Meta’s values, culture and mission: lessons from Zuckerberg’s tech giant

What started as a simple social network has evolved into a global tech giant.

Nowadays, Meta is at the forefront of digital communication, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The company also continues to dominate social media through platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, while also offering immersive experiences through its Oculus VR products and advanced AI search.

Meta’s meteoric rise was built on the core values of proactivity, risk-taking, transparency and above all, taking the long term view. But are these still the cornerstone of the company today?

In this article, we’ll explore the evolution of Meta and its mission, how its values shape its corporate ethos and the way these principles have influenced its company culture since its inception.

The story behind Meta and its mission

Meta’s mission has evolved significantly over time. From its early goal of connecting college students, the company has shifted to enhancing global connectivity and community creation – reflecting its ambition to adapt and address technological and societal changes.

Facebook’s beginnings and vast growth

Meta was originally founded as TheFacebook in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Huges – all of whom were students at Harvard University at the time. Its name was later changed to Facebook in 2005.

Access to the site was initially limited to Harvard students, but it was soon expanded to most universities in the United States and Canada before being made publicly available to everyone by September 2006.

By October 2007, Facebook had already hit 50 million users and over 100,000 companies had signed up by the end of the year, with Pages for Business being introduced to support enterprises in building their online presence. Facebook Marketplace also launched the same year, letting users buy, sell and trade items locally within their communities. Meanwhile, Facebook Application Developer was also released, where developers could create their own applications and games integrated with the platform.

By November 2010, Facebook was valued at $41 billion. It also became the 3rd largest web company in the US, behind Google and Amazon. Now known as Meta, its market cap is estimated at $1.265 trillion, making it the world’s seventh most valuable company.

Meta’s mission statement – then vs now

During its infancy, Facebook’s original mission statement was to be “an online directory that connects people through social networks at college”. When it became available publicly, this was changed to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”.

Zuckerberg changed the statement again in 2017 to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” suggesting connecting people was no longer enough. Instead, the company wanted a new focus on fostering genuine connections and networks in order to adapt to the increasing complexities of global interactions.

“We used to have a sense that if we could just do those things, then that would make a lot of the things in the world better by themselves,” he said at the time. “But now we realise that we need to do more too. It’s important to give people a voice, to get a diversity of opinions out there, but on top of that, you also need to do this work of building common ground so that way we can all move forward together.”

Facebook’s rebrand to Meta

In 2021, Facebook announced a major rebrand, which would include changing its name to Meta. Its rebranding was part of its plan to focus on the metaverse – a virtual space where people can interact in digital environments through technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and 3D spaces.

Zuckerberg later explained that the rebrand marked a shift from being primarily a social media company to becoming a “metaverse company” over time. Moreover, it was to help distinguish the parent company (Meta) from its core products, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

But while Meta had strong ambitions for this rebrand, it was also heavily criticised. Most notably, some argued that the rebrand was a PR move to distract from ongoing controversies, such as the Facebook files leaked by the company’s former product manager, Frances Haugen.

The files exposed Meta’s XCheck (cross-check) system that implemented different rules for celebrities, politicians and high-profile users when it came to governing which content they could post. Additionally, it was revealed that the company had conducted research into the impact of its Instagram platform on teenagers (particularly girls), but had not shared its findings when research suggested the platform was damaging to their mental health, which many argued was a case of not putting values into practice.

Haugen testified against Facebook before the US Congress and UK Parliament in 2022, alleging that the company “put astronomical profits before people” by allowing misinformation and content that amplified political divides to be spread. Her decision to share the files was reportedly driven by the alleged lack of safety control in markets like Africa and the Middle East, in which certain groups had been using Instagram to “promote human trafficking and domestic servitude”.

Controversies aside, an article on Inc.com described the rebrand as an “epic fail”. Citing Google’s parent company rebrand to Alphabet Inc. in 2015, the article added: “While the financial reports use the new company name, it’s just not sticking in real life. No matter what the company comes up with, the name Facebook will remain forever ensconced in the collective intelligence as the company that screwed up the internet.”

Meta values – and how it lives by them

Meta embeds its core values through innovation, openness and long term vision, for example investing heavily in future technologies like VR and AR to build the foundation for the metaverse. The company encourages employees to move quickly and experiment with new ideas, supporting a fail-fast mindset to learning.

Meta’s key values include:

• Move fast: Encouraging rapid iteration and experimentation, including launching new features and products quickly, even if they aren’t fully perfected, to gather feedback and continuously improve.
• Focus on long-term impact: Prioritising building products and infrastructure that will have a lasting effect, including its commitment to the metaverse, AI research and advanced communication technologies that reflect a vision for the future.
• Build awesome things: Producing products that aren’t only useful, but also engaging and capable of making a meaningful impact on people’s lives, as well as serving as an inspiration for users themselves.
• Live in the future: Investing in the future of digital spaces, preparing for an immersive world through tools like Oculus and its Reality Labs division, which explore VR, AR and AI technologies.
  
