Alex Heath
Appearances
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
How does this partnership work? And this renew that you just did with them, how is it structured? What does this deal look like?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But yeah, we had just come fresh off that demo and literally walked in the podcast studio and sat down and hit record. So- It was fresh on our minds, and that's where we started. Orion is very much the story of AR as a category. It's something that Meta hoped would be a consumer product and decided towards the end of its development that it wouldn't be because of how expensive it is to make.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Is it set up to where they control the designs and you provide the tech stack, or do you collaborate on the design?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So instead, they've turned it into a fancy demo that people like me are getting around Connect this year. And it's really meant to signify that, hey, we have been building something the whole time. We finally have something that works. It's just not something that we can ship at commercial scale.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We're back with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing the company's Ray-Ban smart glasses partnership and the future of AR. How many Ray-Ban Metas have you sold so far?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And it's, in my mind, a marker of where we are actually in the development of Aeroglasses and led me, honestly, to feel like it's finally getting really close to being commercial and being mainstream.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I tried that. Well, actually I didn't try real time, but I tried looking at a menu in French and it translated into English. And then I was like, at the end, I was like, what is Euro and dollar actually? And it did that too. And then I'm also starting to see the continuum of this to Orion in the sense of the utility aspects of the like, I tried, like you could say,
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
look at this and remind me about it at 8 p.m. tonight. And then it syncs with the companion app.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So I guess I'm seeing that becoming more of a, it's not replacing the phone, but it's augmenting what I would do with my phone. And I'm wondering if the app is a place for more of that kind of interaction as well, whether it's like Meta AI or, like how are these glasses going to be more deeply tied to Meta AI over time? Yeah. It seems like they're getting closer and closer all the time.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's interesting that we're talking about this right now because I feel like phones are becoming kind of boring and stale. I just was looking at the new iPhone and it's basically the same as the year before. People are doing foldables, but it feels like people have kind of run out of ideas on phones and that they're kind of at their natural end state.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I wonder when you see something like the Ray-Bans and how people have really gravitated to them in a way that's surprised you guys and I think surprised all of us, but it's also just like... People want to interact with technology in different ways now. Yeah.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, and they're seeing a lot of early traction with the MetaRay bands. We talked a lot about that, their expanded partnership with Ellesore Luxottica, why he thinks this really storied eyewear conglomerate out of Europe could do to smart glasses what Samsung did to smartphones and for Korea. He sees this as becoming a huge, you know, millions of units a year market.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I think AI, like you said at the beginning, like the way that AI is intersected with this is just kind of like an aha thing for people that honestly, for me, I didn't expect it to click as quickly as it did. But like when I got whitelisted for the AI, I was like walking around my backyard and like using it. And I was like, oh, like it's obvious now where this is going.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So it feels like we're, like I was saying at the beginning, it feels like things are finally, you can see where it's going. Whereas before it's been a lot of like R&D and talking about it, but like these, the Ray-Bans are kind of a signifier of that. And I'm wondering if you agree with that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
On the AI social media piece, one of the wilder things that your team told me you guys are going to start doing is showing people AI-generated imagery personalized to them in feed. I think it's starting as an experiment. But if you're a photographer, you would see meta-AI generating content that's maybe personalized for you alongside content from the people you follow.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And that's just the idea that I've been thinking about of AI and kind of invading social media, so to speak. Maybe you don't like the word invading, but you know what I mean. And what does that do to how we relate to each other as humans? Like how much AI stuff and AI-generated stuff is going to be filling feeds in the near future, in your view?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I think everyone here at The Verge can see that the Ray-Bans are an early hit and that Meta has tapped onto something here that may end up being pretty big in the long run, which is just not overpacking tech into glasses that look good, that do a handful of things really well. And Meta is expanding on that rapidly this year with some other AI features that we also talked about.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Why do you think it needs to exist as a new category? I'm still wrestling with why people want this. I get the companionship stuff that Character AI and some startups have already shown there's like a market for. And you've talked about how meta is already being used for role playing. Yeah. But the big idea is that AI has been used to intermediate in feed how humans reach each other.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And now all of a sudden, AIs are going to be in feeds with us.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, he's done a lot of self-reflection, you can tell. And in the back half of this interview, we get into a lot of the brand stuff around Meta, how he's worked through the last few years, where he sees the company going now, which is, in his own words, nonpartisan.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you worry about people interacting with AIs like this making people less likely to talk to other people, like it reducing the engagement that we have with humans?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And even admitting kind of in that that he may be naive in thinking that a company like Meta can be nonpartisan, but he's going to try to play a backseat role to all of the discourse that really engulfed the company for the last 10 years. And we get into all of the dicey stuff. We get into social media's link to teen mental health.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We're back with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talking about the current state of Threads and why the company is trying to back out of politics. How are you feeling about how Threads is doing these days?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I've heard it's still using Instagram a lot for growth. Like, I guess I'm wondering when you see it getting to like a standalone growth driver on its own.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I'm not even sure what X is anymore, but I think what it used to be and what Twitter used to be was a place where you went when news was happening. I know you and the company seem to be distancing yourself from recommending news. But with threads, it feels like that's what people want and people thought threads might be.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We get into Cambridge Analytica and how he thinks the company was unfairly blamed for it in hindsight. Yeah, I would say this is a new Zuckerberg, and it was fascinating to hear him talk about all of this in retrospect.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But it seems like you all are intentionally saying we don't want threads to actually be that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you feel like that constrains the growth of the product at all?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Or that that needs to exist in the world? Because I feel like with X's seeming implosion, it's not really existing anymore. Maybe I'm biased to someone in the media, but I do think people want, when something big happens in the world, they want an app that they can go to and see everyone that they follow talking about it immediately.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you recognize the importance of that discussion happening in the world.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you see this decision to downrank political content for people who aren't being followed in feed as a political decision, I guess? Because...
