The rise of taste, human authenticity and judgment in an AI world | Adam Mosseri (Head of IG)

No, I think taste matters a ton. In a

world where it's easier to build things, it's more important to make sure that your time is spent figuring out what you should be building in the first place.

The people who I think are going to make the most of it are the ones who are cleareyed about what AI is good at and what it's not good at and also have an instinct or a nose for what it will be

good at and not good at. What's

something that the Instagram algorithm knows about human behavior that people may not realize?

I think people assume that there's a much more detailed semantic understanding of everybody's interests and preferences in the algorithm than there is.

Is the rise of AI content a headwind or a tailwind for Instagram versus other platforms?

I think it's going to be a tailwind, but I think it's going to be a challenge in a world where there's an abundance of synthetic content. I actually think

synthetic content. I actually think people are going to seek out creativity and authenticity and people. I don't

think we should filter out AI content. I

think we should let you know if content is AI content or not. That's hard. By

the way, where do you think human brains will continue to be most valuable as AI continues to eat more and more of that product development life cycle?

That's a great question. So

today my guest is Adam Masseri, head of Instagram. Over three billion people use

Instagram. Over three billion people use Instagram monthly. That's one in every

Instagram monthly. That's one in every three people alive. It boggles the mind.

Prior to Instagram, Adam designed and led the early Facebook news feed. He

also ran the team that built the Facebook ranking algorithm. And 8 years ago, he took over Instagram from its founders, Kevin Cyester and Mike Kger.

He's a designer turned product manager turned leader of Instagram. Adam is also famous for being the face of all of the controversy and changes that come with evolving Instagram as a product, which

we talk about. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennisproduct.com for a free year of the most interesting and well-crafted AI products in the world, available exclusively to Lenny's

newsletter subscribers. With that, I

newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Adam Masseri.

Adam, thank you so much for being here.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

You've been doing product for a long time. You get to see how a lot of teams

time. You get to see how a lot of teams operate across Meta within Instagram.

What does just kind of like the canonical product team look like in 2026? What's kind of most different

2026? What's kind of most different today in how teams operate slash should operate versus say a couple years ago?

It's changed a lot this year. So for the longest time at a big company like ours, the canonical team was something like two or three Android engineers, two or three iOS engineers, two or three server engineers,

maybe a generalist, a PM, a designer, a data scientist, a researcher if you were lucky, and maybe that's about it. So you know

on the order of a baker's dozen and that is a function of you know you want to have for anybody who's writing code someone who can

review their code and that's who's familiar with that codebase and having these different functions that are more specialized you know I think it's very different at a startup but this year

it's changing we've adopted what we call pods which are just mini teams where it's call it four to six engineers who

are a bit more generalists.

Uh one we call product staff which is sort of an evolution of the PM. So a PM who can do some of what a designer does and some of what a data scientist does and some of what a research does

leveraging um the latest tools that we have for them. And then whatever specialist they need if they if they're doing something that requires a pricing strategy you need a senior data scientist. If you're doing something

scientist. If you're doing something that is really novel from an experience standpoint, you need a very senior product designer. So we try to build the

product designer. So we try to build the team based on the needs of the work a bit, but then end up with a much smaller core which is more on the order of six or seven usually. And that is a very big

shift that's just happening to us this year. But they

year. But they just by virtue of having less people to coordinate they can often move faster and make um better decisions a little

bit less design by committee. So we talk a lot about you know AI adjusting and improving productivity and that's part of it but I think another part of it is just

the small teams I think often are just more effective. This episode is brought

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I I love this. So on this team of six to seven, what's what's the makeup again?

And which role are you finding you have less of? If you're going from the kind

less of? If you're going from the kind of the if you're going 50% size, you just have less specialists, right?

So you might not have any. You might be four engineers and a product staff and there's no data scientist, there's no designer, there's no researcher, there's no content designer. The product staff is the generalist that sort of supports

all of those things. I mean, what's clearly happening is all the functions are starting to bleed into each other and the and the whole industry is wrestling with what that means.

You know, a lot of what a data scientist does at a big company, for instance, is relatively mechanical. And so, you know, there's

mechanical. And so, you know, there's stuff that they do that is really more like, you know, art and science. And the

stuff that's really more like just pulling data, data management, you know, so some of the tools that we're building internally to understand, for instance, a traditional data science question

would be a waterfall. So if you wanted to look at people creating reels, you would look at all the steps and then how people fall off on each step and try to figure out where there might be opportunities to improve things. That

kind of basic waterfall analysis is like much easier now to use some of our internal tools to just pull automatically as opposed to having to have a data scientist do a bunch of bespoke work for that. So a product

staff might be able to do that now and they couldn't do that a year ago. So you

just end up with this generalist these people who have more generalist shapes and then and then when you need it when you really need it you have a more

senior ideally or just more creative specialist um so you know a phenomenal uh product designer or just a just a genius uh data scientist or researcher.

This is so interesting. It's exactly

what I just heard. I had uh Fiona Fong the head of engineering for cloud code and co-work on the podcast. She's force

attorney's manager and she described the people she hires now are one builders with great taste that can take an idea from end to end and people with deep

expertise in a very specific domain.

The tasting matters a lot. I really

agree with that. Boris used to work at Instagram. Um I love

Instagram. Um I love Yeah. He was a senior IC at Instagram

Yeah. He was a senior IC at Instagram for a while. I love seeing him. He's all

over threads now. It's like he's sort of like the face of Clark K. He's he's a celebrity now. He really is. He's his

celebrity now. He really is. He's his

own little Yeah, for sure. In a world that is like on fire right now. Um, no,

I think taste matters a ton. Uh, so in a world where it's easier to build things, it's more important to make sure that your time is spent figuring out what you

should be building in the first place.

Um, actually, so a lot of designers right now are very anxious about their roles. you know, you've got these other

roles. you know, you've got these other generalists doing design, you've got engineers doing design, product staff doing design, but I'm actually pretty

long on design or designers because they tend to have taste and I think that is something that is

much more difficult to imagine being automated away. And so there's other

automated away. And so there's other challenges with design sometimes, but I I'm pretty long right now on designers.

I've always felt that too as it is so easy to build and all the work that AI produces is so like you can tell this was cloud design. I know what you did here.

This is codeex.

Well, they all have their vibe, right?

Like you vibe code your apps. We call it vibe coding. You're all like, "Oh,

vibe coding. You're all like, "Oh, that's a codeex app." Or, "Oh, that's a cloud app."

cloud app." Right. And that's replet. That's

Right. And that's replet. That's

lovable. Like you can Yeah.

You can predict these things. You like

I've always thought that too that design should be thriving already now. For some

reason, it hasn't yet. If you look at jobs for designers, they're kind of flatlining. I feel like the missing

flatlining. I feel like the missing piece is like the PM piece of deeply understanding the business and what will grow it and what success, you know, like all that stuff, the business side of it

versus the taste side of it.

