The way I read it, the author was explaining his expectation that Facebook would beat Google to implementing that model. This then emphasizes his misunderstandi

The way I read it, the author was explaining his expectation that Facebook would beat Google to implementing that model. This then emphasizes his misunderstanding of the point of that quote about building it before others. Even when agile about specific features, the inertia of Facebook's existing core product can be hard to overcome; entirely unsurprising given their huge userbase. Google was effectively starting from scratch. Google has a lot of work to do, but with a mostly blank slate and less inertia to overcome. It's also remarkable how they have used this as an opportunity for improvements across the board, a the very least visually.