november25–december8, 2019 | new york 45tion. I’ve seen an enormous amount of con-
struction. But the funny thing is, the culture
of the place hasn’t gotten any fancier. Every-
thing feels pretty constant but with an enor-
mousinflux ofpeople, so
everything’spacked.It feels
like,inNewYork,thereare
thousandsofrestaurantsofa
certainlevelthat arehardto
ge t into.ButinSanFrancisco,
you’vegotfour. There’sa line
downtheblock.Therehasn’t
beena requisiteincreaseinthesupplyof
theseinterestingthingstogo do,butthere’s
beenthisenormousincreaseindemand.
Propertiesareprobablytheonethingthat’s
changedthemost. Whenweboughtour
house,it wasworthX,andnowit’s 2X.
There’s nothingfundamentalaboutmy
homethat’s changedthat shouldmake it
worth2X.
ButitgetsbacktothatideaofInsta-
grambeingworthabillionatsaleand
$100billionnow, numbersthatdon’t
makeanysense, kindof.
Thosenumbersmake sense.
Well,theymake senseintermsofreve-
nue,butpeoplecan’t wraptheirminds
aroundquitehowmuchmoneyhasbeen
pouredintothisindustry,andthat’s why
there’sthisanti-tech,populistsentiment
that’sbubblingup.
Socialist.
Yes.Inequalityhascreatedthisnew
phenomenonofpopularsocialism in
America.You’re obviouslyverypro-
business.You’repro-growth.You’repro–
“makeasmuchmoney, getasmanyeye-
ballsaspossible.”Doyouthinkthathas
contributedtothatpopulistsentiment?
Sure.Someofthesmartest peopleI
knowbothbelieveincapitalism,whichI do,
andalsobelievethat capitalismis brokenin
a bunchofdifferentwaysthat leavespecific
groupsbehind.ButdoesthatmeanI think
weshouldn’t havea placeintheU.S.where
peoplewithnoresourcesshouldbeableto
takechances?I mighthave
hada fewthousanddollars
inmybankaccountat the
timeInstagramsold.No
one’s crying forme.You
shouldbeabletotakea
chance andbuildsome-
thingofvaluefortheworld
thatshouldbeabletogrow
andbewortha lotanduse
thattogivebacksocially. I don’t just mean
philanthropy.I mean,like, nowwehavethis
platform.Howcanwehelppeopleat scale?
Wetri rceforgood.
So,yes u lookat the
numb ty—
It’s extremeinequality,theBezosesofthe world, as you mentioned. The extreme
inequality of the richest one percent, or
even .001 percent.
But also—I’m not making an argument
forBezos,buteveryoneloves
Amazon.
Well,noteveryoneloves
Amazon.
Sorry, I shouldn’t say
everyone.Alot ofpeople.
TheonlyreasonAmazonis
asbigasit is is becausepeo-
plebuyfromit.That’smy point.
Oh,I know.But thenyouhear these sto-
riesaboutpeopledyingattheAmazon
fulfillmentcentersshippingpackages
whileotherpeopleareforcedtocontinue
toworkaroundthem—literallyhavinga
heartattackonthefloor,packingboxesor
whatnot.There couldbea
realbacklash.
ThetrendI seeisthat
peoplewillhave a social
agendathey’lltalkabout
overdinnerorcoffee,but
theystillusethecompany.
I’mnotsayingthere’s this
gianthypocrisyrightnow;I
don’t haveproofforthat. I’m
justsayingI’veseenit.If you
disagreewitha company’s
valuesorhowthey act, don’t
usethem.Butmygoalwhen
wewerebuildingInstagram
was“Ihopepeoplethink
thatwhat we’redoing is
good.” I know there are
somesideef fects,andwe’reworkingour
bestat keepingthosesideeffectsfrompro-
liferating.Thebest companiesarenotthe
companieswithnosideef fects.They’rethe
companywiththeleast sideeffects.Youdo
yourbesttomitigateit.
You’reabouttohavea son.Whatdo
you hopeforhimandyourdaughterfor
thisnextdecade?
No.1, I hopetheworlddoessomething
serious about climate
change.Socially, I hopethe
divisionthatwehaveandthe
partisanship—not even
politically,butjust insoci-
ety—thatwefigureouta way
tocometogether.Because
eitherwesolvethem,orthey
solvethemselvesinpretty
uglyways,becausethesys-
temhasa wayofworkingitselfout.
What’sanuglyway?Awar?
If youlookatthehistoryofpopulism,it
usu greatwealthdisparity
and ingslike thefreedom
oft. Oftenwarshappen
withothercountries,sometimescivilwars,violent class war. I’m not predicting any of
these things; I’m just saying that history
shows it’s not good for humans when you’re
in this state.
Whatdoyouthink the role of social
mediawillbeinsolving those problems?
Rightnow,it seems that we live in our
ownlittlebubbles on social media and we
followtheaccounts we believe in. You’re not
exposedtootheropinions. That, to me, is a
problemthat’s well within the reaches of
thefolksrunning these companies.
Soisitpossible for a technology com-
panytoactuallyfix that problem?
It is possible,yeah, but I guess my point
is thesepolicydecisions on things like polit-
icaladvertisingor fake news are incredibly
importantforsociety. The outcome of
thosedecisionswill chart the nextchapter
of this polarization. You
asked about ten years in the
future: I hope the leaders of
these companies and the
folks that regulate them
on the outside come to
a productive conclusion
that helps that problem. I
decided when we’d been
doing Instagram for many
years, [and] we’dwon on
a bunch of different rela-
tive measures of winning,
What do we wantto have
our legacy be here?And we
worked a lot on kindness—
like, a lot. That was really
important to me, to feel like
weleft a company that was actively trying
tomaketheinternet a better place.
Wouldyousay Zuckerberg made the
rightcallinsaying he won’t fact-check or
monitorpolitical ads?
I’mnotgoing to give you my view on
whetherhemade the right call, because he
haswaymoreinformation about the prob-
lemhe’s facing.What I believe is that it’s very
difficulttorunthese platforms, because you
havelotsof stakeholders and you’re trying to
getit right.These companies bothwant to
beneutral,andthey want to be responsible.
Sometimesbeing neutral comes at the
expenseoftheother, and that’s a hard ten-
sionandit’ s notclear to me that there is a
specificrightanswer there.
Whatdoyou think the media gets
wrongaboutZuckerberg?
I reallydobelieve he believes he’s doing
therightthingat all moments.I don’t
agreewithhimon everything. Nor does
everyone,clearly. But I believe, in his
heartofhearts,he does believe that what
he’sdoingisthe right thing for society. I
thinksomepeople sometimes paint ill
PHOTOGRAPHS: intent.I don’t think that’s true. ■
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OTEST)
10 On June 2, 2019, Spencer
Tunick took this shot of nude
models holding nipple cutouts in
front of Manhattan’s Facebook
office to protest the ban on
showing female nipples,
which he believes hurts artists.‘Friends’-cast selfie; Sketch London claims the title of the most-Instagrammed bathroom in the world—nearly 1,500 photos per month are posted from the restaurant’s lavatory.8 Instagram launched
its version of Snapchat’s
Stories. As Systrom
admitted at the
time, “They deserve
all the credit.”9 Systrom and Krieger
abruptly left Facebook in 2018
to “explore [their] curiosity
and creativity again.” It was
later reported that they left
owing to tensions with
Facebook over privacy and
Zuckerberg’s desire for control.