I've always felt that Mark Zuckerberg got lucky with Facebook and that he has no real lasting talent as a technologist or visionary. He seems to attempt to chase the latest "it" thing and has very few original ideas that actual stick long-term. He's quite the charlatan.
While I know criticizing Meta is popular, I'm not sure I'd agree with above.
Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook. Understanding the potential market that could be created and turning down a $1B acquisition from Yahoo 20-years ago, at the time, seemed insane.
Also making the shift to mobile, when people thought that would be the death of FB is a remarkable story.
Identifying to acquire WhatsApp & Instagram, both laughed at when bought for the acquisition price at that time, now massive businesses for Meta (and their market cap value).
Meta AI glasses are surprisingly popular and growing. And more...
Note: I have no affiliation with Meta (not now or in the past)
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EDIT: Many people I see underestimate what it takes to build a business. It is the classic “I could have built that in a weekend” critique. Maybe, but the product is only like 10% of the problem. 90% of the work (and hard part) is execution.
That's not true though. Social network sites existed, just not so "centralized" and "viral". Facebook created a simple and more user-friendly interface.
WhatsApp as it understand, does not make much if any money. Instagram is a cash cow due.
They have released some good open source technology, but as the OP said, Meta hasn't much going for it apart from addictive apps for showing ads
>Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook.
Seriously? Of course they did. An easy counter-example is MySpace, which launched several months before Facebook's very first appearance as a Hot Or Not mimic (which predates Zuck by 3 years), and had many millions more users for years (especially while FB was restricted to colleges).
Major competition and a lot of money was going into social media around then (and for a couple years prior), FB is just the eventual winner.
He was also a wealthy kid with connections. People place far too much weight on execution. Most of it is being in the right place at the right time and having existing connections.
He built a hell of a machine for buying political/cultural influence or filling your sales funnel, no matter the dubiousness of your product, with pinpoint precision. Doing that takes vision and talent, and extremely flexible ethics.
I've never seen him saying anything particularly smart or insightful. My impression is that he has moderately above average intelligence and entrepreneurship. If he wasn't at the right place at the right time, he would be yet another founder of a random startup.
I've never seen him say or do anything particularly human. If I believed in such things, I'd think he was some kind of souless drone sent here by aliens/demons/etc to destroy humanity.
Your impression about his intelligence is way off. Mark was part of the study for mathematically precocious youth, which has a math cutoff at the 1/10K rarity. He also has ambition at the same level. What’s probably missing, of late, is good taste and judgment.
I dunno he made a few very wise purchases (Instagram, WhatsApp). But yeah he hasn't had a single first party hit apart from Facebook, and the Metaverse is 100% emperor's new clothes. Even worse than Alexa's "people will buy things through a janky voice interface right"?
In what way has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain, as befitting the word charlatan? He is the CEO of Facebook and we're told to not like Facebook, but when has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain? He's one of the richest people in the world and has been using that money to do things he wants to do. I don't think he's ever claimed to eg be a PhD AI researcher and for people to give him money because of a made up claim like that. People give Facebook money and it ends up in his pockets and he does things with that.
He wants to collect and profit from insider info by joining in on the newest unregulated gambling scheme. I'm sure plenty of cheaters and suckers will be happy to make him more money.
I can‘t help but wonder what goes on inside of the upper management of these big companies, and why nobody ever stops for a moment to think about whether what they are up to does any good for the end users beyond making more money.
But then again, this is very on brand for Meta/Zuck, so I‘m not surprised.
Zuckerberg could’ve made a YouTube competitor or a Netflix competitor given that he already has a platform for video sharing and an ads infrastructure. But I guess the guys at the top are so smart that they don’t bother themselves when copying ideas to actually copy something that makes sense.
> Zuckerberg could’ve made a YouTube competitor or a Netflix competitor given that he already has a platform for video sharing and an ads infrastructure
Facebook has no content production experience though, and when they do dip their toes into that market its via AI slop (like their official AI accounts on instagram). I think this is because they don't value the human element of art at all.
They would be entirely reliant other content providers, which is a rough place to be in when you have to deal with actual studios and not just independent creators. Independent creators are easier for Facebook to exploit since they are usually small operations and dependent on facebook/instagram for market reach.
