The Twenty Minute VCAdam Mosseri: Why Video Is Bad For Business; Does Feed Matter Anymore? | E1039
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,122 words- 0:00 – 0:44
Intro
- AMAdam Mosseri
It definitely made me shift more resources towards messaging. Actually, at one point a couple years ago, I think I put the entire stories team on messaging.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Wow.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Um ...
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Because it was where, take out all the text, there are more photos and videos shared in DMs than there are shared in stories. And there's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Huh.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... way more shared in stories than there is in feed. So just forget about the text for a second, just the photos and videos, just the media, the rich media, it's a bigger deal and growing faster in DMs than anywhere else.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Adam, I am so excited for this one. We said just beforehand how many reference calls I've done. I heard nothing but wonderful things. So thank you so much for joining me.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Oh, well, thank you for having me. You have to have heard some bad things, I feel like.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Well, I mean, it's coming in question two. I thought-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Okay. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... I'd start with a nice one. But the nice one and the kind of ease intro, I normally do like, how did you get into tech?
- 0:44 – 4:04
Who is Adam Mosseri?
- HSHarry Stebbings
But I think it was Sam Lessin who said about your first job was a bartender-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and what you learned from it. I was intrigued to start on that.
- AMAdam Mosseri
One, yeah, bartending was one of my first jobs, um, just paying for sort of rent and stuff in New York and, and university. I think it's good. I think, I mean, look, I spent a lot of time, uh, as, as a teenager in service. So bartending, um, as a waiter, a dishwasher, you know, like short chef, that kind of thing. And I think service is a really good thing to do early in life because it teaches you, um, some humility, but also how to work with people in a wide ri- range of people, because you end up with all sorts of, uh, clients, whether you're waiting or bartending specifically. And then figuring out how to manage different personalities at a young age I think is also a good thing. And then also, it's just good to appreciate good service. Um, you, you end up being a good tipper for life.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I totally agree with you. It's funny actually, um, I think it's Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan, the highest rated like point on your CV you can have is if you worked at McDonald's.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Really?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
That's amazing.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Because of time pressures, difficult customers, lots of different moving parts.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's actually challenging in so many different ways.
- AMAdam Mosseri
I believe it. I totally believe it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, my first job was selling mobile phones on eBay, so... (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Sounds about right. Sounds about right. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, yeah. Um, but then I heard about kind of the transition from like, very young and junior designer to the incredible product leader that we have today. Talk to me about that and the early days of being a junior designer and how you felt about what you needed to do to become a product leader.
- AMAdam Mosseri
As a designer, I love design. Um, I honestly, if I could wave a magic wand, I think I would be a specialist. I've always romanticized like the amazing machine learning engineer, the amazing product designer, the amazing, you know, data scientist or architect or shoemaker. Uh, it's just not my shape. Um, I'm not, uh, great at anything really. I just have a wide range of things that I can do reasonably well. Um, so my strength is my breadth. And so for me, I loved design, but I was solidly middle of the pack at best. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, I made up for lack of natural talent with just, uh, sheer, um, brute force, just hours. And I think that was good and I think I learned a lot that way and I actually took a lot from my time as a designer on problem solving. Um, but I think-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask, just, what did you take from your time in design on problem solving?