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
i don't know you're also at the same time you know not really saying much about the election this year you're not donating you've said you kind of want to stay out of it now yeah and i see the way the company's acting and it reflects your personal kind of way you're operating right now and i'm wondering like how much more of it is also about what you and the company have gone through and the political environment and not necessarily just what users are telling you
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Like, is there a through line there?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
the acquired podcast recently you said that the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake yeah from a brand from a brand perspective and that it was going to take another 10 or so for you to fully work through that cycle yeah yeah what makes you think it's such a lasting thing because you look at like how you personally have kind of evolved over the last couple years and i think perception of the company has evolved and i'm wondering like what you meant by saying it's going to take another 10 years
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Like you guys didn't do anything wrong.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Mark, we just tried Orion together. Yeah, what'd you think? Refresh off of it. It feels like true AR glasses are finally getting closer. Orion is a product that you all have been working on for five plus years.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And you're talking about like Cambridge Analytica.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So you wouldn't write a blank check to the government like Google did for its antitrust case?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So take me back to the beginning when you started the project, when it started in research. What were you thinking about? What was the goal for it?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It feels like mental health and youth mental health may be the next wave of this.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
At the same time, you guys have acknowledged there's affordances in the product, like the teen rollout with Instagram recently that you can make to make the product a better experience for young people.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's hard for me to not see the logic in it either. I don't really understand.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But maybe that's on Congress then to pass who has to take responsibility.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I guess on the regulation piece, as it relates to AI, you've been very vocal about what's happening in the EU. And you recently signed an open letter, and I believe it was saying basically that you guys just don't have clarity on consent for training, how it's supposed to work.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I'm wondering what you think needs to happen there for things to move forward, because like MetAI is not available in Europe, new Lama models are not. Is that something you see getting resolved at all? I guess. And what would it take?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But do you understand the concern people have about training data and how it's used? And this idea that their data is being used for these models, they're not getting compensated, and the models are creating a lot of value. And I know you're giving away Lama, but you've got MetAI. I understand the frustration that people have about that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I think it's a naturally bad feeling to be like, oh, my data is now being used in a new way that I have no control or compensation over. Do you sympathize with that?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
What does clarity look like to you there?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you don't see a scenario where creators get like directly compensated for the use of their content.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
To bring this full circle where we started, as you're building augmented reality glasses and what you've learned over just the societal implications of the stuff you've built over the last decade, how are you thinking about this as it relates to glasses at scale? Because you're literally going to be augmenting reality, which is a responsibility.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's my understanding that you originally hoped Orion would be a consumer product when you first set out to build it.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But to be clear, you're not selling Orion at all. When you made the call, I think it was around 2022, to say Orion is going to just be internal kind of dev kit. How did you feel about making that call? Was there any part of you that was like, man, I really wish this could have just been the consumer product we had built for years?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I wore them for two hours and I couldn't really tell.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Are you imagining that the first commercial version, whenever it is in the next couple few years, will it be a developer-focused product that you're selling publicly? You want it to be a consumer-ready product? That's why I'm asking about the strategy because Apple, Snap, others have decided to do developer-focused plays and get the hardware kind of going with developers early. Yeah.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you're kind of... Are you saying you're skipping that and you just want to go straight to consumer?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, so the big headline this year out of Connect is Orion, which are AR glasses that Meta has been building for a really, really long time. Some important context up front is right before we started this interview, we had literally just demoed Orion together. I think I'm the first journalist, the first outsider to do that with Zuckerberg on camera. That's on The Verge's YouTube.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
A lot has been written about how much you're spending on Reality Labs. And you probably can't have an exact number, but if you were to guesstimate the cost of just building Orion over the last 10 years, are we talking five plus billion more than that?