foreign [Music] undergraduate one of the newest members of Harvard's class of 2006. to one of the richest men in town Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now worth 100 billion dollars Mark Zuckerberg's rise to Silicon Valley Legend has transformed him from Geek to fight it and all of it has been driven by one thing he's always looking in the rearview mirror fear of failure I am proud to announce that starting today our company is now meta [Music] at just 19 years old while Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard contemporaries were focusing on their degrees he invented Facebook now part
of a technology Empire with a market value that has exceeded one trillion dollars but since that first huge success he's learned the hard way the need to build on it and stay ahead is an ongoing drive to escape obsolescence that kind of paranoia is a big part of what drives him and what drives his company after failing to buy Twitter now known as X for 500 million dollars in 2008. he saw it grow into a rival with over 100 million users and when the internet shifted to Mobile in 2011 Facebook was again too slow to
adapt so when Twitter tried to buy new kid on the Block Instagram Zuckerberg was forced to act ing it up for what then seemed like an eye-watering one billion dollars it's always looking ahead to try and see if his company can stay ahead of the curve today the pace at which the company moves is breathtaking bought today by Facebook for one billion dollars the social media helmet is by WhatsApp every time Mark Zuckerberg sees a rival he seems to either try to buy it or if he can't buy it he tries to copy it when
Mark Zuckerberg spotted that Snapchat stories was taking off very soon we saw Instagram stories with Tick Tock meta has followed up with a product called reels which is a almost identical vertical short video format on Instagram and Facebook and meta's new app threads Bears a spooky resemblance to X hi im an avatar of Alex who directed this film if you're enjoying watching it you might be interested to know that Economist subscribers get access to a wealth of global analysis on every conceivable topic you can read it you can listen to it you can even be
part of it at live webinars for the best deal on a subscription click on the link and now on with the film [Music] [Applause] Zuckerberg's drive to avoid obsolescence has created an Empire of communications apps with billions of users the thing is meta needs to make sure users stay on its apps for as long as possible so they see advertisements which make it money algorithms that keep people glued to their screens made Facebook a byword for misinformation and bile some of the problems of toxic content online are just a result of what happens when you
get 2 billion people together and let them say whatever they like but that said sometimes this move fast and break things approach may have resulted in weaker controls on content moderation than some users might have wanted making the most of those users has come at a cost Facebook has been accused of allowing fake news to propagate enabling interference in elections and even ethnic violence and that's a problem for Facebook popularity is key to its financial success if users go elsewhere it threatens advertising Revenue in 2018 the Cambridge analytica Scandal exposed how LAX Facebook had been
in guarding users personal data anti-facebook protests popped up all over the world Zuckerberg was called to testify before the U.S Congress it was my mistake and I'm sorry but he's still trying to stay ahead he set his sights and so far has spent 21 billion dollars on pushing the idea of the metaverse an immersive virtual world hey are you coming yeah just gotta find something to wear [Music] this continual drive to escape obsolescence and to innovate I think is the main reason why Mark Zuckerberg is investing so heavily in the metaverse it's enough to have
got investors really annoyed they see many leaving the company into a project which is unproven and which may never return any of that money it's a huge gamble it could turn out to be a wildly successful bet it could turn out to be total waste of money skepticism among investors was what drove meta's share price down by so much in 2022 Zuckerberg's drive to stay relevant may have led meta into dangerous territory but its share price has rebounded when it came to the move to mobile Mark Zuckerberg was rather late there's a risk now that
with the metaverse he may be arriving too early that he is helping to pave the way and pay for others to take advantage of this technology if it takes off further down the line despite the risks Zuckerberg is still intent on moving fast and that matters the world does need to care about what drives Mark Zuckerberg because he controls the way that a lot of people get not just their entertainment but actually their news as well so what he does and what he thinks really matters to all of us thanks for watching if you'd like
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