- AMAdam Mosseri
So design I think is about really, um, making sure you're incredibly clear about what problem it is that you're solving, articulating multiple solutions, figuring out how to effectively evaluate those solutions, figuring out how to really take feedback and sift through the noise and find the signal. And I think you can apply that to most anything.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Um, and so I really, I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed structured thinking and iteration, but also some creativity blended in there. But like I said, I wasn't great at it. Um, I wasn't great at it. And then Brett Taylor was my boss and I was the director of design for mobile. This might be 2012. And then he left.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I be really rude?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If you're not great at it and you're middle of the pack-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... how do you become director of design? (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs) In mobile?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh,
- 4:04 – 17:23
How Adam Became Head of Instagram
- AMAdam Mosseri
well, when I first started, it's better now, and it actually was better in 2012 to be fair. But when I first started, we had this amazingly talented group of designers. Man, I don't know how many there were. Eight, somewhere between eight and 12 of us. And they just did whatever they wanted. Like it was one of those weird things where they were talented, they got really good work done, they worked really hard and you would ask them to work on something and they would smile and nod and they would work on something else.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Whatever they thought was the most important thing. Um, this is like who, Matt Cahill and Saleho and Blase De Persia and all these characters. And I was reliable because I had a job before Facebook. I ran a small design firm. I was like used to having clients and felt like I had a bias towards doing what the client asked for. So when I joined a company, I had a bias towards doing what my boss asked me for. And so I think that helped give me a leg up.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I be rude and ask, do you think like a really important thing in terms of scaling from, you know, IC to leader is understanding that internal politics? And do you think you kind of understood it in a way that others didn't?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Maybe a little. I think that it became clear to me that a lot of times for the people who are senior at the, at the company, and I was not senior, what they really wanted was to be able to hand you a problem and then not to hear anything back from you until it was solved. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
And so I, I kind of made, like I internalized this early because I, that's kind of how I felt when I was a boss running my own design firm. And so I just remember with a couple people, I just was like, "Look, whenever I get handed something..." I didn't tell them this. I was just like, "Okay, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna f- do it and fix it and do it well." And then they'll, they're not gonna hear back from me. Might be a day, might be a week, might be a month, until the answer or the response is, "I took care of that, just so you know."
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, and so I definitely leaned into that, um, for-... a number of years.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you feel you have that today with the people in your team? That sounds like a dream to me as a manager.
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
I don't have that. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
No. No, I don't. But I don't know if I want it. I love my team. I have so much affection for my team, probably more than is healthy. But they, um... But... And part of it is because I... They're all, particularly my directs, they're all much better th- at me at something and I can learn from them. And so I try and create an environment where they can challenge me. Um, I know that sometimes I take up too much air in the room, so I'm always trying to figure out how to delegate more, how to empower them more publicly so that they don't do the wrong thing even if I ask them to do it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You said about them challenging you. I, um... (laughs) I, I love Gustav, who's the CPO at Spotify, and he said, "Talk is cheap, and so we should do more of it when it comes to products."
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
I thought it was very Swedish of you. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
That was... (laughs) Wait, what?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Talk is cheap.
- AMAdam Mosseri
It was not... No, no, I understood it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) .
- AMAdam Mosseri
Just wasn't where I thought the con- that world was gonna go. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
And so my, my question to you is, like, bluntly, do you agree with that talk is cheap and inspiring that internal debate? Or are you more like my mindset, which is bluntly velocity and get shit done, move fast?
- AMAdam Mosseri
It's a balance, and, and this will feel like a cop out maybe to you but... So I do think that you d-... We... As a lead, you need to talk a lot. And I think people underestimate this. Um, it's just weird. Even... We do it at our company. Our business model is ads and marketing.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
If you talk to anybody in that world, they'll tell you it's not just about the message, it's also about the frequency of how often you deliver that message.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
And then internally, we decide we're gonna do something different. We make a post internally and one out of eight employees reads it and we move on with our lives, and we're surprised when the whole company doesn't move along with us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
And so I've tried to really embrace some advice I got early. Who was this from? I forget who it was. I... Coming back to me. Which was, if you really wanna move the team on something, you need to say it until so many times that you literally want to throw up in your mouth if you say it again, and then you need to say it again, and again, and again, and again. And it can be tough, because you can feel like you're not being heard or you can feel like you're being predictable or just annoying. But the truth is, people need to hear things multiple times to fully internalize them. And so I do think from the part of (laughs) that quote that resonates is, like, I do think you need to talk a lot. Um, now, I also think you need to be very clear about when you're just gonna make a call and when you're not. And there are some times where it's like, nope, if I don't make this call, we're gonna waste too much time or I have the right occasionally as a leader to just o- use my, you know, veto power, so to speak. But then you have to be careful, because if you ov-... If you do that too much, you stifle creativity, you don't create enough space, you cannot hire or retain the most creative and interesting talent. Uh, so you have to use that sparingly. Um, but that's like a card to play and you can play it every once in a while, but you can't play it every day.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- 17:23 – 30:38
Biggest Mistakes at Instagram
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
But sometimes you make a decision that it's not the right decision. Sometimes mistakes are made. When you think about kind of a fuck-up or two that happened in the process-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... are there any that stand out to you?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah, definitely. I mean, look, you gotta make mistakes. I will say, I, like so the, the biggest blowup h- was the press cycle the summer before last around what was called externally Panavision, which actually meant something different internally. And it was a confluence of a bunch of different changes that were happening at once. So it ended up being one of those words that people just projected onto it whatever they didn't like, and so it kinda took on a life of its own. So we were introducing recommendations into feed, so content-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... that you w- is not from accounts you follow. Very controversial. We were leaning into video. Um, and you know, we know our heritage is photos. Also controversial.... creators were frustrated with their reach and I think some of that was for good reason and some of it's because people always want more reach. And we were also experimenting with a pretty radically new f- design for the main tab. It just all was a little bit too much, too fast. And it all kind of blew up in our face and then there was an interaction between the creator community and the media and it kind of ping-ponged. And then, um, I did a video explaining what we were doing and then I became a meme for a week, which was fun.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
The Daily Show did a pretty, pretty funny, actually-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
... bit biting impression of me.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Was it funny at the time or were you like, "Oh, no."?
