Posting from a throwaway account to avoid any backlash. I know early, early Facebook employees, like from when the company was just a handful of people. A lot

Posting from a throwaway account to avoid any backlash. I know early, early Facebook employees, like from when the company was just a handful of people. A lot of these people are incredible impressive, capable, creative, risk-tolerant, etc... it's actually intimidating and I don't want to make it sound like I'm at their level at all. Also, we don't keep up anymore - and they haven't worked there in ages - but I back then, I knew them well enough to have insight into the "ethos" of Facebook. What I don't think the people see is how much making something "cool" is literally the essence of Facebook's DNA. Maybe not in the managers, directors, the employees, etc... but at the top, with Zuck, it is 100% the case. Unfortunately, Facebook has become incredibly uncool, as Zuck has tried to impress the grownups, while being way too confident in his ability to continue replicating early Facebook's coolness. For example, I kind of think Zuck was really jealous of Instagram, and this really poisoned their partnership. The same goes for WhatsApp. He doesn't like platforms with different ethos' to outshine his mid-2000's baby. A consequence of this, and this is purely speculative by the way, is that there is a certain willingness to destroy these platforms in the pursuit of user engagement. Like, what doesn't exist in this ethos is thoughtfulness towards what makes each platform special. All that matters is that room full of his friends, and the shared excitement of building one of the first of a new generation of billion dollar companies. It seems that this ethos is basically of accepting others - and obviously Instagram and WhatsApp are super different in terms of their design. So just bear this in mind. Every time you see news about Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, it should always be understood through this lens. That "building cool stuff" (that's vague, I know but it's really the most concise way to articulate it), I.e. Facebook's absolute core, is gone, it will never come back, and you can expect proportionate reaction from its founder, who wields an outsized influence over the company, due to their corporate structure.