Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared Apple as his company’s “primary competitor” for the next 10 to 15 years. During a recent live appearance on the “Acquired” podcast, Zuckerberg talked about the differences in company cultures and approaches to product development.
Zuckerberg described Meta and Apple as “like the opposite” of each other, mainly in their product release strategies: Meta’s approach is in favor of rapid shipping and iteration, sometimes releasing products that are “almost at the line of being embarrassed”.
But according to him, Apple’s approach takes more time to polish products before release.
The Meta CEO emphasized the value of getting feedback quickly, stating,
“If you want to wait until you get praised all the time, you’re missing a bunch of the time when you could’ve learned a bunch of useful stuff”.
The rivalry goes beyond products to core values and visions for the tech industry’s future.
He said that Meta is into open platforms and interoperability while Apple maintains its “walled garden” ecosystem
Zuckerberg expressed his goal “to build the next generation of open platforms and have the open platforms win” over the next decade or so.
The competition between Meta and Apple is intensifying across several fronts:
- AR/VR: Meta’s Quest headsets vs. Apple’s Vision Pro
- AI: Meta’s large language models vs. Apple’s upcoming generative AI products
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has previously downplayed Meta as a competitor, but Zuckerberg sees the rivalry differently. He acknowledges that “there are advantages of doing a closed and integrated model” but believes the competition is “very deeply values-driven and ideological” about the future of the tech industry.
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