- AMAdam Mosseri
So I was trying to get cr- I was trying-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
... I was trying to calibrate. (laughs) Uh, 'cause on one hand, like I d- I do think that if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying big enough things. So if I-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... if I had no big, painful moments in the last couple years, that would mean that we were being too conservative. So I'm, I'm glad even though it was not fun. Uh, on the specific, like all the memes of like a banana, I was wearing a yellow sweater in the video so there were a lot of banana, a lot of mini-me memes, like a lot of stuff. So I was like sending stuff to some friends being like, "Is this mean or is this funny?" 'Cause it, I, like it's hard for me to tell. And like my brother's like, "This is just funny." Uh, but, uh, the best is I sent a bunch to my wife and she didn't respond to any of it. And she just isn't like, she just wasn't interested I guess. And so I'm like, this was all happening for a whole week and then a week later she's like, "Hey, w- what happened again this week? You said something was going on." I was like, "Don't even worry about it." (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Can I ask a weird one which is like when you have the controversial elements, like I- I love the recommendations actually that are in my feed. They're all highly personalized according to what I have already. It's a great addition. I mostly follow new people because of the recommendations.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But it's controversial. When you have two opposing s- kind of not teams, but ideologies almost internally, how do you resolve that?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I think the key thing is you make sure both sides are heard, then you make it very clear who's the decision maker, and you make it very clear when there's a decision. And you have to remind people that it's important to disagree and commit, because if you're just gonna question a decision upstream, downstream over and over again, you're just gonna do everything poorly. That one is tough though, um, because obviously people always l- not always, but there's a, there's a bias a lot of us have to want things to return to the way they were.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Even though that's not possible.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. I totally agree with you. I always think about it with like the iPhone, do you remember when they removed the home button?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And they did the swipe, I was like, "This is just shit."
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Total crap.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Now I'm like, "What the fuck is this button?"
- 30:38 – 35:38
Deep Dive on IG Reels
- AMAdam Mosseri
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, Reels was such an important moment, I think.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I think it was such a, like, strategic, directional decision for the company.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can you... Like, is it the momentous decision that I'm suggesting it is? And can you take me to that decision? And was it just like a, "We're gonna fucking go for TikTok"?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. I mean, it was, it was... I mean, Reels has been huge for us. Reels is, I don't know, maybe pushing 50% of time spent in the app at this point. Not quite there. And before Reels, we had short form video, right? And short form video was a big part of Instagram. But I don't think we had designed the format to really embrace the form factor of a phone. And I think, you know, Reels being full screen, um, sound on is more fun and immersive, particularly during the pandemic when you're not bothering anybody because you're home. Focus on creators, first person, all of these things were ways to embrace where the world was going and the platform on which we were building. And we hadn't leaned into all of that. And TikTok's rise was just meteoric-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... after years of struggling, um, to get anything to be retentive. And when you see a competitor do something, I think it's super important to be humble enough to, to learn from it. And sometimes that will mean building something that looks a lot like it. And sometimes it means figuring out what needs it's meeting and how you might meet those needs in a way that's more native to what you do, and then a range of options in between. We lost a whole year. I still go back to this. This has been one of my biggest regrets. The first version of Reels we built was built on top of Stories, and it just didn't work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I mean, it was because Stories was growing, so we thought Stories would be a good foundation on which to lean into short form video. But the thing that's amazing about Stories is how depressurized they are. People share so much to Stories, and there's just way more Stories than anyone has time to see, or most people have time to see. So the read-through rate is very low. You know, I don't know what it is, but it's maybe in the teens. And so to... You can't build a short form video product that particularly focuses on creators if most of the videos they create aren't seen.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
And... But we were trying to keep Instagram simple. We were trying to double down on the momentum of Stories. We were trying to lean into how younger people use Instagram and they use Stories way more than they use Feed. And we lost nine to 12 months. And we ended up getting it right by leaning into Feed and making a couple other strategic changes, our own recommendations in unconnected content that were right.