Yeah. I think you're going to see like, you know, um we have a senior designer uh at Instagram uh called Nate who just transferred into product stuff. So, I

think I think some of what you'll see is, you know, it will be harder to talk about design roles and who's a good designer because they're not going to just stay in traditional design roles.

You know, if you're an amazing designer, you might you probably have strong opinions outside of just the interaction in visual design. You probably have strong opinions on product strategy,

even on the business, on the go to market. And so I actually think some of

market. And so I actually think some of our strongest product staff are going to be converts from design and from data science who are just looking to expand their reach. And they were influential

their reach. And they were influential across functional boundaries before, but this world where those functional boundaries are just wildly blurred just allow them just to jump in. And so sure they'll be technically a generalist on

paper, but they're they're clearly have a a uniquely, you know, strong ability in one one type of craft. Um, but

they've got the ability and strong opinions to make informed decisions across other parts or other crafts. And

so, you know, I don't know that all the strongest designers I have will all be in design. They they probably will be

in design. They they probably will be the majority, but I can imagine a bunch of really strong ones, you know, moving roles, but I mean, I should also check my own bias here, though, because I started as a designer at Facebook way

back when, and I'm I switched roles. Um,

no, designers are great. I'm a big fan.

So, this is really interesting. There's

always been this like GM model where different types of functions can become GMs. It's like this product staff role feels like a similar situation where different functions can become product staff.

Yeah. Yeah. And that was true of PM before, but it's just so much more true now. Um and it'll I mean in some ways

now. Um and it'll I mean in some ways it's probably the age of the generalist, but I I still think there's going to be a real important role for these really amazing specialists who are just they're

all about going I wish I was like that.

I always had this like I romanticized like the phenomenal machine learning engineer or AI researcher or shoe maker.

Like I think that's the coolest thing in the world, but it's never been my shape.

I've always been um I've never been great at anything. I've always just had range. That's always been my strength.

range. That's always been my strength.

Same.

Okay. So this idea of product staff, so the idea is on these new pods. So this

is like a new thing you guys are doing.

So there's these pod teams, product staff, engineers, and maybe one specialist that's going deep on say pricing algorithm or something like that. So what this tells me is there's

that. So what this tells me is there's these like adjacent roles that are maybe uh more in trouble over the years. Uh

data science for example, user research for example, you talked about designers being anxious. Is there is there

being anxious. Is there is there anything there of just like oh these maybe folks in these groups should think about shifting to other roles?

I I mean there's anxiety everywhere. I

mean, I I I've talked to a lot of people at a lot of other companies, and it just seems like this is a lot of concern right now about competition, about job displacement, about unintended or unforeseen consequences of all this

technology and all this moving so quickly. So, that's definitely

quickly. So, that's definitely happening. I I think that I think that

happening. I I think that I think that you will see the functional lines continue to blur, but I still think there will be room for functions.

They'll just be shaped differently.

They'll be more they won't all be senior IC's necessarily, but they'll all be either senior or on their way to being senior. Like you can't just have a bunch

senior. Like you can't just have a bunch of super senior data scientists and like no new ones because then who's going to be the new super data scientists in the

future. So you need to basically hire

future. So you need to basically hire and mentor and grow talent. You know,

maybe the team is smaller overall and then that those who aren't on their way to being super senior move into more of a generalist role. I think that's like a reasonable soft landing, but I do think you're going to want to make sure you're

investing not only in today's senior talent for each specific function, but in tomorrow's. Um, otherwise, I think

in tomorrow's. Um, otherwise, I think you're going to regret it in a couple years. My take. That said, who knows

years. My take. That said, who knows what the world looks like in a couple years. Um, so my big thing and is

years. Um, so my big thing and is generally like don't over don't be overly confident in whatever your predictions are because there's just too

much flux right now. the Benedict Evans was on was on the podcast recently said the same thing. We don't know anything about what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. I like I like I like him a lot. Um I'll make sure I listen to the

lot. Um I'll make sure I listen to the podcast.

Yeah. So you talked about taste. This

makes me think about So you're interviewing a lot of people, hiring a lot of people. What are some traits that you're that are like trending up in things that you look for more and more now in this world? And what are some

traits that are trending down and maybe less important to you?

I mean there are some things that are the same, right? So, for the longest time, almost no matter what the function, I always look for three things. Do you have sort of grit? Like,

things. Do you have sort of grit? Like,

you know, you're kind of like you're really gonna you've got some drive, some fire in your belly. Are you a quick learner? And

learner? And are you, you know, are you reasonably, ideally, very self-aware so that you can actually take feedback and know what you're good at, know what you're good at? Because if you're those three

at? Because if you're those three things, if you got fire in your belly, you learn quickly, and you're self-aware, you can kind of get good at anything eventually. Um, and but if any

anything eventually. Um, and but if any of those things are missing, there's usually an issue. So that's sort of like the baseline right now for hiring, but just for I

think people who are going to be more successful over these next five or 10 years as things change so significantly.

I think two things that I I'm continuing to encourage myself to do are to stay curious and to put yourself out there. I

just think you got to try things, right?

This is like, you know, to that point before where that no one really knows what's going on. You just have to be willing to try things. It's almost I don't know. Do you speak another

don't know. Do you speak another language?

Uh, Russian. Yeah.

Yeah. So, when you learn another language, I think one of the most important things, one of the best predictors, this is my guess. I don't

have any research on this about, you know, are you going to get good at speaking is are you willing to sound like an idiot? Are you willing just to say it and be corrected and not be offended and then just get better and better? You just have to put yourself

better? You just have to put yourself out there. And with all of these new

out there. And with all of these new tools and models and technologies, I think you just have to be willing to try stuff. Um, so if you're curious and you

stuff. Um, so if you're curious and you try stuff, I think that'll, you know, you'll learn, you'll adapt. But if

you're not curious or you're not willing to make mistakes or try things, I think you're in a ton of trouble. Uh, or at least I think it's going to be a really difficult time. So those I think are

difficult time. So those I think are premiums, not just for hiring at a company like Meta or a team like Instagram, but I just think across the industry and multiple industries over the next 10 or 20 years. Is there

something that maybe we're looking for less of for some of these functions? Um,

I think that there's some that are still going to be very large teams and so you need people who are really good at managing large organizations. Large

organizational leadership is its own craft and skill. It's actually different than management. Um, but I do think

than management. Um, but I do think there'll be less of those roles. I think

we'll have more smaller teams and there'll be less people who manage thousands of people. Um, and so that's not that that job will go away, but that will be less of what I'm looking for in

hires because I'm going to have less roles like that.

Something I'm hearing from a few folks is AI is almost kind of resetting people's impact and success in terms of some people that were maybe low

performers pre-AII can now do like things they were bad at or AI now allows them to do and now they're thriving, building all these things, helping other people. Do you see that at all? Just

people. Do you see that at all? Just

like AI is just like lifting other people up, maybe lowering some people down.

Yeah. I mean the job is just different.

I mean take take us take um take engineering. Engineering used to be

engineering. Engineering used to be maybe not majority but a large percentage 40 50 60% writing code. You know it's not now

writing code. You know it's not now especially if you talk to anybody at these labs they're spending most of their time planning and reviewing code.

