mean people are really
questioning at a fundamental level is
giving people a voice.
Good.
I believe that there is a pendulum that is
swinging and the pendulum will go back in
the other direction towards
voice and free expression.
And I hope that I can play a part in that
and similarly, I think in terms
of individuals connecting.
You know, I think right now for a while
when we got started, I think that there
was, there's a period where, you know,
there was more positive press and coverage
than anyone ever deserves.
So, um, so I think to some degree, all the
scrutiny I think is fair now as well, but,
but I think people really have turned
from thinking that tools that help people
connect to is going to be a powerful thing
and positive for our communities, positive
for social cohesion and democracy.
And I think, um.
The pendulum is swinging there too.
But I really, I think that the, the, the
formula throughout history has been that
empowering individuals, more voice,
uh, more connection between people.
That's you.
You build strong communities, and
that's how we make progress together.
And if we can do this around
the world, um, I dunno.
I think it's gonna.
It'll hopefully lead to more prosperity
and people being living more fulfilling
lives everywhere.
And.
If we can be a part of that, then that's,
that's kinda what I, what I, what I hope
to do.
Thank
Clint Betts: you so much for coming to up
Mark Zuckerberg: ladies and gentlemen.
Clint Betts: Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg: okay.
