Memo to Zuckerberg: Be Like Satya Nadella
Meta has made Wall Street happy again but the CEO needs to shake up the company a lot more — including reshuffling his core executives.
Zuckerberg in 2022.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
The non-believers can take a back seat. Meta Platforms Inc.’s year of efficiency is on track thanks to the dependability of its core businesses. The company said Wednesday that its digital ad sales rebounded during the first quarter, buying Mark Zuckerberg some more time as he continues to spend billions on the metaverse and on improving Meta’s use of artificial intelligence. Now if he’s serious about Meta’s growth for the long term, he should consider even more uncomfortable strategies besides job cuts and bigger investments in AI, which so far appear to be paying off.
“We are no longer behind in building out our AI,” Zuckerberg told investors on a call Wednesday. He spoke about introducing “AI agents” to billions of people, using them to improve customer service chats with businesses or to create ads. Supercharging ads will be his most important focus as he seeks to enhance Meta’s bread-and-butter business, which hasn’t suffered the same fate as Twitter’s.