That is a very different job. You might

hate that and you might have loved just writing code or you might have you might love that and you might not have been that fast at writing code. So you know

who who succeeds is a function of whose strengths are aligned with the tools needs and the business's needs. And so

this is definitely happening. Another

thing is you've had people who had good ideas about how to contribute to other functions but didn't have the mechanical or technical skills to do so and AI

reduces the boundary to do that and then all of a sudden they can't like you know I it's for me it's kind of funny because when I got hired at Facebook we all the designers had to be able to program that was like our I had I went through a

technical loop we gave up on that because it was too hard to hire people um but I now get to program again for the first time in maybe 10 years and you

know I am not a good engineer. I'm a

mediocre engineer on a good day but now I can write code responsibly which is just an amazing thing. You're seeing

this across all sorts of levels and seniority and functions. you know,

designers who are programming, uh, engineers who are pulling data and doing strong analyses, data scientists who are putting together proposals for designs.

You know, the tools aren't all great. By

the way, I think too often we have this really polarized binary outlook on the state of AI, like are you AI pill or are you anti- AI? It's like people aren't

binary. I said that to the team

binary. I said that to the team yesterday and the state of the tools isn't binary either. You know, they're amazing at some things and remarkably

bad at others. And the people who I think are going to make the most of it are the ones who are cleareyed about what AI is good at and what it's not good at and also have an instinct or a

nose for what it will be good at and not good at, you know, not, you know, next month or in a couple months from now.

you mentioned um that AI writes all our code now. Someone tweeted this that's

code now. Someone tweeted this that's this idea that stuck with me for like months now of just like remember we used to be able to just write code for free.

I think you'll still be able to write code for free. It'll just be with a smaller model. But yes,

smaller model. But yes, I guess that's true. Like there's models that are close to free but it's like yeah that's crazy. Now it's just like but just think about think about the

cost. Think about what you pay for a a

cost. Think about what you pay for a a model now and how and what the level of intelligence you're getting from that model is and then at that same price

point a year ago what were you getting at some point they will just the the incremental value is will be won't matter like you know you know we're getting there I think with small

projects and programming like I I think the models will matter even beyond you know this week you've got fable and obviously mythos from Enthropic, but I

spent a lot of time with that this week.

I'm it's for the first time I'm like, "Oh, I'm just talking to a much more technical, much smarter engineer than I am." You know, the next version, you

am." You know, the next version, you know, you know, a year out of that model. Do I need to pay for Frontier

model. Do I need to pay for Frontier tokens, you know, for whatever, you know, anthropic model 6.0 is or is Fable just fine for all of my side projects?

Probably just fine. probably pretty

pretty cheap by then, too.

Yeah. When Kevin Whale was on the podcast when he was CPO at uh OpenAI, he's he famously said, "This is the worst the model will ever be."

Yeah.

Yeah.

Still hard to comprehend that. Wow.

That's it's only going to get better.

So, on this point of uh token spend, ROI, and things like that, uh Meta was famous for this like leaderboard of token spend. Um

it's a terrible idea. No leaderboards

for token spend.

Okay. talk about that and just how do you think about just like budgets for engineers and product teams at this point? You just like spend as much as

point? You just like spend as much as you want? Is it like there's a cap we

you want? Is it like there's a cap we have? Is there any sort of thing you've

have? Is there any sort of thing you've kind of figured out that works well?

Right now we've managed to get the costs rained in a little bit by like shutting down the silly things that we were doing. And so, you know, it's not that

doing. And so, you know, it's not that hard to build a token incinerator and that doesn't create a lot of value. And

as soon as you actually look at the dollars in and value out, you might just be like, "Oh, that's just a bad idea."

And so right now we don't have um token limits for for for our engineers actually I think for anybody really. Uh

I think that'll eventually have to happen um particularly if costs go up before they go down. I think they'll eventually go down because for the reasons that we just talked about but I think of it like as any other resource

right like I have to decide how to deploy capacity to my different teams because I have a limited number of GPUs and CPUs and storage and RAM etc. I have

to decide how to deploy opex for labeling budgets across my teams. I have to decide how to deploy payroll for headcount across my teams. I think that

you can imagine at least in an year or two coming that the the burn rate of a strong engineer might be the same as their salary or their cost of

employment. And if in that world like

employment. And if in that world like you're going to probably need to put in some caps. the cap should probably be

some caps. the cap should probably be com like a proportional to your sort of you know the company's sort of trust in your ability to use them in an ROI

positive way but I can imagine caps being healthy right now we're not there uh I think costs will go up because we'll just be using more tokens not because prices will necessarily go up

but then I think prices will come down because all of these frontier models are going to be in a bit of a pricing more.

Um, so we'll see. I think it'll be a bit of a roller coaster.

So, coming back to this idea that as you said, we've evolved from we used to write all our code to now we're approaching all code will be written by AI. And it feels like now the transition

AI. And it feels like now the transition is it's not just written by AI, but it's like oneshotted by AI. Like coding now is steering AI and it's like how often you have to correct it is is coding now.

And then there's uh so it's like the software development life cycle slowly being eaten by AI. Uh it'll start helping us come up with ideas I imagine more and more. The question I like to

ask people is where do you think human brains will continue to be most valuable as AI continues to eat more and more of that product development life cycle.

taste like we talked about um judgment particularly around strategy right like you're you're not you might get feedback from an AI on a strategy but you're not asking an AI to come up with a strategy

anytime soon or if you are then it's within the context of bounds you set so here's my goal here's my vision here are my constraints here's my job here's my budget I think that you know it looks

more like management right like you are trying to define what success looks like decide how prescriptive you want to be about the path to success and then

giving feedback along the way and that is its own craft you know and you it'll be interesting to see how Matt you know

you know some of the same dynamics come up like I believe that if you are too prescriptive as a leader with a team you end up stifling good ideas but if you're

too open-ended sometimes teams just waste time um going in the wrong direction. And so that level of autonomy

direction. And so that level of autonomy you give a team like maybe that applies to, you know, agents in the future. Um,

particularly when we're talking not just about building something, but deciding what you build in the first place. But I

think of I think of vision as an articulation of the world or the or the state of the product you want to get to.

Then I think of strategy is an opinionated path to achieve that vision.