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's a really hard decision after nine months of work. Like, the sunk cost of you saying, "Just fucking keep going."
- AMAdam Mosseri
But this was all pre-COVID-19. If we had a solid foundation before everyone was at home and just spending a whole bunch of time on their phones, the whole trajectory of the app would have been completely different. And instead, these, these things all landed, you know... Some before, but a lot after, in, you know, mid-2020, late 2020.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What has it been... Like, how did it change the strategy? Was is just slower? Like, if you were to replay this, if you got it right the first time.
- AMAdam Mosseri
I think how big we are relative to the competition would be super different. Would be super different. And we're catching up. We're growing really fast. I think we're growing the fastest of the big players. Um, but it's, um, it's very hard. Uh, because when... If you're gonna try and compete, and we do, right? It's a... The competition has become fiercer every year since I've been at the company. You can't just make something as good as the competition. You have to make something that's better, because why would I bother switching if it's just as good, or even if it's only 10% better? Um, so it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
So do you think Reels is better than TikTok?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, for certain segments and not for others. Like, TikTok is amazing at a couple of things. They are amazing at, um, exploration-based ranking. So discovering new talent and helping new talent break, right? You know, we, for a long time, had a strong bias towards showing people things that we were pretty confident they would like, because a lot of other people liked them and it's easier to rank that kind of content. And that sort of reinforces the existing hierarchy. And TikTok was really good at building the systems from the ground up to be more content first and to go find things that you might love and you never would have heard of before. And therefore, it was also just really entertaining. Really entertaining. Uh, it's really good. They're, they're the... I think they still are the most well-executing competitor I think we've ever faced. There's a couple others that are up there, but they're what, they're, I think at the top of that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Are they the fastest moving competitor?
- AMAdam Mosseri
They're the, um... In the video space, yeah. The other folk who are really fast and really good, and I respect a lot, is Telegram.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Huh.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Telegram is just the... That team is just really good. They built something really well and they can pivot quickly. And when they decide to do something, they get it out.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You know how before I was like, "I'm friendly. I ask nice questions. Don't worry about it"? Um, this might seem
- 35:38 – 39:06
Is Facebook a copycat?
- HSHarry Stebbings
unfriendly-
- AMAdam Mosseri
No, no, I'm down.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... but I'm sad with love. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
I spent, I spent five years running News Feed. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Everything in Instagram has seemed infinitely more friendly. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Well, then this is gonna be great. But like, you know, when you look at Stories and you look at its origins with Snap and, you know, then Alex or Tim Schultz told me that, um, it was actually held from Kakao. Um, they disagree. But, um-
- AMAdam Mosseri
I'm sure they do. (laughs) That's okay. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
And then you... You know, you... We look at quite a few of Facebook's kind of innovations, and it's Threads most recently.Is Facebook just a very efficient copy machine?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I think we're very good at optimizing things. And I think that we are willing to, when somebody pioneers a new format, to go and adopt that format if we think it's gonna become an industry standard. And I think Stories is a good example. Stories is like, you see stories everywhere. You see stories on YouTube, there was Stories on Pinterest for a while.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Um, obviously Twitter did it for a while. Uh, so I think that, that is part of our DNA is that we are, we are, we're competitive. We are always, we're, we are always worried that, and I think this is good, that the world will change around us and we won't change fast enough to keep up. So we are willing to take risks that sometimes really blows up in our face. Um, without s-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What was the biggest risk that's blown up in your face? 'Cause they all seem to have worked in hindsight. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs) Well, I do think that the, the PandaVision thing t- a year and a half ago was a pretty rough blow.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Maybe it was more of an emotional response from being ridiculed by like my favorite comedy show. Uh, but that one did feel like it blew up in my face. Um...
