2025-01-14 06:27:43
Mark Zuckerberg's heel turn this past week has been all sorts of fascinating.1 For one thing, I don't think it's all an act. I think it's likely a short-sighted and misguided maneuver born out of years of various frustrations, but I don't think it's just to curry favor with Trump. That's part of it, for sure, but it's more that it's a nice overlap with our current times, which are providing cover for Zuckerberg to go unchained in his gold chain, as it were. This all culminated – at least for now – in his sit down with who else? Joe Rogan.2
2025-01-13 23:30:15
Since I'm linking to a bunch of related items below, here's the take I wrote last week about the content moderation changes at Meta – and specifically, my read as to why Mark Zuckerberg is going down this path. Yes, it's political, but years of triangulation would seem to suggest that it's a bit more than that as well...
(Meanwhile, the swirl continues into week two...)
M.G. Siegler
Spyglass Dispatch is a newsletter sent on weekdays featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
🐕 Inside Elon Musk’s Plan for DOGE to Slash Government Costs – The early DOGE details are starting to trickle out: they apparently aim for two reps for most government agencies and are currently coordinating everything over Signal. Most who join the effort will be doing six months of unpaid work, but some, including Elon Musk, will only be allowed to work for 130 days a year so as not to trip over into being actual government employees (and thus enable the disclosures and divestitures required there). I'm sure that will be followed to a 'T'. How are they going to do all this work in such a short amount of time? Insane hours and "AI" – naturally. DOGE itself isn't likely to become an official org outside of the government, it's more just a brand. Look, I hope they can make some real progress and change here. No matter your political bent, everyone can agree that the government is bloated and looking at the cruft built up over the years with fresh eyes is a worthy endeavor. But do I believe massive change is likely as a result of all this? If I'm being honest (and aiming to be correct), no. For the obvious reasons. DOGE will make recommendations. Congress will have to enact those changes. Narrator: Congress will not enact most of the changes. That will lead to tension, and a likely unravel the whole thing. But I do like the approach of aiming for more change and "settling" for less, which Musk has essentially admitted is the strategy. And it must be to hope for anything here. [NYT]
😎 Mark Zuckerberg Slams Apple: ‘They haven’t invented anything great in a while’ – Fun roundup of all the swipes Zuck took at Apple during his Joe Rogan interview (I'm not yet through the 3-hour slog listen). Does he have some points? Sure, but they're buried under about ten disingenuous layers of spin. Just be honest! Honestly, it's enough to make you worry that his other recent stances on things such a free speech and content moderation aren't sincere either... As Chance Miller notes, almost all of Meta's recent success is by way of acquisition – Oculus, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. Zuck must feel emboldened to make that claim though against Apple given the buzz the new 'Orion' glasses are getting – but those are years away from shipping (and CTRL Labs, another acquisition that I happened to be to have invested in back in the day, seems like it should get some credit there!). They do get credit for the Smart Glasses success (with Ray-Ban), but they weren't exactly first there. And it's early – as Zuck notes, Apple is likely coming for that world (see: below)... If they don't get "beat by someone" first. [9to5Mac]
🍎 Apple’s 2025: iPhone Overhaul, Smart Home Push and AI Catch-Up – Mark Gurman's latest report is more a summary of what's to come this year from Apple. And assuming he's correct, it certainly feels like more of an iterative year, with some stage-setting for bigger things to come in 2026. The big launch will clearly be the new 'iPhone Air' design, but given that it's not the top-of-the-line iPhone, while likely being more expensive than the lower-end models, it's not clear just how big of a deal it will be from a sales-perspective (though it will get buzz simply thanks to looking "new"). It sounds like the new 'HomeHub' thing might be delayed a bit to