If a strat strategy can't be like be the best or be amazing. It has to be controversial that you have to be a reasonable person should be able to disagree with it because otherwise

you're probably just trying to compete on raw execution and I think there both vision and strategy I think are going to be where our brains are spending a lot

of our more and more of our cycles and I think less on on execution. Something I

have always thought is AI should be incredibly good at strategy. Because you

would think here's the market, here's all the information on the market, our competitors, our metrics, our numbers, our growth, all these things. Help me

figure out how to win. You think AI knowing all that would be really good at this. I think it could be. I I have

this. I think it could be. I I have found it's not unless you steer it pretty aggressively. And I don't mean

pretty aggressively. And I don't mean towards an answer. I mean based on the constraints. It turns out when you're

constraints. It turns out when you're trying to come up with a strategy, there's a lot of things to consider, right? You need to consider the state of

right? You need to consider the state of the technology, the personnel on the team and what's motivating them and what you can get. You know, sometimes coming up with a idea that is on the bubble, you know, it's going to actually attract

some of the best talent and so that kind of like that kind of the push then goes to the idea. uh obviously the competitive landscape, the regulatory landscape for companies as large as ours

and the compliance landscape, the identity and reason to exist for the brand. Um, you know, you have to

brand. Um, you know, you have to consider all of these things. I think if you ask an AI just for a strategy lazily, you're not going to get something great. You're going to get

something great. You're going to get something pretty predictable that probably the competition would expect you to do. I think if you want a really more effective one, you need to think long and hard about what are all the

different inputs that need to be considered. Make sure you

considered. Make sure you steer the AI in a way that it's considering those as well. And it needs to be a conversation and the back and forth. But I think if you're willing to

forth. But I think if you're willing to put in the work and the time, it can definitely be helpful and definitely be clarifying. Um, particularly if you tell

clarifying. Um, particularly if you tell it to be critical. Different models have very different vibes though on Yeah.

How willing they are to be pushed back.

So I I recommend picking one that likes pushing back.

Yeah. Mythos has gotten really good at being like, I can't do this. Let's let's

move on. Like uh there's all these fun has always been a little bit of a jerk in a way that I actually appreciate.

I truly I appreciate it. I really do because I don't want one that's just like, "Oh, you're so right. I'm so sorry I said that." It's like, "No, hold on. I want I

that." It's like, "No, hold on. I want I want, you know, I want the real real sort of intelligence. I don't want the pleaser.

This point you made about people being excited about the strategy is such an interesting one. There's this idea that

interesting one. There's this idea that I read I think Cy Corey Doctr wrote this. There's this kind of concept of a

this. There's this kind of concept of a centaur centaur and a reverse centaur.

So centaur is a human body horse. This

is going somewhere I promise. Uh human

body uh horse sorry human upper part lower part horse body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

horse body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Horse body where the human is in charge.

And that's kind of we prefer that we want to be in charge. reverse end chart, which is what we want to avoid with AI, is where the AI is controlling us and we're just doing its bidding.

It's a horse head on a human body.

Yeah, exactly.

It's terrifying.

Like in a sense like Uber drivers and Door Dash people kind of this is their life, which is not great and this is the danger thing for a lot of people is like like if it's giving us the strategy and telling us here's what

we're built, like no one's gonna want to do that. So that's a really interesting

do that. So that's a really interesting counterpoint to we don't want AI to be telling us the strategy almost.

Yeah. No, I I I think there's a lot of things to be careful about right now. And I would certainly

right now. And I would certainly not just assume that because you might be able to outsource some workflow to AI that you should. Um there are certain ones where I think it's really just a

win-win. There are certain ones where I

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Okay, going back to product leadership, things you've learned along your journey. Uh, we were chatting ahead of

journey. Uh, we were chatting ahead of this about just things you've learned and one thing that you said about some of the product the best product leaders you've worked with is that they're less visionary and more curators. I'd love to

hear more along these lines. Yeah, I

mean you do sometimes find amazing product leaders who are who are just like idea machines, just prolific idea machines. But I do think a lot of the

machines. But I do think a lot of the best are have have taste are have something about them that really

makes wants makes really strong talent want to work with them but end up sort of being curators. curators of people, curators of ideas, curators of technologies, curators of strategies,

because I don't really care if I'm hiring a strong lead for an area if the strategy comes from them or comes from somebody else. I just care that there is

somebody else. I just care that there is a amazing strategy and everyone has bought into it and that the and then we're executing against that strategy well. And so I think that some of the

well. And so I think that some of the best product leaders, yes, have ideas.

It's hard to be a great curator if you don't have some of your own ideas, but are that embrace the reality that they can't

come up with everything themselves. And

so they need to create an environment in which great ideas bubble up and are uh chosen or decided upon. And so, you know, I think it's not just about

curating ideas, but it's sometimes about curating teams and people.

I love that. I so agree. I feel like everyone's always joining a team and they just want to do vision strategy just like not actually hands-on work and no AI is coming in here. Let me do the strategy.

Exactly.

And I love this point that there's so much power and value and people underestimate just the the need for just like a really good curator of of the team's ideas.

Yeah. Sometimes it's also sometimes it's not just who's good or what idea is good. It's also what is going to work

good. It's also what is going to work given the broader context. So for

instance on team building a huge thing that I'm always considering is not just like is this person a really strong candidate for this role. it is how does this person fit into their leadership

team you know so if I you know for some an area like trust and safety you know I have an engineering lead I have a product staff lead I have a data science lead I have a design lead I have a research lead you know I need to make

sure that those five complement each other I need to make and that's you know about what skills each one has what weaknesses each one might have I also

need to make sure that they um this is more art than science have a good vibe, right? You know, you need, you know,

right? You know, you need, you know, trust and rapport. A leadership team with strong trust and rapport can work through most anything. A leadership team without trust or rapport, like anything

can become an issue. And so that that chemistry bit is is is like I said much more art than science, but that also matters. And so I think some of the best

matters. And so I think some of the best leaders and product leaders specifically also either do that instinctively or consciously, but you know they have a

they have a nose for for building teams that are going to have good energy and um good collaboration, warm and fuzzy stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the flip is also true, right? Like I've I've had many times in

right? Like I've I've had many times in my career I've had two people who I think are amazing and I even adore them and love them and they just can't get along.

You're like this isn't a competency issue. This is just a personality issue

issue. This is just a personality issue and you just have to just sometimes call it and split them.

I want to transition talk to talk about Instagram the product the platform things you guys have learned there. Let

me start with this question. What's

something that the Instagram algorithm knows about human behavior that people may not realize?

One of the most common misconceptions is actually in the opposite direction. I

think people assume that there's a much more detailed semantic understanding of everybody's interests and preferences in the algorithm than there is. Most of

what's really driven the progress in the world of recommenders over the last 5 10 years have been, you know, these large embedding models and these other techniques that

basically produce artifacts that cannot be read by people. They're not legible.

They're like giant vectors. It's like,

sure, I can show you the vector, but it's just going to be a bunch of numbers in like a seven dimensional space. It's

like, and so when when we talk about does the algorithm know something, usually we think in these more semantic terms. It knows I like surfing and it's like it doesn't. It just has this big

ass number that happens to correlate with surfing. Um,

with surfing. Um, that said, I think that is starting to change, right? I think that what

change, right? I think that what one of the things that LLMs are enabling is they can describe in you know words you know English for or whatever

language you prefer what some of those previously illeible artifacts um are at least approximate to if not mean directly right so this is like the thing I've been really I posted about this

this week this thing called your algorithm basically the idea is we take a look at all of the stuff that you've interacted with. And then you know we

interacted with. And then you know we all of that is in an embedding space.

You can think of embedding space as a map. You can map a bunch of videos into

map. You can map a bunch of videos into the same map. And so videos that are close or similar. And now we can just have an LLM just be like describe that part of the map. And it can be like oh

that is like deep pourover coffee snobbery.