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I, can I ask you a hard one as well, which is like, how do you determine between an innovation that is sustainable and you should learn from and-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... incorporate, versus one that I don't know if it's sustainable? You know, we've seen the rise of BeReal.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
People have very, uh, strong opinions on whether it's sustainable or not. As an investor in BeReal, I will decline to comment.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Um...
- AMAdam Mosseri
As you should.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But, um, uh, how do you determine between the two?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I mean, I think you try to make sure that you're understanding what is the fundamental human need that's being met, and is that need gonna probably be persistent or not? I mean, look, Instagram has changed a ton over the years, but we, but a lot of it's stayed the same. You know, we've always been focused on inspiring creativity. We've always been focused on bringing people together. And how people share and how people entertain themselves has changed a lot. And so how we do those things needs to change with it, but those fundamental needs are the same. And so when you're looking at either a trend or a competitor or how someone's abusing or if the community is abusing the app, that you can learn a lot from how people abuse your app. Um, you can try and make sure that if there's the- if there's- if you can explain it not only as based on some sort of viral mechanic, but also based on it meeting a need in a better and a fundamentally richer or better or different way, then you wanna play in that space.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What have you learned from how people abuse the app? I didn't ever think about this before.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, what's a good example? Early Facebook days, before we had photos, people just kept changing their profile picture.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs) Like every day, multiple times a day. I'm like, "Oh, sounds like people want to share photos." (laughs)
- 39:06 – 1:03:57
Threads: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
- HSHarry Stebbings
Now, are you ready for Threads?
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yes. I mean, no, but yes. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Uh, if we start on Threads, the numbers and... it's just been insane.
- AMAdam Mosseri
It has been insane.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, so first off, and this is the worst interview question ever. You know when it's like someone wins Wimbledon and they're like, "How do you feel?" (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
(laughs) I actually, I watched the Wimbledon yesterday and they asked the, one of the winners of the, someone said, "How do you feel?"
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- AMAdam Mosseri
She's like-
- HSHarry Stebbings
She's like, "Happy." (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
She's like, "Good." (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
You'd love it if they were like really depressed and they only got 100 Likes on their Instagram. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. It's like, "My cat is killing me." (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) But one never knows when they launch a new product. You can get a lot of hate. I mean, fuck, a lot of hate.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Did you expect the speed of adoption for Threads?
- AMAdam Mosseri
No. No. I mean, I thought we had something. Um, I, I think I, I did an, I did a pod with Kevin and Roose and Casey, and Kevin was asking questions about like, "You guys have launched a lot of separate apps and they usually don't go so well." In fact, I can't think of any, I think he said. And he's like, "Wh- what do you think of this?" And I said like, "Look, when you're launching a new app, it's, it's always more likely to fail than succeed." The median number of new apps, I read this somewhere, installed a month is zero for the average person. So you're just, you're, you're swimming upstream. But I did say I was more excited about this one than I had been about anything in a while. But yet, but I did, but I did want to recognize, it was a big risk. And look, the, the numbers are staggering, but it's just signups. It's, it's way easier to build something that people are willing to try than build something that people want to continue to use in a month or a year from now. So this is the best, this is day eight, this is the best first eight days I could have ever possibly imagined. But what really matters is how well do we iterate, how well do, how quickly do we improve the experience so that it is compelling enough that people will continue to use it over the long run?
- HSHarry Stebbings
We're gonna get to retention. I, um, I have a group with like 10 of the best product leaders in the world, um, in it, and, uh...