give Apple more time to get the right AI smarts into the software ('homeOS' derived from iOS/iPadOS?). I'm still slightly confused by the market for that device as well, but that's all based on the rumors about what it is right now. If Apple can showcase two-to-three real use-cases, and if the price is right, it could work to some extent. Or, as is often the case with Apple, it may take a couple iterations to get it right. Speaking of, it sounds like the second version of a Vision Pro is still more like a 2026 thing. Regardless, the "real" key in that lineup will be the cheaper/smaller variety which is undoubtedly coming after 2026. Though Gurman does note continued work/exploration on Smart Glasses like the Ray-Ban Metas, which probably should be a 2026 thing if they don't want to mistime that market. But yeah, 2025 sounds relatively boring. [Bloomberg 🔒]
📺 CES 2025: An Abundance of (AI) Experimentation – As always, a great, long report from Steven Sinofsky on the state of CES by way of his walking the grounds in Vegas so you (and more importantly, I) don't have to. That AI was permeating most things ("everyone at CES got the memo") is hardly a surprise given the state of the overall world – and certainly the technology world – at the moment. But just as with the broader trend, a lot of that infusion remains experimental it seems. The only company really, truly making a massive amount of money from AI right now happened to be the big keynote: NVIDIA – his picture of Jensen Huang's address (I'll paste it down below) is pretty incredible. Enough to make you think Apple should go back to live keynotes (more on that below too). As Sinofsky notes, despite the 'C' element of the name, CES isn't really for consumers these days, and hasn't been for a while. Thought yes, a lot of TV tech, as always. And in general, screens everywhere, on everything. [Hardcore Software]
"After years of pretending to be Democrats, Big Tech leaders are now pretending to be Republicans, in hopes of currying favor with the new administration. Beware of the scummy monopoly campaign to vilify competition law as they rip off consumers and crush competitors."
-- Tim Sweeney, not mincing words in giving his thoughts on the current wave of support for President-Elect Trump from the Big Tech leaders. Of course, the Epic CEO has his own political reasons for such a stance (and comment). Sounds like he won't be making the $1M fealty payment.
Steven Sinofsky on the Jensen Huang NVIDIA keynote:
To say the Nvidia keynote was the big event would understate things. This is super weird for me to say since I was there when Bill Gates keynoted the conference and even announced Xbox (along with Tablet PC and Windows 2000). Microsoft was also the largest market cap company at the time (and also under intense antitrust scrutiny) and the darling of Wall Street. While waiting in line at the event to enter I even saw long-time CTA CEO Gary Shapiro (owners of the show) and had a quick word about this compared to those old keynotes before he showed me the shortcut to get in. The excitement, energy, and scale of this keynote dwarfed anything I could recall. It was at a scale we saw for some Windows events in China where getting large crowds wasn’t ever a problem. Estimates were 10-12,000 people at the keynote held in the Mandalay Bay theater. It was pure insanity to think this was happening because of…graphics cards ;-)
The picture is worth a thousand words. Or in Sinofsky's case: 9,000 or so... 😄
A daily newsletter by M.G. Siegler
Sent from afar on weekdays...
2025-01-11 03:22:05
Since there's yet another new twist in the OpenAI going for-profit status (below), I figured I'd share the higher level take I wrote over the break based on the company themselves more explicitly stating their intentions and rationale for the shift. My read is that it's messy and all kinds of complicated, but not wrong.
M.G. Siegler
Apologies for the delayed Dispatch today – I may or may not have been up until 5am local time in London last night to watch Notre Dame/Penn State college football playoff game (great game for everyone but James Franklin – congrats to my buddy Nes)...
Also, I've been following along with the TikTok Supreme Court hearing today – which, as expected, sure feels like it's not going to go in ByteDance's favor... Will there be a mad dash to do some sort of deal next week as a result?
