Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan podcast: What it’s like to run Facebook and some controversial truths

The big man behind Facebook, Instagram, Metaverse, and WhatsApp, Mark Zuckerberg, sat down on the controversial podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience. Two brilliant minds running huge platforms that circle around controversies and conspiracies talked together for almost three hours.

Meta CEO Zuckerberg spilled the beans on the top-rated Joe Rogan Podcast. It was so huge that Spotify bought it for a $100 million deal. Joe Rogan got to the center of controversy when he hosted a guest that the public and government officials deemed to be spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

On Thursday, Joe Rogan was a lightning rod once again. When Meta CEO Zuckerberg agreed as a guest on his podcast. The two engaged in a broad range of discussions. The podcast highlighted social media censorship, virtual reality, and the politics dividing America. Zuckerberg even opened up about how he hated the start of his day as Facebook CEO. The icing on top of the cake? He also took a swipe at Twitter.

For starters, sometime in the middle of their conversation about disinformation, the Meta CEO confirmed how the company spent $5 billion last year. A tremendous amount of budget that Meta needs to allot to fight disinformation and some “defensive” work for the company.

Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan the FBI came to Facebook about an incoming "Russian propaganda" dump before the release of the Hunter Biden laptop report.

He says the FBI's warning played a role in suppressing the accurately-reported story.

— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) August 26, 2022

He claimed, “I think we spend $5 billion a year on all of this community integrity work.” 

Moreover, the duo also talked about the innovations on Metaverse in the first half-hour of the Joe Rogan podcast. While Facebook is on its continuous battle against criticisms, its more corporatized version, the Metaverse, focuses on the VR world. Zuckerberg’s outlook on his Metaverse is dreamy. He also hinted how running this new venture is more accessible than dealing with Facebook’s dilemma of content moderation and political issues.

The world of VR

The Meta CEO also said that VR had a user rate that is “on par with Playstation or Xbox.” He also viewed a future where people sit at coffee shops with their headsets. He also said that one day, holograms would replace much physical stuff in the real world. 

He said, “We could deal hologram cards to each other, and we could play poker, and you could have a poker night where some of your friends are, and some of them could be holograms.”

Although Zuckerberg didn’t so much touch on the topic of Facebook’s transition to VR, he confessed how running Facebook together with all its dramas isn’t all that fun. With all the world-impacting decisions around content moderation, Facebook entails a huge responsibility. 

BREAKING: Zuckerberg says Facebook limited distribution of the Hunter laptop story based on a general request from the FBI pic.twitter.com/fNzxGuXoF0

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 25, 2022

Like any other normal human being, the Facebook CEO also expressed how lousy the start of his day could be. He told Joe Rogan, “It’s almost like every day you wake up, and you’re punched in the stomach.”

Zuckerberg also cited that alongside his company’s remarkable growth, handling it becomes more stressful in so many ways. Facebook started as a start-up in 2004, and it grew to become a tech giant worth $454 billion.

He said, “You wake up in the morning, look at my phone, get like a million messages. It’s usually not good. People reserve the good stuff to tell me in person.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s downtime

In response to his daily stress and after taking in all the information, he does something physical for an hour or two to cool down and reset. Although he said, running couldn’t do the job for him since it’s a struggle for him to avoid thinking while running. But instead, he tries to do workouts that require complete concentration.

Instead, he’d engage in physical and intellectual exercises that require focus to a point where he can’t focus on things other than physical activity. He told Joe Rogan how he loves jujitsu, and there’s something “primal” about it.

Zuckerberg added, “That’s important for me, in terms of what I do. To maintain my energy level and maintain my focus. After an hour or two of working out, I’m ready to solve whatever problem at work for the day. I’ve fully processed all the other news for the day that’s come in.”

The pair also talked about how there’s tons of digital information. In addition, being glued to social media also requires a balance of time. The Meta CEO also said that one of his major rivals contributes big time to his stress.

Seems like a good time to reup this given Zuckerberg's comments today on Rogan: https://t.co/VsOORGllfz

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 25, 2022

By this, he is referring to Twitter. He said, “I find it hard to spend much time on Twitter without getting too upset.” Compared to Instagram, which he said can emit positive energy by engaging the users with positive experiences. He added that it has something to do with the images being less evasive, “cutting,” and “critical” than just reading texts.

Facebook as an online platform

Furthermore, while Facebook has been a window to people’s emotions and an open communication line, it has become a spot of hate, slurs, and extremism. And Zuckerberg is the one responsible for it all. 

He said, “These are values questions, around what do you value more? Those are super tricky questions. Part of what I’ve struggled with is that I didn’t get into this to judge those things. I got into this to design technology that helps people connect.”

By which he explains where the Metaverse fits in. “You can probably tell when we spent the first hour talking about the metaverse and the future of building this technology roadmap to give people this real sense of presence. It’s like, that’s what I’m here to do.”

However, for the Meta CEO, the VR metaverse would soon encounter moderation issues, similar to Facebook. For instance, there have been incidents of sexual harassment on Meta’s platform. Zuckerberg’s company responded by implementing a “personal boundary” zone.

Political aspects

On the political side of things, the extremities of the political division in the US indeed occupy the social media space. However, it has leveled up to some lengths in that division. 

Joe Rogan asked Zuckerberg why the US is so divided. He answered, “I think there’s probably a media environment issue that predates the internet. If some of the news is so far left and some are so far right, there’s all this talk of filter bubbles on the internet. But even predating this, going back to the 70s or 80s. When Fox News and these other media organizations were established, that’s had a long-term effect, and people have studied that.”

There are studies on social media sites like Facebook about how it has become a medium of political juggernauts. The conclusion is that it profits from polarization. 

Zuckerberg said, “Many people want to point to social media as the primary cause of this. But when you look at how polarization has been rising in the US since before the internet, it is very unlikely that social media is the prime mover here.”

For the Meta CEO, if events would happen the way they are, he would still encounter as many issues just as how he is dealing with Facebook now.