Facebook has lost cultural relevance in recent years, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg had one wild idea to encourage new user engagement – force everyone to rebuild their friendship groups.
Emails from 2022 reveal that Mark, who founded the company at Harvard University, sent an email to senior executives with a series of ideas to revitalize the floundering company.
© Getty ImagesMark’s crazy idea
“Option 1. Double down on Friending,” he wrote. “One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again.”
The proposal was never implemented but was met with widespread concern from the other executives, who were worried how it would affect the platform’s functionality and specifically the connection with Instagram.
Facebook’s response
Tom Alison, the head of Facebook at the time, responded: “I’m not sure Option #1 in your proposal (Double-down on Friending) would be viable given my understanding of how vital the friend use case is to IG.”
© Getty Images for Burda MediaFacebook, now known as Meta, was founded in 2004 and in the more than 20 years since has lost much of its importance as other apps such as Instagram – now owned by Meta – and TikTok were created.
Mark and Meta are on trial as the Federal Trust Commission seeks to prove that Meta holds a monopoly power on the digital marketplace.
Meta also owns WhatsApp.
FTC antitrust case
The landmark antitrust trials began on Monday April 4 and saw Mark take to the stand.
The FTC’s case alleges that Meta bought rival platforms to intentionally squash competition. The case centers around a 2008 email that Mark sent internally to executives which read: “It is better to buy than compete.”
© Getty ImagesZuckerberg’s billions
Mark is thought to be worth over $200 billion after he founded Facebook and turned into a multibillion dollar company.
During his time in college he also met his wife Priscilla Chan, when they were both waiting in line for the bathroom at a party.
The song “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz was playing at the time, and in 2023 Mark connected with T-Pain to record his own acoustic version of the “lyrical masterpiece” for their anniversary.
They have welcomed three daughters, Maxima, August, and Aurelia, and Mark is a bona fide girl dad, often sharing his favorite family moments on social media, including when he took his girls to see Taylor Swift in concert.