Spyglass Dispatch is a newsletter sent on weekdays featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
🏈 Disney, Warner, and Fox Pull the Plug on Venu – While the Hulu + Live TV/Fubo merger was a new year shocker, arguably more surprising was that Disney and their partners were apparently still pushing to launch Venu, their ill-timed, ill-conceived, and ultimately ill-fated sports streaming service. But as noted a few days ago, the end of the lawsuit didn't necessarily mean the end of their problems. And DirecTV and Dish made that crystal clear yesterday, with their own threats of action against the service. Ultimately, it was probably around 10 headaches too many for Disney – who could have known, except, well, everybody – and so now Venu is dead. For real this time. Instead, you'll have to pick one of Disney's 600 other streaming content packages. [THR]
🗳️ Threads and Instagram Are For Politics Now – One clear upside of Meta's content-moderation changes: they're going to stop burying/downplaying real-time news and information. This is being framed around politics in particular, but given how vital that segment is to news/information in general, it's going to help unclog the pipes, as it were. IG head Adam Mosseri clearly feels a bit sheepish about the change (naturally, as he's been arguing against it for months), and the content control options still seem a bit complicated/unnecessary, but, baby steps. There will obviously be downsides to all of this as well – especially since they're making the change in lockstep with the moderation alterations – but this should help Threads become a better Xitter competitor. [Verge]
💰 Elon Musk Calls on California and Delaware to Force Auction of OpenAI Stake – In the latest tactic to try to derail (or at least delay) the shift to a for-profit company, Musk's team is suggesting that the only way to get a truly fair value for the non-profit stake in OpenAI is to let the market determine the price. While this would certainly create "more chaos" as the FT's source puts it, it would also negate what OpenAI clearly views as the single most important talking point of the transition: that the non-profit remains a vital part of the story. Also fun: this would presumably allow Musk himself to bid on the stake!I've tried to guesstimate how I thought the equity might be carved up in the past. Total guess, but if the non-profit gets 25% of the equity, that would be worth nearly $40B at OpenAI's current $157B valuation. Presuming that valuation goes up over the next year, we're probably looking at a "fair" price over $50B (again, in my estimate). Also note the concern from the Musk team about Delaware overseeing this process, since that's also the state which has blocked his Tesla pay package. [FT 🔒]
📲 Apple Likely to Face Fiercer Challenges in 2025 – The latest report by Ming-Chi Kuo is awfully bearish on Apple's financial prospects for this year, specifically calling out weak iPhone demand. And while the new 'iPhone Air' should generate some buzz/interest, there's concern that it's mix of not being as "good" as the Pro lineup coupled with an undoubtedly higher price than the "regular" iPhones. It will be an interesting test of "new" – that is, just how much simply a new design still matters to the iPhone market. If the new design was coming to the high-end of the line – as was the case with the iPhone X back in the day – that would be far more straightforward. But personally, I don't want to "downgrade" to an 'iPhone Air' if it's not going to be as fast as the iPhone Pro models. And certainly not if the camera system isn't as good. And if battery life is a bit worse, etc. It's all speculation on a rumored product at this point, but those rumors also seem pretty aligned... A bigger problem for Apple may remain China, where iPhone demand seems even more off and the prospect of a tariff war and the AI/SIM slot issues are sort of a perfect storm against the iPhone company, it seems. Finally, Kuo shares yet more signals that AI is doing nothing to move these needles right now. All of this seemingly adds to pressure for a foldable iPhone in 2026... [Medium]
Also over the break, I both watched and wrote about Fly Me to the Moon, which was a pretty big dud of a movie – enough to make me question Apple's taste when it comes to film. At first, I chalked up the fact that it bombed at the box office to Apple's oddly poor marketing of their movies, but it may be just as much about the fact that they seem pretty poor and picking what movies to make (though they're much better – some might even say great – when it comes to shows, oddly)...
M.G. Siegler
"Senator, you get a chance to kick Mark Zuckerberg’s ass out there? Senator! Senator!"
-- Benny Johnson, after Markwayne Mullin, a US Senator from Oklahoma, revealed that Zuckeberg had been texting him to "come down there and roll with him" (Mullin is a former mixed martial arts fighter and we're all well aware of Zuckerberg's interest in the sport).
The actual headline from the chat, however, is that Mullin says Zuckerberg was actually visiting with Donald Trump the day before he announced the content moderation changes for Meta. That's not just a heads-up, that's the white glove service version of a heads up.
