Meta's Dina Powell McCormick: The Case for Data Centers, Backlash, AI Job Boom & Meta's Future

(0:00) Dina Powell McCormick joins The Besties! (1:52) Impact of Meta's data center in Richland Parish, LA: $50K teacher checks, revitalizing a small town community (11:52) How Meta is alleviating data center concerns: pollution, electricity, water, noise, aesthetics; Misinformation campaigns (19:57) America's Workforce Academy, the job growth in re-industrializing America (26:58) Meta's recent social media settlement, new rules for teens (35:25) Meta glasses and Zuck's AI strategy Thanks to our partners for making this possible! IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference. https://iren.com/ Oracle connects the data, applications, and infrastructure that turn AI into business outcomes—with the flexibility, choice, and control to optimize as AI evolves. http://oracle.com/ai EY helps tech innovators scale from startup to exit to megacap. You build the future. We'll handle the rest. http://www.ey.com Meta believes the future is for everyone. We're focused on giving every person the tools to reach their full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to all. http://www.meta.com Keel Infrastructure owns the power, land, and connectivity that HPC and AI run on - backed by secured energy assets and established grid interconnections across North America. https://keelinfra.com/ Airwallex - Agentic Global Business Accounts. Open local accounts in 70+ countries to accept payments, earn yield, pay globally, and manage spend. http://airwallex.com PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com Google for Startups connects founders with the right people, products, and best practices to help startups build faster and go further. https://startup.google.com/ Explore ideas, industries, and technologies worth understanding with Chamath every week on Learn with Me: https://research.socialcapital.com/allin Follow Dina: https://x.com/DinaPowellMcC Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@allin Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  A trailblazing leader in government, business, and philanthropy.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  A former presidential adviser to Donald Trump, Dina Powell McCormick, joined Meta Platforms as president and vice chairwoman.

• 0:11Speaker 02

  She'll help lead the company's massive AI expansion, including data centers, investments, and global partnerships.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Powell McCormick's background is exactly where Meta's new bottlenecks are. There is a transformation in humanity coming. Nothing can stop that now with this technology. 3.5 billion people every day are on Meta. I think we all know that the next three years could be the whole game. Women are the secret sauce. How about that?

• 0:39Speaker 03

  Please welcome Dina Powell McCormick.

• 0:56Jason Calacanis?

  See you. Thanks for coming out.

• 1:07David Friedberg

  Dina, thank you for being here.

• 1:10David Friedberg

  You know, we were just finishing up a conversation with Satya about how do we tell the story about the benefit of data centers and what they're doing to communities and why they're actually net economically positive. And I know you, so I'm going to get right into it because I know you actually have a video on this. Do you want to just start with your video? Would that be okay?

• 1:32Speaker 00

  That'd be great. I mean, I just want to say so psyched to be at the All In Summit. First time to speak. And as long as this episode and panel gets way more listeners and views than Senator McCormick's did when he came on, I'll be very, very happy with that. So now we can, now we can roll the tape. No competition.

• 1:49David Friedberg

  Good. We'll put it on Polymarket. Let's watch the video.

• 1:57Speaker 06

  Richland Parish was the place that opportunity forgot about.

• 2:05Speaker 07

  I've grown up here my whole life.

• 2:08Speaker 07

  And I've seen a lot of people move away looking for work, including my son.

• 2:15Speaker 08

  What you were hearing a lot lately was there's nothing here for us anymore.

• 2:35Speaker 08

  We knew that having a data center would give us an industry here that we haven't had before. That's a huge investment in our community.

• 2:45Speaker 07

  We started this business simply because Meta was coming.

• 2:52Speaker 09

  We thought we'd hit it big when we got to cater for 40 people. Now we do 400 a week.

• 2:59Speaker 10

  Since Meta came to town, we've hired more employees.

• 3:03Speaker 08

  A multi-billion dollar capital investment like the one that Meta is making in Richland Parish is, it was transformative. It's extremely exciting to attract and retain quality teachers.

• 3:19Speaker 11

  So when I first got the news about the bonus, it was jaw dropping. My mouth was literally wide open. We're not in it for the money. We're teachers because it's in our heart. But the bonus has been extremely helpful.

• 3:33Speaker 08

  With the investment that Meta has made in our community, now we can do a better job of taking care of our own.

• 3:40Speaker 12

  I do feel a lot of hope for the future of my students. It gives them the opportunity that they never thought that they would have.

• 3:47Speaker 07

  And I would say one of the biggest things is people coming back home.

