Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has taken a jab at Apple following a ruling in the US that would force the company to open up its App Store to more competition.
“Tim [Cook]‘s had a bad week. I’m not going to pile on. But Sundar [Pichai] is cool. I like Sundar,” he said of the Google boss.
A US judge last week said Apple had failed to comply with a 2021 order that would allow developers to point consumers to payment options outside the App Store. Apple said it would appeal the ruling.
Speaking at Stripe Sessions, the three-day conference for Irish-founded fintech Stripe which is being held in San Francisco this week, Mr Zuckerberg said it was complicated for Meta as the company delivered services through its competitors, Apple and Google, which has put some limits on what it can do.
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“At some point we ran this calculation; if we were able to do all the things that we thought were good, between the additional engagement and usage of our apps and the random taxes and stuff, I think we might be twice as profitable as a company as we are now,” he said.
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“So we really should try to play a role in shaping the next computing platform. My view is that we have to be better and earlier, and maybe that will mean that we need to invest a little bit, or a lot, in advance of when the market is ready for prime time.”
Meta has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality devices, through its purchase of Oculus and partnership with Ray-Ban on wearable technology.
In a 45-minute discussion with Stripe cofounder John Collison, Mr Zuckerberg talked about everything from AI’s potential to the failure of Facebook’s digital currency Libra, a blockchain based stablecoin that was first confirmed in 2019. The project generated backlash from regulators, and was eventually shelved in 2022.
“That thing’s dead,” Mr Zuckerberg said. “But the good news is you have reincarnated the idea with Bridge into something that is going to do much better because now there’s actually a company that is fully focused on this that’s going to absolutely nail the opportunity globally.”
The Meta chief executive acknowledged the company had sometimes been late on trends and “had to claw our way back into the game, which I think we are pretty good at”, mentioning Reels competitor TikTok.
“There are something we‘re ahead on, there are some things we are behind on. I think that’s the nature of the world,” he said. “If you are behind on everything, that probably doesn’t work.”
AI would transform almost every category, product and every part of the economy he said, but the question is to what extent the technology is currently in a bubble.
“Even if it is a bubble and it takes a bit longer to build out. That’s not necessarily the end of the world, although it will be expensive,” he said.
He acknowledged that it may take five to 10 years to get built into every enterprise workflow, but there was potential for things to happen sooner.
“The more that we work on this, it actually seems like all the things that we think are going to happen, happen sooner,” he said. “Being even more ambitious has been more predictive over the last few years about where things are likely going to be in the industry.”