• Be direct and respect your colleagues: Team members should express what they believe is good for the organisation, while also being mindful and respectful of diverse opinions and perspectives.
• Meta, metamates, me: Reflects the company’s emphasis on teamwork, mission and personal accountability and highlights the order of priorities for employees: the company, their colleagues and then themselves.

Criticisms of Meta’s core values

Despite Meta’s strong core values, the company has been criticised on multiple occasions for failing to practice what it preaches. Some notable instances include:

Privacy scandals

Facebook’s commitment to transparency was questioned in 2018 when whistleblower Christopher Wylie revealed that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had collected 50 million Facebook profiles of US voters to build a software program that would predict and influence choices at the ballot box. The now-defunct company had used this information without consent to create a system to profile and target individual American users with personalised political advertisements.

At the time, Facebook stated that it had suspended Cambridge Analytica’s access to everything on the platform. It also refuted the claim that the incident was a data breach, arguing that there were no system hacks or any sensitive information stolen. It later announced new measures to better protect its users’ data. This included conducting audits of any apps with suspicious activity, removing access to data if an app hasn’t been used for three months and introducing a new tool to Facebook’s news feed with any used apps, allowing users to revoke permission for those apps to use their data.

However, in December 2022, Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged it had improperly shared people’s data with Cambridge Analytica. Haugen’s exposure also revealed that it was facing a lawsuit from its own stakeholders, which alleged that its payment of $5 billion to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to resolve the Cambridge Analytica data scandal was high so that it would protect Zuckerberg from personal liability.

Lack of moderation for hateful content

When it comes to “building awesome things”, harmful content isn’t likely on the radar.

Also included in Haugen’s long list of leaks were concerns over Facebook fuelling violence and instability. The platform became the focal point of hate content against the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar. In 2017, the Myanmar army (AKA the Tatmadaw) executed a series of “clearance operations” in the Rakhine state, which saw thousands of people killed, entire villages burned down and widespread sexual violence.

Despite its “Move Fast” mentality, Facebook struggled to identify offending posts in Myanmar, with reportedly only two people reviewing content speaking Burmese, despite having 18 million active users in the country. Moreover, as many Myanmar online communities didn’t use Unicode – an international encoding standard – there were serious mistranslations of Burmese content when using a translation tool.

In 2018, Facebook conducted its own independent human rights assessment, which concluded that it wasn’t doing enough to prevent the platform from being used to encourage real-life violence. As a result, hundreds of pages and accounts associated with the Tatmadaw were removed, font converters were developed to support Myanmar’s transition to Unicode and hate speech detection capabilities were rolled out to identify any harmful content.

Equally contentious, the Tigray War between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray’s People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) caused an outbreak of hate speech across Facebook. People faced death threats and physical violence after users named or posted photos of them on the platform. Two Ethiopian citizens filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2022 over the hateful content, alleging that it acted slowly to crises in Africa compared to everywhere else in the world. The situation put Meta’s “Move Fast” value under serious scrutiny, as well as its commitment to supporting diverse opinions without giving a platform to hate speech.

Metaverse scepticism

The metaverse is a prime focus for Meta’s core values, most notably its “focus on long term impact” and “live in the future” principles. But the metaverse hasn’t quite been met with the same enthusiasm.

Aside from being labelled as a “PR distraction”, Meta’s rebrand has also been criticised for being based on future capabilities and products that may not be established for a long time. It is argued that its focus on the metaverse is premature with much of the required technology still in its early stages. Many are sceptical of Meta’s ability to deliver on its promises, especially given the company’s previous record of privacy issues, data security and content moderation.

The metaverse has also been criticised for potential health risks, privacy concerns, social issues and ethical problems. The risks could damage rather than “make people’s lives more meaningful” with experts saying that some individuals could potentially lose the ability to differentiate between fact and virtual reality.

Manjeet Rege, a professor at the University of St. Thomas, commented: “Prolonged exposure to virtual environments can lead to addiction, mental health harm, mental fatigue, sleep disruption and more”. Rege further added that this could be particularly harmful for younger people or individuals who “could end up enjoying the metaverse so much that they cease to enjoy the real world”.

Ethical issues have also been raised. For example, the British police investigated an alleged sexual assault of an underaged girl in the metaverse. The victim was wearing a VR headset when her avatar was attacked by other players. But while the emotional and psychological impact was real, assigning accountability was complicated because avatars were used by both the victim and perpetrators and the incident didn’t take place in the physical world.

Concerns over user privacy and data storage have also been raised, particularly its extensive data tracking, the use of anonymity and digital asset ownership.

While users are granted privacy by opting for anonymity, this can also be risky for potentially aiding in malicious activity, such as fraud or hacking, making it easier for bad actors to engage in illegal or harmful behaviour without the fear of being easily identified or held accountable.