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, should I be offended on this? (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yes. (laughs) You actually have to be on the show first. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
That's fair. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, but, uh, one of them, uh, said, "The most important question for me is..." Can you get him to talk about what went into bootstrapping the Threads graph-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... from day one?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I mean, this is one of the key reasons for the success, is that you sign up and you can not only import your... You sign in with your Instagram account, it's not a separate account, and you can import your identity, but you can also essentially import your graph by just following everyone you already follow. And you can follow people who are not even on Threads yet, so that when they do join that you automatically are connected. And so that we can even tell you, we can be like, "Hey, you've got 10,000 followers on this app already. You haven't even installed it yet. Do you wanna try it?" It's a pretty compelling value proposition.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- AMAdam Mosseri
And so I think that was, that was key. Now look, I do think...... the public conversation graph, interest graph isn't necessarily the one you're, th- the same in terms of your interests as what ch- you follow on Instagram-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... which is why we allowed the graphs to fork. We will build, over time, I think, a graph sync option. So if you want just to have the same graph, you can, and we can make sure that stays in sync for you. But I think it was also very important, particularly to the team, to allow people to choose a different experience or a different graph if they wanted one. And so I think we've found a really good balance between making it really stupid easy to just pull everything in on day one.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
But also, if you cared and you wanted to curate, you could go do that.
- 1:03:57 – 1:08:59
Lessons from Working with Mark Zuckerberg
- AMAdam Mosseri
experience sometimes.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What have you learned from working with Mark, speaking of like... (clicks tongue)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Mark? I mean, Mark has been really helpful in a couple different ways. Uh, Mark is always holding an incredibly high bar. I think his... one of his fears is that we fail hitting our goals all the way down. And so, it's his... you know, you can crush it and then he's like, "Set the goal a little higher still."
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
"Set the goal a little higher still." And I think there's a, there's a real value to that, um, which is just like really, really setting a high bar. He's also very willing to take risks in a way that sometimes is infuriating, but I think it's very good for the company over the long run. Like, for instance, on Threads, he was the one who was like, "You guys should just try to build a separate app." And we were really trying to figure out a way to do it in the main app 'cause it seemed like it would be much more likely to succeed. And he was by far the most convicted early on, um, about taking the big step.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Is, is Threads a risk? Like it doesn't work and it's a Facebook Home that people forget. I don't mean it badly.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Uh, I mean, look, there's a, there's... Yeah, it's still a risk. Uh, I think that... I think if you fail, I think it can damage your reputation. It can damage your brand. It can make people less likely to want you to succeed in the future. It's a huge... opportunity cost. The team is getting smaller, not bigger right now.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
And so, like, you know, it's not a big team. Um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How big is the Threads team?
- AMAdam Mosseri
It's gonna grow now. It started small. It... They really... The team really properly formed a little less than five months ago or five months ago. We started working on it a little before, but the team didn't really form properly until maybe five months ago. Dozens, 50-something-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Wow.
- AMAdam Mosseri
... engineers, three PMs, three designers. It's pretty lean, but they're really, really good engineers, designers, PMs, data scientists, researchers. So, the opportunity cost is not properly, I think, evaluated by the, by the number.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask, from a business perspective, how does the business and monetization potential differ when comparing the video visual of Instagram Reels versus the text-based nature of Threads?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I actually think it's gonna be easier. I think it... I mean, the, the ad formats will be less immersive. Uh, and I think that's, that's a, that's a cost, but it is... A text-based feed is about the highest monetization efficiency of any sort of online business I've seen. I think the... that and search are basically like the two.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Um, just because the number of things you consume per hour, uh, is just incredibly high 'cause it's so light, which allows ads to really seamlessly integrate. And we honestly, we fell into this business model with Facebook. We were, you know, we were putting ads in those sort of-... right-hand column (laughs) on the side of the website.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Like, don't look over here. And the shift to mobile forced us to do it and ended up being one of the best businesses of all time.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I love that. Can I ask, when you think about success with Threads, what do you think success is to you? Do you have a metric yardstick?