Um and that's kind of amazing.

That is so cool that like you can ask the LM to look at these numbers and extrapolate. here's

like the topic that you're interested in.

Yeah. Or look at the videos.

And so the way you um both So you can also embed concepts into that same space. And so I mean embeddings are

space. And so I mean embeddings are really the underlying technology underneath LLMs, right? That's how all the whole thing works. And so you know, so what what we what we what we do now

is we let you, you know, quote unquote see your algorithm. You can see what topics we think you're interested in. Um

and you can adjust it. You can add and remove things, but the idea here giving people some agency back in a world where, you know, these social media apps are getting taken over by recommendations,

but we can't do a lot of other things yet, which we will be able to do. You

know, you could there's things that aren't topical that you might ask for. I

want more fun content. I want to see my friends more. I don't want to see my

friends more. I don't want to see my high school's kids friends kids photos.

You know, I don't know. We can come up with I don't want to see seven photos in a row, but I'm happy to see six photos in a whatever your heart can, you know, whatever your mind can come up with. So,

we have a lot of work to do. And so, I'm excited about that. But, um, I think a misconception historically is until recently, we don't really know as much about you as you think. We were just

like, oh, like you liked these photos, this these people also like those same photos and they like these other photos, so you might like those other photos.

Like that's kind of how I'm oversimplifying, but that's like yeah, kind of how it worked. Now only now are we actually getting as sophisticated as I think people have assumed we've been for many years.

That is really interesting. One that

comes to mind is kind of this transition everyone eventually goes through to this like algorithmic broad global feed. Uh everyone it always feels like people think I just want to

see chronologically everyone I know and follow and that's going to be my favorite feed and it continues to be proven wrong. No, you actually engage a

proven wrong. No, you actually engage a lot more a lot more when it's this algorithmic feed of things we think you will love. Yeah, it's tough because I

will love. Yeah, it's tough because I mean I get I mean I posted this week this thing about agency and I just got destroyed in the comments which is just part of the job. I get it right. Um do

you there's but there are a couple issues with the algorith with the chronological feed. So one is and some

chronological feed. So one is and some of this is the tension between an individual's interests and what works when you scale it up, right? So if you

do a pure chronological feed, the incentive for everybody is to just post as much as possible uh because it will always be at the top of everyone who

follows you's feed as soon as you post.

So what ends up happening is that the feed gets overwhelmed with professional content with usually large company content and publishers because they get, you know, the New York Times can pump

out 50 things a day. your your best friend won't you might get one thing a week from them and so your fee just gets taken over. Um

so part of it is the incentives that emerge because when you when you design these systems it's almost like designing a city. You need to think about okay

a city. You need to think about okay here's the here are the here's how the mechanics work. What are the incentives

mechanics work. What are the incentives that arise? How are people going to act

that arise? How are people going to act within those incentives? And then what happens? And the other thing is

happens? And the other thing is sometimes the most interesting thing was just not the most recent thing. Recency

is an important input into relevance, but it's not the only one. My sister got engaged last night and you know she's in Germany.

No, she didn't. If she did, she's married.

She got married last year. That's why it was top of mind.

All right.

But if she got engaged, you know, and I missed it because she lives in Europe and you know, we're different time differences. Like, do I really want to

differences. Like, do I really want to see a picture of like my brother's pobo sandwich, you know, poboy sandwich, or do I want to like see my sister's things first? So, I I It's tough. It's tough.

first? So, I I It's tough. It's tough.

I'd love to figure out a way to find the right balance. I want to give people

right balance. I want to give people agency over the experience, but I think it needs to be in a way that creates a system that makes sense, not just for us as a business, which matters. I'm not

pretending that's not an issue, but also for the overall community because we've done chronological by default and where you can make it default and you see not

only does usage go down, overall sentiment goes down. the individual who made that choice might be happy at the moment, but when you just get pummeled with stuff you're less interested in

over the course of months, we ask, we run surveys at massive scales, we just see people start to become less and less satisfied with Instagram.

Kind of along these lines, uh, everybody asks you about this these days, uh, AI and content and how that all impacts everything that's going on. I want to ask you something I haven't seen someone

ask you. Is the rise of AI content uh a

ask you. Is the rise of AI content uh a headwind or a tailwind for Instagram versus other platforms? Do you think this helps or hurts you guys?

I think it's going to be a tailwind, but I think it's going to be a challenge.

It's And not just because it's more content. Obviously, we're an attention

content. Obviously, we're an attention business driven business. We're an

advertising business. More content means potentially more attention. It that's

not for free, though. Like, I don't think we're very good at ranking AI content yet. There's great AI content.

content yet. There's great AI content.

There's crap AI content. you should just see the stuff you're interested in and not any of the stuff you're not interested in. But I do think that in a

interested in. But I do think that in a world where or for years now and I've said this many times, power shifting from institutions to individuals across industries, the easiest example is

sports where players are more relevant than teams now. And that was not the case when I was a kid.

In that world, you're gonna I think it behooves us to invest in individuals and to invest in specifically for Instagram and creators. And I mean creators

and creators. And I mean creators broadly. I don't just mean influencers

broadly. I don't just mean influencers who are promoting branded content and making, you know, native only videos. I

mean anybody who's using platforms like Instagram to help do what they do, right? It could be you could be a

right? It could be you could be a journalist, you could be an artist, you could be selling scarves you sew, but like you're out there as yourself. for

creating and sharing content that helps you achieve whatever it is you're trying to do. So, we've been leaning in that

to do. So, we've been leaning in that direction for many years now. That's

been our, you know, one of our two or three most important audiences for as long as I've been on Instagram. In a

world where there's an abundance of synthetic content, I actually think people are going to seek out creativity and authenticity and people more, not

less. And I think that that will help

less. And I think that that will help us. That doesn't mean that we won't have

us. That doesn't mean that we won't have AI content on our platform. There's

going to be bad and good AI content and we're going to try and handle that, you know, the way we normally handle content. So unsafe goes away.

content. So unsafe goes away.

Interesting versus not interesting is based on ranking and personalization.

Um, but I think people are going to really seek out other points of view because Instagram was never just about the content. It was always about to a

the content. It was always about to a certain degree the person behind the content, the point of view, the reason they're sharing it, their perspective.

And I think that's going to become more important, not less. And I think given that we are not the best at a lot of things, but we are the largest uh creator platform, you know, you know, if

you look at how we define creators and how many creators use us versus other platforms, I think it'll be a tailwind for us because I think people are going to seek out people.

And this connects to your earlier point that uh companies uh like say New York Times can pump out a bunch of AI content versus a creator. And so you're saying you kind of want to protect against

that, too. Allow individuals to continue

that, too. Allow individuals to continue to perform well in spite of just all this AI content.

If you just love AI content, great.

Like, you should be able to have a feed that's just like AI town. And if you don't, then you shouldn't have it in your feed. Like, you know, to me, it's

your feed. Like, you know, to me, it's like I don't think we should I mean, I understand why people are, right?

