Making Meta

Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, Meta's CTO and one of Facebook's earliest engineers, discusses his path from early Facebook engineering through building News Feed, ads, and now Reality Labs. The conversation covers leadership and communication lessons, Meta's internal culture, career advice, and reflections on Meta's recent stock downturn and turnaround.

01Key learnings

• Ask your manager for help earlier; your job is to get the work done well, and managers hold tools and context you may be missing.
• Frame updates for busy leaders with 'no response required' messages, and say exactly where you are blocked and what specific help you need.
• Communication is the job: your impact comes only through artifacts or words that move other people, and when things fail, examine how you communicated.
• Give your leaders clear guardrails on where you have freedom versus where they expect to stay closely involved, so people know where to put their energy.
• Stay in the most important work or carry critical dams well, and jump to new domains every so often, since varied experience compounds into valuable skills.
• Notice when your identity is under threat, and respond with curiosity ('fascinating, tell me more') rather than defensiveness, to keep relationships and learning intact.
• When company stock or press turns negative, remember you know more than outside critics, but still read criticism carefully for valid points and avoid confirmation bias.
• Founders should recognize the sacrifices of early startup work, and not romanticize it, since many equally hard-working people do not succeed.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.