YouTube has a lot of revenue, profit isn't known as far as I'm aware. Alphabet doesn't report YouTube earnings separately, and when they were still sharing that information it was a pretty large amount of losses IIRC. But if you have sources I'm happy to change my mind
Corey Doctorow addressed this in a way I hadn't thought of before. Meta is a "mature" company, masquerading as a "growth" company by expanding into new markets without any real product, all so they can pretend they haven't fully saturated their market.
Facebook innovation is their ads algo. They copy existing consumer success (which is incredibly difficult to create), and then execute it incredibly well.
So many baby boomers are about to lose their savings. Meta knows their bread is buttered by the 55+ age group and capitalizing on the vulnerable social media addicted elders will be extremely profitable.
My university admissions interview took place next to an old tech nerd's model train layout. Today, the same kind of person would be up all night posting about trans people on X. I blame a lot of our current problems on the decline of model trains and stamp collecting. You are spot on about social media addiction among the olds.
I've always felt that Mark Zuckerberg got lucky with Facebook and that he has no real lasting talent as a technologist or visionary. He seems to attempt to chase the latest "it" thing and has very few original ideas that actual stick long-term. He's quite the charlatan.
While I know criticizing Meta is popular, I'm not sure I'd agree with above.
Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook. Understanding the potential market that could be created and turning down a $1B acquisition from Yahoo 20-years ago, at the time, seemed insane.
Also making the shift to mobile, when people thought that would be the death of FB is a remarkable story.
Identifying to acquire WhatsApp & Instagram, both laughed at when bought for the acquisition price at that time, now massive businesses for Meta (and their market cap value).
Meta AI glasses are surprisingly popular and growing. And more...
Note: I have no affiliation with Meta (not now or in the past)
---
EDIT: Many people I see underestimate what it takes to build a business. It is the classic “I could have built that in a weekend” critique. Maybe, but the product is only like 10% of the problem. 90% of the work (and hard part) is execution.
That's not true though. Social network sites existed, just not so "centralized" and "viral". Facebook created a simple and more user-friendly interface. WhatsApp as it understand, does not make much if any money. Instagram is a cash cow due.
They have released some good open source technology, but as the OP said, Meta hasn't much going for it apart from addictive apps for showing ads
> Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook.
You never heard of MySpace?
>Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook.
Seriously? Of course they did. An easy counter-example is MySpace, which launched several months before Facebook's very first appearance as a Hot Or Not mimic (which predates Zuck by 3 years), and had many millions more users for years (especially while FB was restricted to colleges).
Major competition and a lot of money was going into social media around then (and for a couple years prior), FB is just the eventual winner.
> Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook
Social networks were all the rage. He executed the best of all and had the right strategy to build the user base.
He was also a wealthy kid with connections. People place far too much weight on execution. Most of it is being in the right place at the right time and having existing connections.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat...
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-i...
Not what I'd call great execution anyways.
Insane how? Google had already done it, and it's pretty clear that if someone wants to buy for $1B, it might be worth more than $1B.
He built a hell of a machine for buying political/cultural influence or filling your sales funnel, no matter the dubiousness of your product, with pinpoint precision. Doing that takes vision and talent, and extremely flexible ethics.
I've never seen him saying anything particularly smart or insightful. My impression is that he has moderately above average intelligence and entrepreneurship. If he wasn't at the right place at the right time, he would be yet another founder of a random startup.
I've never seen him say or do anything particularly human. If I believed in such things, I'd think he was some kind of souless drone sent here by aliens/demons/etc to destroy humanity.
Your impression about his intelligence is way off. Mark was part of the study for mathematically precocious youth, which has a math cutoff at the 1/10K rarity. He also has ambition at the same level. What’s probably missing, of late, is good taste and judgment.
That becomes more clear by the day.
Zuck has no insight. His sole ambition is to be rich and taken seriously.
I dunno he made a few very wise purchases (Instagram, WhatsApp). But yeah he hasn't had a single first party hit apart from Facebook, and the Metaverse is 100% emperor's new clothes. Even worse than Alexa's "people will buy things through a janky voice interface right"?
