In an interview given to Lenny’s Podcastthe company’s 29th employee, now product director, lifts the veil on two decades spent alongside Meta’s CEO. From her learning methods to her managerial philosophy, she sketches the portrait of a visionary leader who is demanding of himself and his teams.
Zuckerberg’s four commandments
Gleit first highlights the cognitive abilities of the businessman: “ I always say that Mark is a born learner, not a know-it-all. He is the fastest person to learn skills of anyone I have met “.
About ten years ago, in a classroom in East Palo Alto, Zuckerberg wrote down the fundamental principles of his success on the blackboard. These four maxims still resonate in Gleit’s mind today: “ Love yourself “, ” Serve others » , « Focus on what you can control ” And ” For these things, never give up “.
This last rule, she emphasizes, rreflects the personality of the founder of Meta particularly wellknown for his unwavering determination. “ For my part, the third principle is the one that speaks to me the most: “focus on what you can control”. Probably because I tend to want to control everything, even what escapes me” she explains. Zuckerberg’s commitment to personal learning bears witness to this: he took on the challenge of learning Mandarin in just one year. Principles therefore arising from a mixture between stoicism and a form of ethics centered around benevolence.
Feedback, the cornerstone of a corporate culture
“SOften, when you’re successful or have a lot of money, you lose access to honest feedback, because people are reluctant to be completely honest. But Mark has always sought to maintain this openness” confides Gleit. Meta’s corporate culture would be based precisely on this culture of unfiltered feedback.
This direct approach, institutionalized through demanding performance evaluationsshaped the DNA of the company, sometimes cruelly. The year 2023, called “ year of effectiveness ”, was the perfect illustration of this, with a major restructuring and thousands of departures the previous year. A groundswell that continues to hit the company, since Meta is still cutting into fat since this month.
It is here that we see that the word kindness can be interpreted in different ways and that between rhetoric and reality there is often a gap; especially in the business sphere. Zuckerberg’s personal values may find themselves in dissonance with strategic decisions made at the corporate level. Economic imperatives generally trump ethical considerationsan undeniable reality in times of economic difficulty.
Last month, the CEO said: “ Being awkward and receiving negative feedback about how I presented myself made me more cautious and strategic. I’ll never change my personality, but I’m getting a little more comfortable with age “. These words, although attractive on paper, do not seem to have found an echo in the real practices of the group, where efficiency takes precedence over listening. Should we really be surprised?
Zuckerberg, despite his declarations about an alleged openness to criticism, demonstrated that its vision of feedback remains above all a tool for control and operational efficiency. We are therefore far from the humanist values displayed in his youthful principles. However, he is far from being the only one and the Zuckerberg case is indicative of a more general trend: that of the instrumentalization of valuesa very widespread phenomenon in the business world.
- Mark Zuckerberg is described as a determined leader, with stoic-inspired principles and an intense approach to learning.
- Meta cultivates an environment of direct feedback, sometimes at the expense of kindness, with strong pressure for efficiency.
- Zuckerberg’s personal values today seem out of step with Meta’s strategic choices.
