Skip to main content

Mark Zuckerberg wrote to his top lieutenants about the benefits of 'cloning' rivals after meeting with Chinese entrepreneurs in 2012 — read the full memo (FB)

* Mark Zuckerberg wrote warmly about how Chinese apps copied competitors and urged his team to find ways to "move a lot faster" in 2012. * The Facebook CEO made the comments in an internal memo that was made public on Wednesday by the US House Judiciary Committee. * The document offers a window into the tech exec's influences, and how he has historically thought about product strategy. * Facebook has long had a reputation for blatantly copying competitors if it can't acquire them, and is now facing intense antitrust scrutiny. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a message for his top lieutenants: Shamelessly copying competitors gets results. In March 2012, the technology executive sent an emailed message to some of his closest confidantes at the social network, relaying some takeaways from conversations he had had with Chinese entrepreneurs about their products. Zuckerberg spoke warmly about the results of China's "strong culture of cloning things quickly" — highlighting how it ultimately produces "clean and polished" apps with a plethora of features — and implored his team to think of ways to "move a lot faster." The document was made public on Wednesday by the US House Judiciary Committee as part of its year-long investigation into Facebook and other big tech firms over antitrust issues. It offers a unique window into some of the relatively early influences on Zuckerberg's thinking around product design, and how he communicated product strategy to key executives at his company in an unguarded way.  Facebook is notorious for shamelessly copying competitors if it can't outright acquire them, adopting features pioneered by other companies like Snapchat's Stories format — often to immense success. The company now faces mounting antitrust scrutiny over whether it has acted anti-competitively, and some critics are calling for it to be broken up and for its acquisitions — including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus — to be undone. The email was sent to Chris Cox, a key product exec, and Mike Schroepfer, a long-time tech leader who is currently the company's chief technology officer, and later forwarded to COO Sheryl Sandberg. It details meetings between Zuckerberg and Robin Li, a cofounder of Chinese search engine Baidu, as well as with the founders of Renren, a Chinese social network similar to Facebook. "In China there is this strong culture of cloning things quickly and building lots of different products instead of just focusing on one thing at a time. This allows them to plant lots of seeds, and although it yields lower quality products in the short term as they're cloning and the markets are growing quickly, as markets mature there seems to be less of a gap between the clones and the originals," Zuckerberg wrote. He detailed an array of features Renren had built that Facebook lacked, writing that it "now seems almost as clean and polished as our own [social network]." Zuckerberg concluded: "Overall, seeing all this and the pace that new mobile apps seem to be coming out from other companies makes me think we're moving very slowly. If we were moving faster, then we might be able to build out more of the social use cases ourselves and prevent our competitors from getting footholds. "Maybe it's just a lot easier for these guys to move quickly since they're just copying other people, but a lot of the stuff that we're doing around messages, photos, etc doesn't have a huge number of original problems either." He added: "I wonder what we could do to move a lot faster."  Schroepfer enforced the memo, responding that "fast-follow is something I'm a fan of," though warning that the company needs to ensure "the engineers/[product managers] on the project are excited/motivated by what they are doing."  And Sandberg wrote that "it is hard not to agree that it is better to do more and move faster, especially if that means you don't have competitors build products that takes some of our users." Here's the full memo from Zuckerberg:   Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly
https://bit.ly/30alNLG

Popular posts from this blog

SpaceX has a 'go' from NASA to return 2 astronauts to Earth on Sunday as Hurricane Isaias threatens several Florida splashdown locations

* NASA on Saturday gave SpaceX a "go" to undock the company's first crewed space mission, called Demo-2, and land it on Sunday evening. * Hurricane Isaias complicated original plans to return two astronauts to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship in the Atlantic Ocean. * Elon Musk's aerospace company may now try to splash down NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in the Gulf of Mexico. * Two out of seven total landing sites near Florida must have good weather conditions, and NASA has until about 5 p.m. ET on Saturday to call off the undocking. * Should the weather worsen, NASA and SpaceX can try again a day later or some other date over the next two months. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have a "go" to return to Earth this weekend and wrap up an historic space mission for both NASA and SpaceX.  Behnken and Hurley launched to orbit aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehic...
Read more

What an independent contractor actually is and how it's classified under California's Assembly Bill 5, the gig worker law Uber, Lyft, and others are fighting with a November ballot measure

* California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) went into effect in January, adopting a narrow definition of independent contractor that forces Uber and other gig economy businesses to choose between reclassifying workers as employees or risking significant liability for misclassification. * The law serves as a reminder to California businesses to be careful when classifying workers as contractors.  * Classifying independent contractors falls into two main categories: the "right to control" test (often called the "IRS test") and the tougher "ABC test" recently adopted in AB5. * Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash have recently poured $30 million into Proposition 22 — a ballot measure intended to exempt major ridesharing and food delivery companies from AB5. If California residents vote the measure into effect in November, Uber and Lyft can continue classifying drivers as contractors.  * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In September 2019, Californ...
Read more

PayPal parts with top advertising executive after shifting its marketing strategy during the pandemic

* PayPal's chief creative officer Steve Simpson, its top advertising executive, left the company after about a year. * The move came after PayPal shifted its marketing strategy during the coronavirus pandemic, placing less emphasis on the brand and more on catering to small businesses, said a source with direct knowledge of the marketing operation. * Simpson's departure followed that of CMO and former Apple executive Allison Johnson in May. Both "decided to leave PayPal" as the company streamlines its global marketing functions, according to a PayPal spokeswoman. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. PayPal's highest-ranking ad executive Steve Simpson left earlier this month after just over a year as part of a restructuring of its global marketing business. Simpson, who was chief creative officer, was hired to make high-minded ad campaigns to help PayPal stand out from competitors like Square, Stripe, and Apple Pay. But this strategy chan...
Read more