Peak social media: The ads machine
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Zuckerberg used advertising to turn Facebook into the first global social media giant, boasting 3bn users around the world. But today there are questions about the business model that has powered it for the past 15 years, and what Zuckerberg’s new focus on building the Metaverse means for the platform that started it all. Elaine Moore speaks to veteran Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee, one-time advisor to Zuckerberg; writer and researcher Tim Hwang, author of Subprime Attention Crisis; and Steven Levy, editor at large at Wired and author of Facebook: The Inside Story. Meta declined a request for an interview for this episode, but directed us to their Q1 2023 earnings.
Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Hannah Murphy
Clips: Meta, US Senate.
We're keen to hear more from our listeners about this show and want to know what you'd like to hear more of, so we're running a survey that you can find at ft.com/techtonicsurvey. It takes about 10 minutes to complete and you will be in with a chance of winning a pair of Bose QuietComfort earbuds.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The latest episode of the next five podcasts is all about financing net zero. |
| 0:04.6 | I speak to Tim Gould, Chief Energy Economist at the IEA. |
| 0:07.6 | We're up to $1.7 trillion going into clean energy transition investments this year. |
| 0:13.1 | Nick Standsbury, Head of Climate Solutions at LGIM. |
| 0:15.6 | We need to put a proper price on all greenhouse gas emissions. |
| 0:19.6 | And Eric Werners, SVP and Chief Economist at Equino. |
| 0:23.0 | We have to do these things together. |
| 0:24.7 | Industry cannot do this alone. |
| 0:26.8 | Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:29.4 | Enjoy. |
| 0:33.2 | So here's a question. |
| 0:35.1 | Who does the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, turn to for advice? |
| 0:40.4 | There was a time when that person was Roger McNamee. |
| 0:44.1 | He's a veteran tech investor. |
| 0:46.1 | And in 2006, he was sitting in his office in Silicon Valley when his phone rang. |
| 0:52.3 | I got a phone call from one of Mark's senior executives who said, |
| 0:56.6 | my boss is facing a huge crisis and he needs to talk to somebody who is very experienced, |
| 1:03.2 | but not conflicted. |
| 1:04.2 | Would you be willing to take a meeting with Mark? |
| 1:06.1 | McNamee had been putting money into tech startups since the 1980s. |
| 1:10.6 | He knew the scene well. |
| 1:12.0 | His opinions were respected. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.