Mark Zuckerberg Says Meta Is The Opposite Of Apple In Product Strategy & Culture

When it comes to gaining inspiration, people often turn to others who have hit it big in life.

This includes C-suite executives of large multinational conglomerates, founders of up-and-coming startups and others who have beaten the odds to achieve success in their careers and lives.

As such, content creators help provide such leaders with a stage to share their wisdom, experience and insights through interviews, podcasts, webinars and other events.

Recently, Meta’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about various topics related to Meta’s products, strategies, culture, future and more, as well as his personal life.

The big reveal came in an over hour-long video podcast interview conducted by Acquired, in its mission to help people “learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies and how you can apply them as a founder, operator or investor.”

In the interview, Zuckerberg also spoke about the differences between Meta and Apple across a wide range of parameters, bringing up stark contrasts in the way the two companies handle their operations and strategies.

So, what did the leader of Meta say about Apple? Let’s explore!

What Did Mark Zuckerberg Say About The Product Strategy And Culture About Meta And Apple?

 

• Through the Acquired video podcast interview, Mark Zuckerberg conveyed his thoughts on how different Meta is from Apple, even calling it “like the opposite of Apple.”

• This included comments on the stark contrast between the two companies’ product strategy approach, to which Zuckerberg proclaimed, “I think in a lot of ways we’re like the opposite of Apple and clearly, their stuff has worked well too.”

• “But they take this approach that’s like, ‘We’re going to take a long time, we’re going to polish it, and we’re going to put it out.’ And maybe for the stuff that they’re doing that works, maybe that just fits with their culture.”

• “But for us I think that there are a lot of conversations that we have internally where you're almost at the line of being embarrassed about what you put out.”

• The comparison came about as Zuckerberg spoke about the values Meta imbibes and how it works for the company.

• For him, “great engineering and speed and iteration” are two different values, which aren’t necessarily always at odds. 

• Where some companies aim for great engineering and build products of “super high quality” and “have good competence around that”, Meta is one that follows putting out its products before they’re fully polished.

 

• The idea focuses on putting out products to gain better feedback after a reasonable amount of testing and ensuring that products resonate with people, instead of wasting months working to achieve perfection.

• “You want to really have a culture that values shipping and getting things out and getting feedback more than needing always to get great positive accolades from people when you put stuff out.”

• “If you want to wait until you get praised all the time, you’re missing a bunch of the time when you could’ve learned a bunch of useful stuff and then incorporated that into the next version you’re going to ship.”

• At the same time, Zuckerberg clarified that the company doesn’t ship products that are bad but wants to ship early enough to get genuine feedback.

• This is an approach the company follows with its AI products, as Zuckerberg said“It's pretty clear that AI is going to be transformative for a lot of different things. It is actually less clear what are going to be the initial use cases for a lot of these things that are super valuable.”

• Zuckerberg believes that a sound product strategy should consist of balancing personal values and ideas with what will resonate with people.

• Businesses that try to resonate more will be unable to “do hard things”, while focusing on the other side will result in products that aren’t market fit or optimized for customers.

This isn’t the first time Mark Zuckerberg has criticized Apple, its products or its customers. A few months ago, he compared Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro to Meta’s $500 Quest 3, saying Meta’s product performed better than Apple’s for various tasks and Apple’s “fanboys” shouldn’t just consider a product better because it’s more expensive.

On the other hand, company leaders are known to compare their products and call out others when they falter, especially in the public eye.

Do you side with Mark Zuckerberg’s product strategy and culture vision or do you think more companies should be like Apple and rigorously test their products before launching?

Let us know in the comments below!