Mark Zuckerberg Slams Apple For Its Lack of Innovation

0:00So Mark Zuckerberg complained about how Apple takes so much, right? But then it's interesting because Sheryl Sandberg actually talked to Shervin, who was one of the investors in Uber. And basically... Shervin Perjani? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he made a suggestion to take 30 % cut for Facebook. And then she went to Facebook. And then so Facebook Meta also takes a 30 % cut too with their stuff as well. It's like Oculus. Well, it's bigger than 30 % cut if you look at all the content us creators create on Facebook and how Facebook monetizes and keeps the revenue. Yeah. Look, everyone has their incentives at the end of the day.

0:34And sure, I think Mark Zuckerberg makes the point that, yeah, they haven't really innovated a lot, Apple. And so they've gone, we've talked about this earlier, they've gone deep into services because they have this giant ecosystem. And people love Apple. Neil and I both love Apple products. Neil, I mean, he went out there and he bought the Apple Vision Pro. He bought multiple ones, I think. Which gives you a headache if you wear it long enough. At least it gave me a headache. Yeah, but I think everyone can complain at the end of the day, but we still use it. So it is what it is. And speaking of meta, did you see that meta is raising the bar on low performers?

1:07They're raising the bar on low performers? So they're giving them AI to help them become better? No, no, no. So when you say raising the bar on low performers, it means you're cutting low performers. So meta cutting 5 % of staff targeting lowest performers. And here's what I find interesting. he says, I've decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performance faster. So they used to take a year or so to move on from people, right? So as of September, Meta employed about 72 ,000 people, so a 5 % reduction could affect about 3 ,600 jobs. He's like, look, we typically manage people who aren't meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we're going to do it, we're going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle.

1:46And I think we're going to see more CEOs doing this. The biggest signal you can see from Mark Zuckerberg, and I think you're going to see to some more CEOs is that they feel like it's okay to do these things now. The biggest thing that like Zuckerberg of all people knew he couldn't say, oh, um, you know, I'm, you know, the government forced me to do all these things in the past. And then, you know, we're going to cut all these programs, right? He had to wait for the coast to be clear and rightfully so because he has all these social networks. So he waited for the coast to be clear. Now he's, he's doing all these things and now other CEOs will follow suit and say, oh, okay, we're seeing more and more people do it.

2:16Okay. We can do it too. So the thing that Zuck sees, whether it's true or not, is he believes the movement of quote unquote woke, which is what a lot of people define it. And Eric and I are not saying it's woke or it's not. He's saying a lot of that is over. So he is firing people whenever he wants. He's going on like the Joe Rogan podcast and just stating his opinion. And he also, I believe, removed certain labels for people's identity from Facebook. He took tampons out of the men's restrooms at Meta. And then I didn't know that and then he also took away i think labels like transgender and stuff like that right yeah and then i think the entire dei division's gone yeah yeah i can see that if you're doing all this stuff you're pretty much removing dei yeah and so a lot of people are complaining but i think now people are are they're standing up for what they believe in whereas four years ago you couldn't do that so he also put dana white on his board yeah and then dana white is about to release an energy drink i don't know if you saw that no i didn't yeah no he's partnering with like i think Ambev or one of those guys to create an energy.

3:19Good for him. So record revenue, by the way, on track for$156 billion. Record profits on track for$55 billion. Fresh enough memories from firing 25 % of staff and then Meta is at it again. So take it for what it is. I think what I've told my staff is the Overton window has moved, meaning that things you couldn't say four years ago, you can now say. And it's happening across the board. Speaking of social networks, do you think Elon Musk will buy TikTok or not? No. I don't think it's going to, I think they're just going to, we have till Sunday, right? I don't know if that's a bluff from the Chinese, but I do love the fact that they picked him, if that's a true story.

3:58Well, to give everyone context here, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese government would be okay and they would be open to Elon Musk buying TikTok. Now, TikTok themselves says, hey, we have no conversations of this. This is the Chinese government supposedly stating what they would want to do. And as we all know, if the Chinese government wants something done in their own country, it'll get done. I mean look Elon said great things about the Chinese people he's done business in China and to be honest I mean I'm Chinese but I don't have a horse in the stake right I'm Taiwanese to be clear right so I know for I know how Taiwanese people work I know how Chinese people work it's no like US versus China whatever like the normal US person the normal Chinese person they don't really care about this whole US versus China thing and Elon's just being real it's like hey you know I do business there I like the Chinese people and I would be excited if he bought it because he's I think he's done a pretty good job with X.

4:56People can debate that. I think he's, you'd agree with that. I think he's done a decent job with X. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. Maybe not from an ad side, but like a product side. From a revenue side? Yeah. I don't think so. From a product side, honestly, what has really changed? What do you, Grok? Okay, what has really changed that's useful? Okay. Do you really use Grok that often? I do use Grok. Really? I use Grok on the, like, if you write a tweet, I can hit Grok and summarize the whole thing. I do like how I can write longer form posts. Okay. I like how if you post something or I post something, you can see the views.