I missed it yesterday, but it was the 18th anniversary of the Apple TV announcement. Oh, and a certain other device that Regis Philbin simply could not wrap his head around. "Nah, I don't like it."
18 years ago today iPhone was announced.
— Pessimists Archive (@PessimistsArc) January 9, 2025
That morning Regis would tell Kelly an iPod phone was ridiculous… pic.twitter.com/OQbgXhu9xl
A daily newsletter by M.G. Siegler
Sent from afar on weekdays...
2025-01-09 22:00:14
With one such prediction seemingly already in the bag, I figured I should share the quick predictions post I wrote while killing time waiting for the clock to strike 2025 (while this newsletter was on vacation). Despite being written on a whim, it quickly became the most popular post in the (almost) year-long history of Spyglass. Funny how that always seems to happen with writing: the throw-away post takes off. Though it's probably just a testament to the power of lists...
M.G. Siegler
Spyglass Dispatch is a newsletter sent on weekdays featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
🤼 Netflix Made Me Watch WWE — And It’s Betting $5 Billion You’ll Watch Too – The streaming giant's latest foray into "sports" seems like a hit, at least after night one. Of course, they pulled out every stop, and celebrity, to hype this thing to no end. Naturally, The Rock returned, as did John Cena, as did Hulk Hogan hawking his own America First beer (social media seemed surprised at the level of boos – not booze – he received). A savvy opening, but will it have staying power and most importantly for the WWE, expand the audience, potentially pushing it global? For Netflix, can it be a form of glue that holds together their clearly ramping sports streaming scaffolding? Speaking of predictions: as I noted a year ago when this partnership was announced: "And so can the NFL games on Netflix really be that far behind?" Narrator: they were not that far behind. [THR]
🇪🇺 We Do Not Censor Social Media, EU Says in Response to Meta – Mark Zuckerberg used his content moderation pivot speech to take a swipe at the EU for their overzealous policies. The EU, of course, did not like this – in particular the assertion that Meta would work with the incoming Trump administration to combat such actions. While this was clearly a broader and thinly-veiled threat to the EU around regulation, the body chose just to respond to this element specifically, noting that Meta was welcome to use their new community moderation method in the EU, but that it would need to be "checked for effectiveness" – in other words, we can expect these changes to Meta products to roll out in Europe around 2029. Or never. [Reuters]
🫧 On Bubble Watch – As always, a good overview from Howard Marks on where the market stands today, on the 25th anniversary of his "bubble.com" memo, no less. As he notes, since he's not a tech expert, it's hard for him to deduce if any of the "Magnificent 7" are overvalued, and by just how much – and, in a way, that's all that really matters because those stocks so utterly dominate the markets right now (roughly 1/3 of the S&P 500's total capitalization), in a way that's actually far beyond the way the top seven stocks dominated the market in that 2000 bubble (22%). But just these types of high level numbers point to quite a bit of bubble risk. Not insane, but a lot. And any sort of slip could easily trigger a correction given the concentration risk here alone. Regardless, a good level-setting and history lesson from Marks, especially now with so many in the workforce (and founding companies and investing) who were born after the Dot Com Bubble. Marks' lessons, of course, start well before that as he learned his first (the hard way) over 50 years ago. Aside: bubble.com is now naturally a startup named Bubble – "The full-stack, no-code app builder for everyone" (to be fair, they use the bubble.io domain, to which bubble.com redirects). [Oaktree]
⚖️ TikTok Supreme Court Case Pits National Security Against Free Speech – With the Court set to hear the arguments for and against banning TikTok starting tomorrow (ahead of the January 19 ban date), this is a summary of what it it likely to boil down to. The US will argue that a 2010 case which sided with national security set the precedent here. While TikTok will argue that a 1965 case that sided with free speech should be the precedent. One key: current Chief Justice John Roberts also presided over the 2010 case while now Justice Elena Kagan was the US Solicitor General at the time. That seemingly does not bode well for TikTok here (nor do lower court rulings). Nor does the push by many politicians, like Mitch McConnell who have seen a behind-closed-doors briefing of the security risks. But... you-know-who looms large here, asking the Court to give him time to make a deal. Will this test checks (books) and (bank) balances? [NYT]
"Apart from the million-dollar wristwatch, it had the look of a hostage video."