- AMAdam Mosseri
For me, the thing I'm gonna look at the most, um, is probably, (sighs) for the verticals we care about most, what does the creator community engagement look like? 'Cause I think that's gonna be, that's going to be a bellwether for how big the app is over the longer run. And then, I mean, right now, the thing I care about most is retention. Is like, uh, and it's, there's no good signal now 'cause this hasn't been long enough and everyone who signed up is, not everyone, but most of the people who've signed up have been early adopters and they use things differently. So, I really just don't know yet. So, it'll be, the two things I'll focus on most for the next year will be the creator community, specifically not only how many of them use the app, but how many of them share the app as a place where their creativity, and then retention for the average user.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Those are the two things that really would kill Threads or make it not a success. Why would creators not share on Threads? Like, what would cause that?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I mean, there's all sorts of reasons. Um, if you get more reach elsewhere, like if, you know, obviously Twitter, um, is, is definitely a risk. Then there's, is it just worth your time? Like, creator, they're busy. They're trying to make content. Often they're, don't just make content for a living, they do something else for a living too.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
There's a, you know, you're be, you're a musician, you're a footballer, etc.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Venture capitalist. (laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. (laughs) Exactly. Um, and so, is the return worth your time? Uh, if it degrades in quality, slow or toxic or buggy, like, obviously those things can hurt you too.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yep. No, I totally get you. Um, can I just take you on a slightly weird turn? Um-
- AMAdam Mosseri
I liked the preamble for this question.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, it's just like, you're a great dude. And I, I joked about the references and kind of, but they were phenomenal.
- 1:08:59 – 1:17:49
Work-Life Balance
- HSHarry Stebbings
of it, how do you have the personal side and not lose an inch on work? I'm being very open. I'm nervous about opening my life up to the personal-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and losing an inch on work.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What advice would you have?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I just think you have to be really intentional about putting pen to paper on your priorities. I n- I'm constantly feeling like I'm doing a shit job at something. I'm either not there for my kids enough or I'm not there for my team enough, or I missed something that I could have helped the team avoid and it blew up in our face. But I think I, uh, I'm a shit friend 'cause I'm never around. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
My life is, is, is Instagram and now Threads and my kids and my wife, and then, like, I barely see friends, which I feel terrible about. Um, so I, every year I put down a few intentions. They used to be very measurable and I would, like, grade myself at the end of the year, typical PMing my life kind of way. I got really good advice from a really close friend named Alejandro recently, which was just write yourself, like, a mantra, like a thing to say to yourself, and just say it every night before you go to bed. And that'll be the way to keep that intention top of mind, and it'll help you actually better live up to that intention. Uh, so every year I do it, and it changes every year, and it gets simpler usually every year.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What is it this year?
- AMAdam Mosseri
It's very personal. I don't know if I should I share this on, uh, I can share, why not? Um, so now the mantra is, take care of yourself, love your children, support your wife, be there for your friends.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think you can do all of them? And what I mean by that is, like, actually I, someone told me that you have work, your family, and your friends.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You can only do two at once.
- AMAdam Mosseri
Yeah. Uh, I'm definitely not, I'm definitely not there for my friends-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- AMAdam Mosseri
... as much as I would like to be. Occasionally, uh, but not as much as I would like to be. I'm hoping relocating back to the US will help with that 'cause it'll be a little bit easier, but we'll see.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If you could call up yourself before your first child, when you were nervously expecting that first child to come-
- AMAdam Mosseri
Oh, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... what would you tell yourself before becoming that father?
- AMAdam Mosseri
It's a race to the starting line. Before you have your first, you're so focused on the birth 'cause it's terrifying, particularly obviously for the mom who has to actually do all the work. Um, but you're like, "How's this gonna change my life?" My brother was calling me a lot before he had his first and was, like, trying to wrap his head around a- about how his life was gonna change. And I was like, "This is the most absurd exercise." Like, you don't, the whole having a kid means you can't plan for how your life is gonna change. All you know, it's gonna change, it's gonna change a lot, and it'll continue to change. But we, we, we spend all this time focused on the birth, focused on how much paternity leave when to take it, how much maternity leave, when to take it. But this person's coming into your life for, for two decades. The more important thing is how are you going to adjust how you do what you do so you can be there for them for 18 years? Not, do you take 8 weeks or 12 weeks or 16 weeks of leave in year one that they're not gonna remember? By the way, as the dad, your job is basically to take care of the mom.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- AMAdam Mosseri
And so I would just say it's a race to the starting line. I was way too focused on day one and way too s- way not ready for the rest of it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How did you adjust how you work?
- AMAdam Mosseri
I started working less. I just ran out of hours. Um, I used to come in really early. I used to come in, I used to try to take like the 6:12 shuttle in the morning and get in as soon as I could, and then come home after dinner. Um, I just couldn't do that anymore. My goal is always to see the boys in the morning and the evening. And I, I get it 3:00 or 4:00.... of the work days each week.
Episode duration: 1:27:37
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