5:28That's a pretty big thing. I thought the views were there for a long time. It was never there. It was never there anymore. I know he hid the likes, so you can't see who likes it anymore. And community notes is fantastic. When Gavin Newsom posts something and then he gets community noted, it's great. Yeah, but from a product perspective, this isn't like crazy changes. They're good changes. Sure, they're good changes, but they're not crazy. Okay, what's a crazy change? Let's say he created Grok and it worked like ChatGPT. that would be like revolutionary, amazing product. And I'm not saying he won't get there with Grok.

6:00It's just not there yet. It's far away from it. I wouldn't bet against Elon from creating something like that. It's just not there yet. I would actually bet that he can create something like that. He just needs time. He's got the mega cluster. He can do whatever he wants. Yes, but when I look at social networks, a lot of them have released many features over the years like Elon has. I do agree before he bought Twitter and changed it to X, there wasn't much that was changing. But being able to add more of a link to tweet or showcasing views, they're cool changes, but I don't think they're the biggest.

6:35That to me, it's made it more usable. I think I mentioned four or five things. And then he's emphasizing video more. It's not the best yet. But before, Twitter was a stagnant product. And that to me is like, you can churn people really easily. At least now he has more, it's like record usage all the time, right? So I think. But that's not because of the product. I think that's more so because of the filtering and community notes instead of just suppressing information. It's a better product. Yes. Okay. You can say it's a better product, but I'm talking about like from a development standpoint, like what's like crazy.

7:12Give me an example from the other social channels in the last couple of years. That's been great. Sure. TikTok, social commerce, Instagram, social commerce. I think those two are really going to change the business for these platforms and for all of social media. The ability to discover products and easily purchase them and then eventually go live and sell those products in real time and people can discuss it, kind of like home shopping network, that is changing the game of e-commerce. I would say that is a very useful social media feature. I'm not saying X can't create that. and I do agree he made it a way more popular place, but I think the big thing that he did that the other players didn't, and this was smart for Elon, is he said, hey, I'm going to let people say whatever they want and you can just do community notes.

8:00If something's really bad, I believe they supposedly remove it. I could be wrong on this. And I do think that was a really good change. That's what got him a big traffic boost and you're seeing Facebook follow in the footsteps because they want the traffic as well because they know it's going to lead to more ad monetization for them. I would say, so if it's like a major technological change, like something groundbreaking, I would consider shopping not exactly there. Like I think shopping is important from a revenue standpoint, right? And also usage standpoint, because they just copy Chinese companies, right?

8:32Instagram and what was the other one? TikTok, right? Now with what Elon did, they're not like the most groundbreaking things, but it's like, to me, it's way more useful. And that to me is good product development. So I'm on the opposite. I look at what TikTok and Instagram did with social shopping as much more useful. And it shows in the revenue numbers versus what X is doing, let's say, with Grok, which doesn't show in the revenue numbers. At least, yeah. This actually shows both our personalities, right? Because Neil's very optimized towards the revenue. I'm optimized towards like, how much can I learn from this thing, right?

9:04Yeah. So there's no right or wrong answer. Yeah, I agree with that. Depends on what you think is important. Go ahead. But going back to Elon and TikTok, look, I'm with you. I don't know if he's going to buy it or not. What's interesting is when people made the claim that he just bought a crazy penthouse in Florida to be close to that Trump, he quickly tweeted saying, this is false. This is not true. And usually when people start putting out a lot of news and it's nowhere near accurate, he is one of the first people to tweet or message saying, hey, this is inaccurate. He spends so much, I forget how many time he spends, but he sends out so many messages, I believe it's Polymark.

9:42People are betting on how many tweets he's going to do on a weekly basis. I do not participate. I'm not really a betting man. But this is one thing where he could have easily said, this is just totally false. I'm not interested in TikTok. He did not message out saying, I'm not interested in TikTok or anything about that. I would be excited if he bought TikTok. Yeah, I would too. Yeah. The question would be like, who would be the CEO? Who knows? I don't know, but I think he's done a good job with Exus' current CEO. I think, you know what? The way I look at Elon Musk, he plays a lot of video games.

10:18In video games, there's good and evil, right? But you also have lawful good, chaotic good, right? He's chaotic good. So he's very chaotic, but he operates off his morals. And if you look at his actions over the years, he hasn't done something to screw his competitors over. In fact, you look at Amazon, you look at OpenAI. Both Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos were like, they don't think he would use his political power to screw them over. And I believe that that's why China feels like maybe if they're to sell it, maybe this is a guy you can sell it to. Wait, who doesn't believe that they would use his?

10:55So this is an interview done, mixed book. Andrew Sorkin was interviewing Sam Altman and he interviewed Jeff Bezos. This is a couple months ago, right? Yeah. And then he asked both of them separately. It's like Elon's gaining a lot of power. he's kind of cozying up to Trump do you think he would use that power against you? And then Sam Altman's like, I don't think so. And then Jeff Bezos is like, no. And in fact, when Jeff Bezos launched the Rockets today Elon was the first one to be like, congratulations. Yeah, I can see it. He'll poke fun and do his memes but I don't see him using it. He's for humanity, whether you like him or not.