There's a I'm not oblivious to the overall paradigm shift and sort of revolution that we're sitting in. But I

don't think we should judge content based on the tool that made it. Um I

think we should judge it based on the content, the point of view, the person behind the content. Like I don't I don't think we should filter out AI content. I

think we should let you know if content is AI content or not. I think we should let you know more about the person who posted anything so that you can make informed decisions about whether or not

to believe or trust them based on, you know, knowing who they are or where they are or how many times they've changed their profile or, you know, you know, if their profile is three days old or three

years old. Um, but I don't think we

years old. Um, but I don't think we should be making value judgments based on what tool you used.

Is there an AI uh content creator you love that you're just like, "This is so good. I love watching these AI videos."

good. I love watching these AI videos."

Yeah. What is she called? Plastic

plastic dream sequence. Is that what it is?

Um I think I'll check the name. Yeah.

Plastic dream. Uh

um plastic dream sequence. I have it on my phone. I'll double check. Um it's

my phone. I'll double check. Um it's

these like uh like sort of dolls, Barbies, but they're like singing songs and these little tiny little silhouettes and snippets. And it's just it's just

and snippets. And it's just it's just amazing. It's like a little weird, but

amazing. It's like a little weird, but like also kind of amazing. And it's it's very clearly AI. It's not pretending not to be, but it's has a very clear creative and aesthetic point of view.

And every time I come by one, I'm like, "Yep, we're doing this now. I'm going to watch this for 30 seconds."

I have it pulled up here. And I don't I want to watch it, but I'm not going to.

That's awesome.

If Only AI, that's another one. He's out

of He's in France. I think he's in Paris. He uses multiple different tools

Paris. He uses multiple different tools and models, but he kind of tries to create these dreamscapes and animate them. So he create uses one model to

them. So he create uses one model to create the image, another one to create the video, music, etc. Uh he's like very clearly got his own aesthetic. Um u and he's just like you could you could think

of him as a painter, but like this is his tool.

Is there kind of a vision of AI versus human in the feed? Do you think it'll like you said you maybe want to market like how do you think about people? Are

they going to be like AI count, not AI count? How do you think about or is that

count? How do you think about or is that still kind of a work in progress?

Maybe we'll end up in the same place, but there's a difference between marking content and marking accounts and they're both useful and interesting. So, if

content was created with AI, I think you should be able to know that. That's hard

by the way because we can detect that right now, but as these models get better, we might lose the ability to detect that. So, we should also be very

detect that. So, we should also be very careful to be honest with you about how confident we are in our own sort of assessment. Um, but I think you should

assessment. Um, but I think you should be able to just ask be like, "Hey, is this AI?" And we should be able to tell

this AI?" And we should be able to tell you. We think it probably is or we're

you. We think it probably is or we're not sure or it's definitely not or it definitely is. I actually think we might

definitely is. I actually think we might be might be more practical to to label camera captured content like basically non-AI content as opposed to labeling AI content long term for a couple of

reasons.

But then at the account level, I think it also matters. There is definitely an a new spam vector which is these fake accounts which by the way an AI creator that's fine there's nothing wrong with

that necessarily but there is there are these spam vectors which are trying to abuse that and you know they're selling like you know bogus supplements and it's like an AI monk and it doesn't present

it's not obvious that it's an AI and it's just trying to like take advantage of you know a certain aesthetic or a certain sort of stereotype like we need to figure out how to crack down on that And so I do think I do think we should

be making sure that you know basically you just need to know and then you can make your own informed decision. Is the

account a real person or not? Is the

content a real piece of content or not?

When you think about other platforms uh in the space social you know content platforms are there any um features or just or like ways of of of approaching stuff that they do well that you're kind

of jealous of or really impressed by?

Yeah, there's a bunch. everybody. So

many people do so much because I mean for me like one of the things that we are finally catching up with but I've been always very impressed with is Tik Tok and their recommenders ability to

break small talent. Um, in the world of ranking and recommenders and rank, um, you can talk about exploitationbased ranking. That sounds terrible, but it

ranking. That sounds terrible, but it just means like using the data you have.

And then you can talk about exploration based ranking, going and trying to figure out, you know, what someone might be interested in that they might even not know they're interested in yet. And

it is much easier to move engagement by showing people stuff that, you know, they'll probably like because lots of people like it. it's much harder to go

and figure out how to essentially test content so that we can see like hey maybe you sure you like Bieber but you might also like Afrounk and so we're just going to like show you

some Afrounk and see what happens. If

you do the latter, this exploration based ranking, you can I think it's really good for niche creators and small creators because you give them a chance to find an audience that either wasn't

going to see them before or didn't even know that they were interested before.

So, we've invested a lot over the last couple years in ranking, not just increasing engagement, but increasing originality, increasing the number of uh pieces of content that break out, uh

increasing recency to stay culturally relevant. And so a lot of that has been

relevant. And so a lot of that has been inspired by by Tik Tok and bite dance. I

think we're catching up. Um there's

actually a couple of those areas where we I think by best we can tell we're ahead of them. There's a couple where we're still behind, but for we have line of sight to I think being the best in

class at recommendations for the first time um during my tenure. Uh so that's I think and they get a lot of credit for inspiring a lot of their work.

Nice job.

Well, we'll see. We're not there yet.

They call me disappointed dad. My team

is always like, "Can you ease up on the disappointed dad vibe?" So, I'm I'm trying to trying to be a little bit more um generous about giving people their flowers.

Like you say that, but that's an interesting common thread across really successful leaders is just never being satisfied.

Yeah.

Always feeling a blessing and a curse.

Here's all the problem. It is. Yeah.

on this creator piece. I think that's also, you know, people uh complain about this global algorithm not showing them all their friends, but I feel like this is a benefit of what happens when you do

this now that you can break new creators into wide audience if you have this kind of global algorithmic feed, which is really great for a lot of people.

I mean, I'm out there talking about a lot of these contentious issues and I get beat up a lot in the comments, which is fine. My main thing here is just to

is fine. My main thing here is just to try to communicate that there's almost always trade-offs, right? There's that,

you know, you can't just have all of the things, unfortunately. You know, you

things, unfortunately. You know, you want to have um you you want to never see something you're not interested in, then you're also just going to see like

the most basic general lowest common denominator stuff all the time. You

know, you want to discover new and interesting things. you're occasionally

interesting things. you're occasionally going to see stuff that was just a miss, you know. You know, but this isn't just

you know. You know, but this isn't just true about ranking. These all all these major debates have trade-offs, right?

You know, uh privacy and safety, those two things are intention. You know, do you do you want a company scanning your messages or not? There's some really significant trade-offs on both sides of

that debate. Um and so generally

that debate. Um and so generally speaking, when I argue and engage in debate with people who feel really strongly about things, I'm not usually trying to convince them. They usually

their mind is usually made up. I'm just

trying to enumerate all of the different puts and takes for the rest of the people watching the conversation.

