20Growth: Meta CMO Alex Schultz on How All Founders Have to Change Their Marketing Playbook in a World of AI | Is AI Plateauing, What it Means if China Wins the AI Race and Why Zuck is a Generational Leader
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 693 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alex Schultz is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics at Meta, where he has spent nearly two decades shaping the company's growth and marketing strategy. He has been instrumental in scaling Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to billions of users worldwide. Alex is is also the author of Click Here: The New Rules of Marketing, the definitive guide to modern growth — available now on Amazon.
AGENDA:
00:00 – Is All Marketing Actually Performance Marketing?
04:00 – When Did Facebook Have the Wrong North Star? What Did They Learn?
16:00 – Will AI Create Companies Run by Just ONE Person?
27:00 – Is AI About to Hit the Biggest Plateau Since Self-Driving Cars?
30:00 – Is China Secretly Winning the Global AI Arms Race?
38:00 – Does AI Kill Content or Supercharge It?
44:00 – Why Brand Marketing Is Harder (and More Important) Than You Think
47:00 – Will Glasses Replace Phones Forever?
51:00 – What Would Alex Do If He Were Sundar at Google Today?
59:00 – What is the Greatest Strength and the Greatest Weakness of Zuck?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Performance marketing is all marketing. So people make this distinction that you have brand marketing |
| 0:09.7 | and performance. You have brand and direct response. And all marketing is performance marketing. |
| 0:14.8 | I wouldn't have taken CMO if I thought brand didn't matter. This is 20 growth with me, Harry Stebbings. |
| 0:20.0 | Now, I am so excited for the show today. I think we probably have the best growth leader I've ever had the chance to have on the show. He's become a dear friend since our first episode. And now he has an incredible new book. Click Here by Alex Schultz. Alex is the CMO meta and the VP of Analytics. Today is this incredible wide-ranging discussion. |
| 0:39.2 | We discuss everything from how AI impacts the future of marketing, the future of channel |
| 0:43.6 | spend, the future of content. We also discuss open versus closed, China, the different worlds |
| 0:50.1 | that are created by open versus closed models, Chinese models. This is a phenomenal discussion. |
| 0:55.8 | Alex was incredible in the studio, and I'm so excited to hear your thoughts. |
| 0:59.9 | But before we dive into the show today, |
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| 1:53.0 | Whether it's the software you build or the software you buy, your tech stack should be creating |
| 1:57.2 | results, not creating roadblocks. |
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