11:27And if someone does an amazing job I do believe he'd be like, cool, how can we be better than them? And I think he likes competition. But yeah, time will end up telling if he tries and buys TikTok. What I really think is happening is TikTok's just waiting for Trump to take office. The TikTok CEO or president of the United States is going there to the ceremony. Oh yeah, that's in a couple of days. It's on the 20th. And what I believe is going to happen, he's just waiting for Trump to come back in in case he gets banned and try to convince Trump to just push it back in and say, hey, we're still around.

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14:17Did you see that the Biden administration tweeted about how they were so happy to get the Israel Hamas ceasefire done? But they also mentioned how they were working with the Trump team to get it done. So a Twitter account, an X account, the Defense Ministry of Israel, which is a verified government account, tweeted, thank you, Trump, for helping broker the deal, right? So on one end, it's like, oh, yeah, taking all the credit. And then Israel's like, thank you, Trump. So it's all marketing at the end of the day. If you feel like you can, I don't know, piggyback onto something, you'll do it, right?

15:01but it's funny that they actually went out of their way to do that. Yeah, and I think less wars is going to cause the marketing ecosystem to boom and we're already seeing signs of it. And I'm not trying to pick sides or anything like that, nor is Eric, but at the end of the day, neither of us want to see people die and there's innocent people all around that are dying, which just sucks and it's not a good way to live life. but Ad Age had an article recently talking about how the CMO hiring is on the rise. Wait, let's come back to Trump real quick. I have one more thing for you and then we can go to yours.

15:38Okay. So did you see that Donald Trump just received the first ever presidential commemorative inaugural Diet Coke from the CEO of Coca-Cola? You see that? No. Look at that, dude. So he got a Coke? Yeah, he got a Coca-Cola, man. Is it like a special Coke? No, it's just a Diet Coke. Oh yeah, actually it is kind of special. There's a White House on the Diet Coke. But point is, it all comes down to marketing at the end of the day. And so I don't know why Coke for the first time decided that this is a thing to do, but they're like, okay, we're going to leverage him to do that. Look, it's all a game of attention.

16:13And I believe that one of the X factors, I tweeted about this. I was like, okay, what are the X factors? The cost of intelligence is coming down. That means software is going to be easy to create. Well, one is going to be distribution. The second one is what kind of data advantage do you have? So that's all I wanted to say. but again, Neil and I are not saying we support one or the other. This is not a political podcast and now let's go to your AdAge article. Yeah, so speaking of economies recovering, especially in the marketing industry, AdAge is reporting that CMO hiring is on the rise. Everyone's talking about AI and how this can disrupt marketing but companies at the end of the day still need CMOs and they're starting to hire more and more of them at a rapid pace and I think that's a good sign that things are starting to recover.

16:55If you also look at the earnings from a lot of the social networks out there that are publicly traded, ignore like the metas, ignore Google doesn't really have social, or they have ad revenue, but not. Google has, yeah, they have the social as well. But Google has a lot of other divisions. So does meta. But if you look at Snap, Pinterest, a lot of those, they mainly generate their revenue from advertising by far, right? And when you look at Pinterest's revenue specifically, You know, you look at their last earnings in September 2024, it was up 17%. But if you go to like December of 2023, it's 11%.

17:32So starting to grow again. Snap was another good one. I know they have the spectacles and stuff, but if you walk around the streets, no one really wears the spectacles, not trying to talk trash. The Ray-Bans, people are wearing them. The Snaps Ray-Bans? No, the meta ones. They're not mainstream yet, but I think they're going to become mainstream. Yeah, but you go to like Snaps December 2023 revenue growth. it was 4.74%, then March 20%, then 15 % in June, then 15.48 % in September. It seems like they're starting to grow all over again. And I do hope 2025 is going to be a more of a, I don't think it's gonna be a blockbuster year for marketing, but it's going to be a more of a normal year.

18:15Do you think your guys' sales cycles have been the same since the last six months or so picked up velocity-wise? No, sales cycles have not changed roughly in the last six months. Same for us. But lead flow is good, but sales cycles still. Sales cycles still slow. I think this is good. I think my bet still, okay, CMO higher. I think companies are always going to need CMOs, at least for the next couple years or so. I think still the rate of cutting CMOs is still going to be high. Usually, what's the average tenure of a CMO? Like 1.8 years or something like that? It's around two years. It's not very long.

18:49And so, okay, well, how do you protect yourself if you want to become a CMO? If that's your aspirations. You have to keep, like we mentioned earlier, you have to keep adapting. You have to keep trying new things. You can't, if you're going to, you have to look at all the channels, right? Search everywhere optimization. And if you can approach it with that mindset and figure out how you can leverage AI to actually help you and not just do the same thing that everyone else is doing, I think you'll be okay because you're proving to your executive team that you're ahead of the curve. And usually what happens is if you don't come with the good ideas anymore, you get canned pretty quickly.

19:20So anyway, guys, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, view, subscribe, and go to marketingschool.io slash agency if you want to join 50 plus other agency owners to grow your agency faster.