A look into Meta’s company culture

Meta’s organisational culture promotes innovation, collaboration and a growth mindset – encouraging employees to take risks and experiment with new ideas. Collaboration and teamwork are also highly valued, with open communication and sharing ideas being key to driving creativity.

In terms of employee satisfaction, the company has a 4 out of 5-star rating on Glassdoor and was awarded “Best Place to Work in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. On Comparably, the company holds a similar “A” rating for its culture and was awarded for having the best compensation and perks and benefits package in 2023.

The good – positive culture and career growth

While Meta’s original culture type followed a hierarchical structure, it was reported that it would undergo an organisational change to flatten its hierarchy, promoting more autonomy and collaboration across teams.

An employee at Meta, who previously worked at Google, compared the work culture of each tech giant in a blog post.

Daniel McKinnon, who works as a product manager at Meta, wrote that while both companies are similar at face value, Meta is a better fit for those who are looking for career growth.

“Meta and Google are both phenomenal technology companies where great PMs can thrive,” he wrote. “If you are looking for convexity and growth at the expense of stress and pressure, Meta is probably a better fit.”

McKinnon added that career progression felt quicker at Meta and that his colleague was just 36 when she became a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the company. However, acknowledging and rewarding good work was distributed to everyone, including grad-level engineers.

Meanwhile, a blog post by Alvin Wan listed Meta’s company culture as the main benefit of working there. For example, work-life balance is highly valued, and those who tried to contact employees outside of working hours would get a popup advising them against it. Additionally, through Meta’s hackathon events, employees could develop innovative projects outside of their regular work and responsibilities, such as Meta Portal, though this was later discontinued in 2022.

The bad – mass layoffs and confusion over rebrand

The company’s rebranding of core values and culture change in 2022 was met with confusion and mockery among employees. Part of the cultural reset included employees, who were once known as “Facebookers”, to be renamed as “Metamates” and its old values, such as “be bold” and “focus on impact” were also replaced with its current values.

But while many employees responded positively to this news, some private chat messages revealed more scepticism over these changes. The primary issue of the rebrand was that some employees felt confused about their daily responsibilities and the company’s overall strategy.

“It’s basically fermenting disorganisation and anxiety,” an employee commented. “People don’t really seem to know what to work on because there is still no coherent strategy.”

Meanwhile, an engineer wrote on a private chat: “How is this going to change the company? I don’t understand the messaging. We keep changing the name of everything, and it’s confusing.”

Meta’s plan to adopt a flat hierarchical structure – laying off around 10,000 jobs in March 2023 – was also met with scepticism. Dubbed the “Year of Efficiency”, dismissed employees slammed the company for how they were laid off.

“Just woke up to find out I had been laid off by Meta/Instagram from an email,” Carlos Giffoni, who worked as a product manager for Instagram, wrote on LinkedIn. “No warning, and was told recently by a lead the team I worked on was high priority and wouldn’t be affected. Company wide layoffs via email.”

Meanwhile, Eric Triebe, a former Meta software engineering manager, commented: “No meeting with HR. No goodbyes to coworkers. Seemingly no contact was made or discussion from leadership with my manager of skip in terms of justification.”

The ugly – lack of care for Meta moderators

In January 2024, a court ruling in Spain recognised that a content moderator’s mental health issues were caused by their job at Meta, leading to the same recognition for other employees who had experienced similar problems.

The employee claimed that part of his job was watching videos of harmful content, including suicide, murders, dismemberment and rape. When asking for help after suffering from a panic attack, he was simply told to go to the “fun floor” – a large game room for employees to unwind and take breaks. On another occasion, his manager allowed him to see a company psychologist, who merely told him that his work was important to society, described content moderators as heroes and suggested that he should be stronger.

The employee left the company in 2020, and it was ruled in the court hearing that a worker’s sick leave due to mental health should be classified as an accident at work – a landmark decision. Law firm Espacio Juridico reported it had 25 other workers waiting for their issues to be recognised as an occupational accident. It also filed a complaint against TELUS International – a company that provides content moderation services for Meta – for alleged lack of safety measures.

Conclusion

Meta’s transformation from a college social network to a dominant force in digital communication and immersive technology reflects both its ambitious vision and its commitment to innovation

However, it hasn’t been without its challenges. The company’s rebranding, while intended to be a bold new direction, has faced a lot of criticism and scepticism, including concerns about privacy, security and the readiness of its futuristic goals.

Meta’s core values, which emphasise proactive action, risk-taking, long term vision and transparency, are essential to its corporate ethos and culture. Yet, as with any organisation of its scale, there are gaps between these ideals and real-world practices. Most notably, the criticisms and controversies, such as privacy scandals and issues with content moderation, highlight the continuous struggle to align its actions with its declared values.