Thread by @MarceloPLima

Casey, congrats on the scoop! Could you publish the full audio so we can have a sense of context around all the highlights?

https://twitter.com/caseynewton/status/1179006863154638849

1) Some notes on the partial transcript we have so far:
- Zuck thinks election interference is *more* likely if FB is broken up, which is Tyler Cowen's position, too: smaller companies will have less ability to deal with this problem
- Same with hate speech or similar issues

2) Notes that FB's investment in safety is > than Twitter's entire revenue 👀
- On Libra, Zuck is taking a very thoughtful approach, consulting with experts and regulators to address issues before the launch
- Public hearings are dramatic, but private engagements...

3) ...around those are much less dramatic and more substantive
- TikTok: first Chinese consumer internet product doing well around the world, growing quickly in India, and bigger than Instagram in India in terms of scale🤯
- TikTok is like Explore tab in Instagram...

4) ...but Explore for Stories, and that's the whole app, and people are making content specifically for that
- FB has Lasso trialing in Mexico, to find product/market fit, to then compete in countries TikTok is big
- Also bringing Stories to Explore - stories "increasingly...

5)...becoming the primary way that people consume content on Instagram"
- TikTok spending a ton on advertising and retention not good [high CAC, low LTV!]
- Having voting control of FB has helped the company [totally agree]
- FB's biggest problem is perception, not the substance

6) On the trauma experienced by content moderators, Zuck is focused on improving their well-being
- CTO Shrep adds that tooling is constantly improving so moderators' jobs improve over time
- In 2006 FB had 10m users and MySpace had 100m and was growing faster

7) "And if you believe all the arguments about network effects, there's no chance that we should've been able to compete"
- When FB expanded to high schools, it was "ehh". News Feed.. ehh... $1bn offer by Yahoo is a lot of $$$, but Zuck turned it down. Entire management team quit

8) But this happened when Zuck was 21/22 so it gave him confidence that voting control was important and they could figure things out over the long-term
- Big issue he cares about is promoting positive well-being
- Engagement with friends is much better than passive consumption

9) FB made the change and removed 50 million hours of viral video watching a day, and the company lost $100 billion in market cap in one day
- That is 2/3 of the total value lost on Black Tuesday during the Great Depression (in the entire market), in today's dollars

10) [If you're a fan of Tom Russo, this is what he calls "the capacity to suffer"--burdening short-term earnings for a long-term benefit--and FB has it in spades]
- Over the long term "it really is profitable to do the right thing" [amen]
- Ends by talking about how cool...

11) ...non-invasive brain-computer interfaces will be. Just a couple of bits and you can, just with your brain, hit yes/no in a dialog box or control a menu [note: this is from July, so before the CTRL Labs acquisition announcement in September]

end) Link to the transcript:
theverge.com/2019/10/1/2089…

The more I see of the unscripted Zuck, the more I like him

Don't rely on filtered news, check out the source document above