Just over 6,000 tech-smart people streamed on into San Francisco’s Chase Center for the Acquired event featuring Marc Zuckerberg as guest speaker, a cavernous event space that is home to the Golden State Warriors and hosts pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo. Engineers, venture capitalists and other Silicon Valley digerati chatted as they found their seats, with Modelos and slices of pizza in hand. The anticipation was high.
Key takeaways from Zuck’s talk today at the Acquired Podcast live show:
– If your CEO and board aren’t technical, you’re NOT a tech company.
– Don’t wait for perfection. Ship as soon as the feature can test a hypothesis. (Meta isn’t Apple – they embrace shipping fast to learn fast.)
-Zuck thinks people avoid hard truths about their businesses “You underestimate how painful things are going to be, so you can go and do good things,” said Zuck speaking on building his empire over the last 20 years that includes giants like Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp
– There’s more talent outside your company than in it. Learn from the market or get left behind.
Zuck was in his element discussing business, technology, challenges and successes.
He mentioned Aeschylus, the ancient Greek dramatist who is often described as the father of tragedy, in a nod to the lengthy time horizons he thinks in for his company. In terms of how long he had to plan his vision from ideation to delivery and in market, weeks seem like decades and decades seem like weeks.
Zuck’s self-designed shirt – πάθει μάθος, ‘learning through suffering’ – amplified his talking points. He believes you can create your own luck by designing the games you play and becoming the best at them.
He ended the show by stating that ”Elon is not a competitor, he would never [dare to] fight me.” 🎤⤵️
For Zuck, the taping played out like a victory lap. Showing off his latest curly hairstyle and a graphic black-and-white T-shirt he had custom-made, he sat in an armchair onstage, with his image projected behind him on a giant screen. The tech leader who has seemingly gone from creepy alien to tech papi in the space of 12 months.
The Zuck spoke at length about the challenges Meta has faced over time, including a difficult period in the early 2010s when Facebook had to shift from being a social network that was used mostly on desktop computers to one used on smartphones. He said he planned to stick around for many more years to come.
“It’s a lot like that Michael Jordan ad,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, referring to a commercial in which the basketball superstar once talked about his many losses to other teams over the years. “Even after failing over and over again, he succeeded.”
“I’m not ashamed of copying someone else’s work and making a better version of it.” – Mark Zuckerberg.
WATCH the Interview here:
The Acquired Event Poster
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