In what way has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain, as befitting the word charlatan? He is the CEO of Facebook and we're told to not like Facebook, but when has he claimed special expertise to deceive others for financial gain? He's one of the richest people in the world and has been using that money to do things he wants to do. I don't think he's ever claimed to eg be a PhD AI researcher and for people to give him money because of a made up claim like that. People give Facebook money and it ends up in his pockets and he does things with that.
Thought the same thing even before I saw your comment!
Same for Elon and Paypal
This is basically the case with most of the tech billionaires. They have one, maybe two real successes and it's mostly inertia after that.
He wants to collect and profit from insider info by joining in on the newest unregulated gambling scheme. I'm sure plenty of cheaters and suckers will be happy to make him more money.
Hopefully it's the same geniuses that implemented his metaverse thingy.
Hope so (ex-Meta, and hold a couple of million dollars of their stock, but quite dislike the company).
Polymarket: "Trade on anything."
Kalshi: "Trade the Future."
Meta Arena: "They 'trust me.' Dumb f^^ks."
I can‘t help but wonder what goes on inside of the upper management of these big companies, and why nobody ever stops for a moment to think about whether what they are up to does any good for the end users beyond making more money.
But then again, this is very on brand for Meta/Zuck, so I‘m not surprised.
Zuckerberg could’ve made a YouTube competitor or a Netflix competitor given that he already has a platform for video sharing and an ads infrastructure. But I guess the guys at the top are so smart that they don’t bother themselves when copying ideas to actually copy something that makes sense.
They tried. Facebook Watch. It's a total disaster.
> Zuckerberg could’ve made a YouTube competitor or a Netflix competitor given that he already has a platform for video sharing and an ads infrastructure
Facebook has no content production experience though, and when they do dip their toes into that market its via AI slop (like their official AI accounts on instagram). I think this is because they don't value the human element of art at all.
They would be entirely reliant other content providers, which is a rough place to be in when you have to deal with actual studios and not just independent creators. Independent creators are easier for Facebook to exploit since they are usually small operations and dependent on facebook/instagram for market reach.
Youtube isn't really known to be highly profitable. I'm also not sure people would go to a Facebook YouTube when the normal YouTube exists
Brother, YouTube is quite literally a money printing machine. I don’t know where you’re getting information from.
YouTube has a lot of revenue, profit isn't known as far as I'm aware. Alphabet doesn't report YouTube earnings separately, and when they were still sharing that information it was a pretty large amount of losses IIRC. But if you have sources I'm happy to change my mind
> why nobody ever stops for a moment
What, you want to get fired?
51% shareholding he’s free to make all the mistakes he wants
Corey Doctorow addressed this in a way I hadn't thought of before. Meta is a "mature" company, masquerading as a "growth" company by expanding into new markets without any real product, all so they can pretend they haven't fully saturated their market.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/how-to-burst-the-ai-...
This will fail, he'll throw money at Kalshi and or Polymarket and, if he acquires either, chase some sort of regulatory capture scheme.
I just directed my cats to make a cryptocurrency.
Right after a nap...
Whatever happened to that Facebook cryptocurrency?
Never launched, given to org that dissolved, sold to bank that is now shut down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diem_(digital_currency)
Holy mimic batman - Mark, its ok to have a little of your own innovation and not copycat nor buy every single good idea.
> not copycat nor buy every single good idea.
I don’t know if I’ll call Kalshi and Polymarket “good ideas”.
I bet (pun intended) that's pretty good for the owners pockets
fair point
Facebook innovation is their ads algo. They copy existing consumer success (which is incredibly difficult to create), and then execute it incredibly well.
> and then execute it incredibly well
...sometimes
How did he come up with Facebook?
He copied the analog thing of the same name in his university that was taking too long to digitise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_book
There's a whole movie about it. He was employed to create a social media platform, and ended up stealing the code to do it for himself instead.
It was already digitized. He wanted to make a version without security and privacy protections.
He also copied Friendster.
I dont think he did
yes.
no.
So many baby boomers are about to lose their savings. Meta knows their bread is buttered by the 55+ age group and capitalizing on the vulnerable social media addicted elders will be extremely profitable.
My university admissions interview took place next to an old tech nerd's model train layout. Today, the same kind of person would be up all night posting about trans people on X. I blame a lot of our current problems on the decline of model trains and stamp collecting. You are spot on about social media addiction among the olds.