Speaking of getting torn apart in the comments, like you're so in the middle and thick of all of these really hairy situations, changing the feed, you're like in the Cambridge Analytica lawsuit,

all this just like you're in the center of so much controversy and is that some Yep.

Oh man. Is that just like you I will lean into this. This is the thing I need to do. Or was it like Zuck being like

to do. Or was it like Zuck being like Adam you got to be the front face of all the stuff and get in there? Like where

does that come from?

It started on newsfeed. So I used to run newsfeed at Facebook and I my take was that the debate was going to happen with or without us. So we might as well participate. And so I started being

participate. And so I started being really active on Twitter specifically because that's where journalists really lived at the time. And I thought it would be show some humility to show up on their turf, so to speak. My Twitter

ended up being like the most the darkest place in my life because I just followed all of our biggest critics. That's not a dig on Twitter. That was just what I did.

Um, and that's where it started and it kind of slowly built from there. For

better, for worse, we've become a really important part of daily life for a lot of people. We touch a lot of people. We have a lot of responsibility

people. We have a lot of responsibility and there's a lot of change and there's with change means there's going to be anxiety and stress and scrutiny. We've made

great decisions. We've made mistakes. Um

we've been criticized for things that I think um we've been criticized unfairly.

We've been criticized fairly. And so we just need to accept that this debate is gonna happen broadly. So I just think it's better for us to talk about it um and just be clear about what we're doing, why we're doing it, what the

trade-offs are. If people disagree,

trade-offs are. If people disagree, that's okay. We're not necessarily, you

that's okay. We're not necessarily, you know, winning over friends when we talk about what we do. But I think over the long run, people are fundamentally more afraid of things that they don't understand um and about things where

people are more secretive and less accessible. And so I've been tried I've

accessible. And so I've been tried I've tried to show up in an accessible and authentic way. Um and I've made mistakes

authentic way. Um and I've made mistakes and I have enjoyed it at times and hated it at other times. Um but that's kind of how it started. There was also kind of a

fun debate in Mark's sort of senior leadership team a long time ago where we were just talking about how we're a social media company where we had like a very sort of conventional approach to communication and like press releases

and why don't we just use our platform.

So, um, I was not in that debate, but I stuck myself into that debate, trying to mediate it. And I think, um, but that

mediate it. And I think, um, but that was also a reason why I ended up getting sucked in, because Mark was like, "All right, well, let's see. Like, why don't you try and see how it goes?"

What's something that helps you deal with the the hate that flows at you every time you say something that people disagree with, you try to put it in perspective, right?

You know, like, so it started with I did the redesign of Newsfeed in 2009. We

launched it, March of 2009 for Facebook. I was a designer. I was a

for Facebook. I was a designer. I was a front like an IC designer, front, you know, entry- level designer. And the

first comment that came in was something pretty derogatory. I think it was like

pretty derogatory. I think it was like it was like homophobic and anti-semitic, you know, it was just like literally we're all sitting there. We launched

this thing and we're just looking at the stream of comments and it's like the first one and it was specifically about they don't know me but it was like what

exploive expletive um sensor sensor uh designed this and I was like oh it was me. Um

was me. Um and I was like devastated. I was like 25-year-old kid and I don't know I thought about it and

I came I came to this idea that if you spent 30 40 50 minutes a day at a at your desk and you organized your photos there and you wrote letters to your friends there and you read there and

then I just came and I rearranged your desk and I didn't tell you I didn't warn you. I didn't even explain why. Like you

you. I didn't even explain why. Like you

would be pissed and that would be reasonable. Um, and that was what was

reasonable. Um, and that was what was happening just, you know, with millions of people. Um, so I try to put things in

of people. Um, so I try to put things in perspective. Um, and then I try to step

perspective. Um, and then I try to step away from it. Um, get time with my kids, get time outside. Uh, there there are months where it's really not hard at all and there are months where it's really

really grinds on me.

Along those lines, there's a famous kind of reversal when you redesign the feed into this kind of video scrolly experience. There's this whole

experience. There's this whole protest. the world protested.

protest. the world protested.

Yeah, that was pretty rough.

Uh, what was kind of like, okay, wow, we're actually not right and we should go back. What was kind of what helped

go back. What was kind of what helped you decide, okay, let's change course.

So, actually that one got that one three or four things got conflated. We had a redesign of feed that went to the video viewer that was a test to 4% of users on

iOS. It was a not it was not going to

iOS. It was a not it was not going to roll out. It was just like an early test

roll out. It was just like an early test to get some sense and feedback on the idea. We were also leaning into reels a

idea. We were also leaning into reels a lot. We were also leaning into

lot. We were also leaning into recommendations, so posts from accounts you don't follow a lot. And there were also creators who were upset about the fact that their reach was going down and they were blaming ranking changes on

that. Those four things got all

that. Those four things got all conflated. We had some pretty bigname

conflated. We had some pretty bigname creators publicly like slap us. Then the press covered that

slap us. Then the press covered that creator sort of backlash which then got more creators doing it. So we ended up with this little bit of like a multiplier effect or echo between the

creator community and the press back and forth, but we were never going to launch that. That was an early test. We were we

that. That was an early test. We were we knew it was needed work. Um we actually have continued to grow video and invest in creative tools and invest in ranking

and invest in recommendations and that's driven in most of our growth in the years since. um

years since. um I think we were pushed well I don't know doesn't feel like but like it I think we were I think my real takeaway wasn't that we should have not tested that design necessarily I think we could have

been we could have done a bunch of things better to explain and maybe move a little fast move a little slower I think we were just pushing things a little bit too fast and when you are

responsible for a platform like Instagram you need to be reasonable and realistic about how much you can evolve it Now, I would much rather have

backlashes like that every couple years or continue to evolve and continue to stay relevant than the alternative, which would have been like we didn't have video, we didn't have DMs, we didn't have stories, we didn't have

ranking, and we wouldn't be on having this podcast right now. Um

um but the cost of leaning in is that you're going to occasionally like make a mistake and you're going to definitely um pay for it. It's interesting how running experiments now is like very

risky for companies at your scale. One

person spots it and they're like, "Oh shit."

shit." You kind of need to have a press.

You don't need to be proactive about communicating it, but you need to have a calm strategy. Like we can't for any for

calm strategy. Like we can't for any for any design change or any test that could be controversial. We we talk about it

be controversial. We we talk about it beforehand and be like, "Okay, not if it leaks, when it leaks, what are we saying?" You know, are we, you know,

saying?" You know, are we, you know, should we talk about proactively, should we talk reactively? Either way, what's the message? Because you can't you can't

the message? Because you can't you can't you can't launch something to three billion people and not test it first, but you can't test

something at our scale and not expect people to cover it and not and be so you have to be ready to talk about it before you even know you want to launch it. Um

so it's um it makes the development cycle more complicated than it used to be.

Yeah. the uh head of growth at Enthropic launched an experiment with pricing and it just went crazy on Twitter. He's like

hold that 1% of people were just trend stuff like noic pricing particularly that one is a real you got to be real careful with that one. I've I've learned we've all learned

one. I've I've learned we've all learned these lessons. We should all share notes

these lessons. We should all share notes more. That's what I think.

more. That's what I think.

