What Next - How Long Can Mark Zuckerberg Be King?
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The public scrutiny applied to Facebook has been building for years, as the company grows its user base faster than its ability to regulate its content. But distrust among Facebook employees is also building, as evidenced by the remarkable disclosure of internal Facebook documents by whistleblower Frances Haugen. A crisis of trust could be what undoes Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to dominate the internet of the future.
Guest: Steven Levy is editor-at-large at WIRED and author of numerous books, including, most recently, Facebook: The Inside Story.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there. Before we get started, I've got a quick question for you. Have you quit your job recently? |
| 0:08.3 | Or are you thinking about it? Maybe you're on a business and suddenly all your employees have vaporized. If any of this sounds familiar, we want to hear all about it. |
| 0:18.5 | The way to tell us is to record a voice memo on your phone and email it |
| 0:21.9 | to what next at slate.com. Or if you want, you can give us a ring, leave a message, pour out all |
| 0:28.7 | your feelings. Our number is 202-888-2588. All right, on with the show. |
| 0:46.4 | For the last few weeks, as Facebook has dominated the news, there's been this question, |
| 0:48.9 | where's Mark? |
| 0:52.6 | As in Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. |
| 0:57.3 | Last week, we found out he's been in the metaverse. Hey, and welcome to connect. Today, we're going to talk about the metaverse. |
| 1:03.6 | At the end of a month-long news cycle that's included a whistleblower named Francis Hogan, |
| 1:08.4 | her cache of secret documents, and hours of testimony on the floor of the Senate, |
| 1:13.6 | Mark Zuckerberg released a video about his company's future. |
| 1:18.7 | We've gone from desktop to web to phones, from text to photos to video, but this isn't the end of the line. |
| 1:26.5 | That future apparently includes a new name, meta, as you've probably heard by now, |
| 1:31.8 | and a utopian vision of virtual reality for everyone. |
| 1:36.7 | An embodied Internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it. |
| 1:40.7 | And we call this the Metaverse. |
| 1:43.0 | And you're going to be able to do almost anything you can |
| 1:45.1 | imagine, get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create. What the future does not |
| 1:51.9 | include is a vigorous investigation into the many ways Facebook has harmed its users. |
| 1:58.6 | I think it's a giant public relations mistake to hide from this. |
| 2:05.6 | Stephen Levy has what he calls a PhD in Facebook. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.