-- The Economist on Mark Zuckerberg's video announcing Meta's change in stance regarding content moderation. The publication agrees with the changes overall, but like myself, bemoans the way it was presented – in particular, the timing, which was clearly and obviously politically motivated.
I see no problem with Bing's image creator (per above) – it's just as random, bland, and wonky as it was when I first tried it a couple years ago. I feel like OpenAI has really ceded the image generation game to others, they should fight back!
A daily newsletter by M.G. Siegler
Sent from afar on weekdays...
2025-01-09 00:53:57
And here I was, not even a week ago, thinking social AI characters would be Meta's next blow-up/blunder. Silly me. I mean, to be fair, it still might be depending on the timing of the launch and how fast Meta's starts the moderation pull-back on their various services. But that transition is clearly going to bring a greater world of pain that the company – well, Mark Zuckerberg, at least – seems content to deal with as it happens. Still, AI-generated fake social content on existing networks? I'm taking the under on this bet...
M.G. Siegler
Spyglass Dispatch is a newsletter sent on weekdays featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
💰 AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funds Valuing It at $60 Billion – Well, they found someone to put a price on the $4B Amazon invested a couple months ago (on a note). At $60B, Lightspeed has to believe that Anthropic's exit potential is at least $180B (3x), which undoubtedly means IPO or bust now – sorry, Amazon (though you're still the backstop here if things slow down substantially – they clearly own well over 10% of the company at this point, the question is if they own over 20% and if so, how much more? They may even own over 30% at quick glance, depending on terms, of course). Amazon's $4B plus this $2B gives Anthropic roughly the same amounts as OpenAI and xAI just raised. One aside: I've seen some talk that OpenAI's revenue is roughly 4x where Anthropic currently sits, but per this reporting, OpenAI's number would seem to be actual revenue whereas Anthropic's is ARR (an extrapolation) – so the gap, seemingly, is wider. Still, the valuation gap is roughly 3x now, so hopefully Anthropic is growing faster... Though OpenAI will undoubtedly raise again soon enough at a higher number – perhaps once the for-profit transition is done. [WSJ 🔒]
🦋 Bluesky is Being Valued at Around $700 Million in a New Funding Round – Speaking of funding, I'm fairly torn on this one. On one hand, many elements of Bluesky are great and make it feel like the new (old) Twitter. On the other, I'm still not sold that a company like Twitter can really thrive as a venture-backed business in 2025. I would much rather see it be a full-on non-profit type entity – yeah, yeah, insert the OpenAI joke here. All sides can and will say the right things about the mission, but ultimately, the actual incentives always melt the best intentions. Bluesky will now need to be a multi-billion-dollar company in relatively short order and they've said they don't want to do advertising so... (Narrator: they will eventually do advertising as it becomes clear other forms of monetization aren't scaling.) Rooting for them, but I think I've seen this film before. And I didn't like the ending. [BI 🔒]
📺 The King of Network TV Wants Just 30 Minutes of Your Time – A profile of Dick Wolf, the man behind all of those procedural dramas (nine of them are currently running) on network TV – Law & Order, Chicago Fire, etc. His first streaming series, On Call, launches this week on Prime Video. Sort of strange that Amazon only ordered 8 episodes, but perhaps the slight shakeup in his old steady formula has something to do with it: episodes are just 30 minutes long and because they're not on network TV, are more violent. (Also, it reads like it's more the brainchild of his son, Elliot Wolf.) In our age where nearly every streaming show is an hour (or more), I appreciate this. Sometimes it's nice to have something that's a bit faster to watch and that's not a sitcom. The Bear seemed to benefit from this as well, at least early on. Also, the content type seemingly fits perfectly with Prime Video where shows like Reacher and Bosch seem to reign supreme. Also, also: this show almost started life on Quibi! [NYT]
🍪 Nvidia CEO Has Plans for Desktop Chip Designed with MediaTek – I noted yesterday how NVIDIA's partnership with MediaTek to develop an ARM-based chip for their new Project DIGITS home AI machine seemed interesting. As it turns out, Jensen Huang was happy to tell everyone a bit more – to the point where it's sort of surprising how open he's being about their intentions here. While he didn't exactly give specifics, he did note the plan was to make "a mainstream product" – i.e. not just something for AI developers. To be clear, he seemed to be talking about the Linux-based OS they've created to run on these chips, but as for the chips themselves as desktop CPUs, "You know, obviously we have plans." Can NVIDIA really come at that market while everyone else is gunning for them from the opposite (and every other) end? I mean if they do want to become the new (old) Intel... [Reuters]
"We don’t make Ferraris. We make S-class Mercedes that are beautifully built and run forever."