Here's one not to how to avoid the internet hating you for the day.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to talk to that more than I think he's all right. He's all right.

Okay. Okay, I'm going to take us to two recurring corners on the podcast. Fail

corner and hot seat corner. Fail corner.

What's uh what's something that you worked on that was just a huge failure that helped you become better?

Oh, a bunch. Um

so any So I'll give you two maybe. So before

Instagram, my first project as a PM was on a project called Facebook Home, which was a sort of fork of Android um at the operating

system level and and a piece of hardware with HTC. It was a spectacular failure.

with HTC. It was a spectacular failure.

I learned way more in that year, year and a half, and I did it any year. I

think probably in my career because I was just a design manager before that. I

declared myself a PM because the PM on the project quit and I just threw myself head first in understanding carriers and OEMs and uh certification as well as

Android and operating systems and just lend a ton. Um so and I'm happy I brought that project to an end because it had been going on for a long time and

sometimes you the best thing you can do is execute an idea that doesn't have market fit well just to decide whether or not the idea was a good idea in the first place.

Another big mistake I made um during my Instagram tenure was the first version of reels was built on top of stories.

Stories had a ton of momentum. This was

I think 2019 and we were trying to build reels into stories because we were trying to build in the thing that was growing the fastest. But it was not a strong

fastest. But it was not a strong foundation. Most, you know, the

foundation. Most, you know, the readthrough rate on stories is relatively low. There's way more stories

relatively low. There's way more stories than most people have time to consume.

So most of the reels were never seen and then they disappeared. Um, and if we had the version of reels that we launched in like mid maybe I think it's like the

summer of 2020 in the summer of 2019.

I think I don't think Tik Tok isn't I think Tik Tok is still big and important, but I don't think it's as big as it is now because when they really took off was when the pandemic hit and a bunch of people had a lot of time at

home and were looking for a little bit of joy and were totally fine with their phone having sound on. And so if you look at the numbers, the 2020 is when they exploded and we were out of

position. And um on one hand, you know,

position. And um on one hand, you know, I'm a designer. I'm trying to not add new things to the product. I'm trying to extend existing primitives and that was

the idea. On the other hand, I was wrong

the idea. On the other hand, I was wrong and and it's a pretty big fork in the road if you just look at the overall business over the last eight years.

We created a lot of economic opportunity in the world allowing Tik Tok to to grow.

That's good. I'm I'm glad they exist.

Okay, final question. Um I'm curious just about your screen time policy with your kids. I know you have three kids.

your kids. I know you have three kids.

Uh there's a lot of concern these days about Instagram not being great for people, not for kids. A lot of tech executives don't let their kids use devices while they're building the

product. As head of Instagram, how do

product. As head of Instagram, how do you think about screen time with your kids?

The key thing for me is boundaries. Um

it's also about education and being and having conversations with them. But my

kids are too young to use social media.

They're 10, eight, and six. Um but they each have an iPad. they

get um they have to earn their time. Um

so they have different ways they earn that time. It's usually about like

that time. It's usually about like sitting down to do your homework three times for half an hour each gets you a total of 90 minutes on the weekend and then they can use that time on the weekend. Um but you kind of have to set

weekend. Um but you kind of have to set that boundary where it's like you can't just like you know it can't just be they ask for it and you give it to them. I

think that matters a lot and then I'm pretty opinionated about what they do on it. Like I approve what apps that they

it. Like I approve what apps that they have. I think parents should be

have. I think parents should be approving what apps kids specifically are um downloading onto their devices.

We've been advocating for this at a policy level for a long time at Meta. I

think those things help a lot. Um there

are some exceptions. Um

one is planes. It's just like about surviving. I don't know if you've ever

surviving. I don't know if you've ever for those of you are parents.

I'm going to be Yeah.

Yeah. It's like you just like that's just like all right you know we're fly you know it's a 10-hour flight or eight hour flight. It's like, yeah, just just

hour flight. It's like, yeah, just just you just need to get through it. Um, the

other one that I'm starting to experiment with my 10-year-old with is so schools are interesting because I think I'm pretty supportive of a no

phone in classrooms. Um, that's happening more and more. I think that's is probably good for education. And I do also know in the world of AI that there's concern about kids using AI and not learning critical thinking skills.

And I think that's a valid concern. But

I also am worried about kids not learning how to leverage AI and then being sort of at a disadvantage. So

that's a balance. So I think you need both. So with with my eldest, we started

both. So with with my eldest, we started um vibe coding recently together. Um

he's just loves video games. So I was like, "All right, let's make a video game." And so he's made this 19 level

game." And so he's made this 19 level platformer game that kind of looks like an eight-bit version of Super Mario from when I was a kid. But like each level has its own theme, its own types of

monsters. There's a store where you can

monsters. There's a store where you can buy different skins or weapons, and there's like uh like all it's unbelievable what a 10-year-old who

still types with three fingers can do um with just, you know, a couple hours of sitting together. But that is more of

sitting together. But that is more of like a I want you to learn how to um make things. I I want you to be thinking, not just playing games and I'm gonna sit with you and do we're going to

do this together. Um so to me, these are the things that matter. Boundaries um

scoping it down to the activities you think are healthy for your kid. Every

kid is different. U but I do think you want your kids to be digitally literate, um AI literate, because I think if they're not, they're going to be at a disadvantage. But it's you also don't

disadvantage. But it's you also don't want it to be a free-for-all.

This is selfishly useful for me as a as a I have a three-year-old and I'm trying to figure all this stuff out. So, this

is useful.

Oh, yeah. No,

we need to figure out a strategy.

It's amaz It's a thing. And you're

you're you're not that far off. You're

really just not that far off. It's going

to happen in a couple years.

Five coding next year. Let's do it.

I couldn't believe I tried to do it six months ago and it just totally didn't work. And then

work. And then now with newer models, it's been amazing.

What's their platform of choice? Are

they a clock coding team? uh person.

Yeah, my 10-year-old is using is using cloud code right now. Um

um but um we will see. We'll see how that goes.

Adam, uh I'm going to let you go. Thank

you so much for being here. This you're

just like such a gem of a person. It's

just so obvious how clear like how authentic you are and just like how deeply you think about everything. Uh so

I really appreciate you being here.

I appreciate you bringing me on. Um been

a fan for a long time. It's nice to finally get to have a conversation.

I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. Uh let me just ask you this final

that. Uh let me just ask you this final question to ask everyone. What's a way that listeners can be useful to you?

I just think you don't even have to tell this to other people, but just remember that this world and technology is complicated

and there are almost always tradeoffs.

Um and you can totally disagree with the decisions I or we make. Um, but just remember that we are people here trying to make these decisions, trying to do the best we can. And I I actually do

invite the criticism and the critique and the feedback, but um, but know that none of these contentious debates are nearly as simple as most people pretend

to make them out to be.

Wise words, Adam, thank you so much for being here.

Pleasure. Thank you, Lenny.

Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable,

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