-- Rick Rosen, the WME agent of Dick Wolf, relaying how Wolf likes to describe his own shows in the era of slick (and expensive) television productions.
An overview on the Capex spend by the 'Magnificent 7' (well, 5 of them anyway, since Apple's has remained steady with AI expenses being at least somewhat outsourced to partners and NVIDIA is on the receiving end of most of this spend). As Robert Armstrong notes:
This is cash out the door today, but the expense will only appear in earnings per share over time. The AI arms race has not fully hit profits yet. The question is whether the market has digested the fact that it must do so before long.
Right now, the market is pricing in no margin compression as a result of this spend so they're clearly betting on continued revenue growth at strong paces – either in the core businesses or that AI will more than offset any core slowdowns. It's... a bet. At least one of those companies has no such growth at the moment, but well, they're already being valued a bit differently...
This is going to be the dynamic everyone is watching every quarter in 2025...
A daily newsletter by M.G. Siegler
Sent from afar on weekdays...
2025-01-08 20:00:38
My 10th and final prediction for 2025 was that Mark Zuckerberg was due for a reckoning in the press after a year or so of fawning over the "Zuckaissance".
It took a week.1
Techmeme right now is utterly dominated by the backlash against Zuck – and already some backlash to the backlash – for his change in stance on content moderation. And this is in the middle of CES. With Jensen Huang busting out GPU wafer shields on stage like some sort of AI superhero. Unless someone leaves a prototype iPhone in a bar tomorrow – and even then, it probably needs to be foldable and transparent and made of Adamantium – nothing is derailing this story for a while.
It's just a perfect storm: Zuckerberg + Zuckaissance + Speech + Trump = Kaboom.
So what else is there to say when pretty much every angle was instantly covered? Not much, to be honest. But come on, that's no fun. This is the internet, takes must be given. So I'll try to follow my own mandate and take a step back to think this through while being a step removed.
Facebook as a company, before it was Meta, almost perfectly mirrors my own time in tech. It was founded in 2004, the year I graduated from college and started blogging about technology. When I started doing that professionally in 2007, Google was already well-established as a public company, but Facebook was the startup upstart on the rise and well on its way to being that next "internet treasure" and the crown jewel of the "third wave" to borrow phrases from John Doerr. When I started working at TechCrunch, our office was two blocks away from Facebook's in Palo Alto. That was fun at times, awkward at others, and quite combative.
Anyway, I've been writing about the company for a long time. I've met Mark Zuckerberg a handful of times, but know many people that know him well. With all that context, my sense here is that what we're seeing now is closer to the "real" Mark Zuckerberg than previous stances he's taken on issues.
That is to say, he's not completely full of shit in his about-face on content moderation and free speech. His own video on the matter kicks off by citing a speech he gave five years ago at Georgetown on such topics – a point which his team has been trumpeting today. It's an effort to make him seem less two-faced, of course. But again, I don't think it's necessarily misleading. It can be both convenient and also true.
But there are other truths too. Certainly, the timing of all of this is interesting. Which is to say, also undoubtedly not coincidental. He's reversing Meta's course on the eve of the inauguration of a President who has threatened both him personally and his company due to the very issues that Zuckerberg is now backtracking on. Talk about convenient! And this follows a love bombing campaign to prove to the incoming "badass" President that this time, things will be different.
And it's working. Meta has "come a long way," according to Trump in a public speech given yesterday.
But Zuckerberg also can't afford – perhaps quite literally – to let up. The incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr has made it quite clear that Meta is enemy number one when it comes to his agenda around free speech and censorship. This, more so than Trump himself, is probably driving the timing of all of this. And that, in turn, is likely what led to the replacing of Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan right now. Out with the liberal head, in with the conservative one.
So yes, the stance can be both true and political at the same time. In fact, you could argue that it was savvy, in a way, for Zuckerberg to wait to play this chip until he would get the most bang for the buck, as it were. Certainly that will help to ease the pain of the blowback in the press here, which was always going to be inevitable with such a change in stance.
To that end, it does feel like Zuckerberg is also learning lessons from his would-be cage match adversary, Elon Musk. He's been at war with the press for a few years now. Has it mattered? I mean, he's now the richest man in the world – by far – and the right hand man to the incoming President. So, no. I'm sorry, but that must be the takeaway here – certainly the one Zuckerberg is looking at in all of this. He sees what Elon is doing and has done and is clearly realizing that he needs to stop giving so much of a shit what others think – and certainly what the press thinks.
The fact that he specifically cited "X" and what they've been doing with the Community Notes feature in his video yesterday was certainly a tactic as well. Sure, part of it was to mute any copying blowback by stating the obvious, but it was also a subtle signal to Musk and his overall strategy.
Again, two things can be true: Zuckerberg is now going to copy that strategy, but he also probably always wanted to implement such a strategy. He just didn't have the courage to do so before. Now Elon has given him cover.
All of this reads a bit unfair to Zuckerberg. People do change and grow over time, of course. He started Facebook when he was 19. He's now 40. That's arguably the period of time when you're going to do the most changing and growing. Most simply don't do it in the public eye, in real time as much as Zuckerberg has. And unlike, say, a celebrity, his goal wasn't to be well-known and followed in public. But that naturally came when he built products that touched the lives of 3 billion-plus people. It's perhaps not a stretch to think that he's better known around the world than any Hollywood figure. Perhaps only a few athletes are more well-known. And maybe Musk.
Anyway, this is me giving some benefit of the doubt.2 Because things are undoubtedly not as black-and-white as they're being portrayed today. This change can be both honest and also political. And, knowing Meta, it's likely to change again! This is a company with a history of whiplash-inducing policy and product changes over these past 20 years. Some of it is Zuckerberg needing to mature, some of it is him maturing. Some of it is reading the room, some of it is a complete and utter inability to.3 A lot of it is just pure old-fashioned finger-in-the-wind stuff.
That's the thing here. The only real certainty is that the political winds will shift again. And while we can joke about Emperor Trump eventually handing over the sceptre to Don Jr, the reality is that this most recent Trump election is a moment in time that is likely to lead to a complete and utter rebuke of such a time. Maybe that's in four years. Maybe it's later. But it will happen.
And so where is Mark Zuckerberg and Meta at that point? If you believe, as I do, that with all of this we're getting closer to the "real" Mark Zuckerberg, what happens when a super liberal tide is swelling? That's the real question here.
1 To be clear, I'm not really passing any judgement on either Zuckerberg or the press here, I've seen enough in my two decades observing, writing about, and investing in this industry to know how such cycles work. They're like clockwork. I didn't know what exactly would cause the backlash because I didn't need to know. You're built up to be knocked down. And you ride high on your own supply long enough in that time only to do something likely to get you knocked down.
2 To give less, I would just point out that the support of this incoming President in particular is problematic and unlikely to be looked upon kindly by history. But hey, I don't run a trillion-dollar public company and don't need to make such calculations in my stances. Will kissing the ring pay off? Perhaps literally, but probably not figureatively.
3 Remember the "smog jog" in Beijing?