• 3:54Speaker 10

  You know, the future is happening here and happening now.

• 4:10David Friedberg

  You have some folks from the video here?

• 4:12Speaker 00

  I do. Can they come on out? Come on out. Sheldon and Susan, we have the superintendent from that video, the superintendent in Richland Parish.

• 4:28David Friedberg

  Thanks for joining us. Pleasure. Hi, sir. Thanks for joining us. Hi Sheldon. How are you? Come on down.

• 4:37David Friedberg

  Good to meet you. How are you? Thank you for being here.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Thanks for having us.

• 4:42David Friedberg

  You want to do an introduction?

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Sure. What an honor. It's an honor for me to be here with Sheldon and Susan. We've spent a lot of time in Louisiana. It's our largest data center investment for Meta. And I've been with them in Louisiana. And what is remarkable to me is just the leadership that frankly, the governor has shown. Susan is the Commerce Secretary for Louisiana, the Economic Development Secretary. And Sheldon, who I'm going to let him speak for himself, but he is such an inspirational figure there. And he is the one that realized that because of our investment, the tax surplus would go straight to teachers. And maybe you could talk just a little bit about that.

• 5:24Speaker 08

  Yeah, so it's great to be here. I just think back to my first interaction with Meta.

• 5:31Speaker 08

  It was in the summer of 2024. And it was at our local community college. And I just remember after the meeting, getting in my car. And it's hot in Louisiana, so I turned the air on. And I just sat there and I said, the game has changed. This is going to give our parish an opportunity to do something that it's never been able to do. So when the groundbreaking ceremony happened in December of 2024, I could immediately start to see the increase in our sales tax collections. There are six taxing entities in our parish. The Richland Parish School Board collects 51% of the taxes for the district.

• 6:16Speaker 08

  So I was able to see the sales tax collections go from 5%, 10%, which is normal for a school system, to about 60 or 70%. And at that time, the number of workers at the data center site increased. Those collections peaked at about 260%. That's an increase in sales tax collections.

• 6:42Speaker 08

  And so we have a one cent and a one half cent sales tax that's dedicated to employee salaries. And so we're announcing these sales tax increases at our school board meetings. And we're educators, so people can do the math.

• 6:58Speaker 08

  They start to figure out this is going to translate into a larger sales tax check, which directly goes into our salaries. So in December of 2025, we gave out a one half cent sales tax check. That check doubled from the previous year. So it went from roughly about $4,000 to about $8,000. But we hadn't seen a full year of spiked increases in sales tax collections. That happened this past June. So our certified employees received an increase of about $40,000 in their sales tax check.

• 7:41David Friedberg

  They got a $40,000 check?

• 7:43Speaker 08

  They got a $50,000 check.

• 7:45David Friedberg

  Wow.

• 7:51Speaker 08

  So the check the previous year was $10,000. So if you take that December increase and the June increase, it was a net of about $45,000 for our teachers.

• 8:04David Friedberg

  Did they all, because the reason, Dina and I were talking about this panel, and everyone hates data centers. They poll negative 80 in the United States. And Dina was telling me the story and I was like, we should tell this story because it is unbelievable. Did the teachers and the community have this negative sentiment about data centers before? Were they all, we hate data centers, we don't want them here? Or was that before this wave happened and the community didn't really kind of pay much attention to it?

• 8:33Speaker 08

  I think initially there was the unknown. And we are, we are the beginning. We're a starting point. There was no reference for us to access. We couldn't say, okay, well, when the last time, when was the last time we had a $50 billion capital investment in our schools? So how did we handle that? So, yeah, we're, you know, a few million dollars, that's, that's huge for us. So there was.

• 9:01Speaker 08

  Anxious thoughts. I think Meta has done an excellent job of informing us and educating us, and that's going to have to continue to happen. Oftentimes, this communication is not about the most informed person in the community, it's about the least informed person in the community. So, we're working to make sure that we continue to get that positive message out about the good things that are happening, because there are a lot of good things that are happening in our parish.

• 9:29Speaker 13

  Yeah, I think to the superintendent's point, Louisiana was a little bit late to the data center game, which has actually worked remarkably well to our benefit in that the Meta investment was the first one in the state. And because of the partnership, the way we negotiated the deal, I call it a partnership, not a negotiation frankly, all along, the community, when we first brought the idea even prior to you knowing superintendent, the community wasn't apprehensive because there was a great deal of unknown. Now, keep in mind, this was now about 20 months ago, is when we started the conversation there. So, the chatter wasn't as much as it is now. But you're talking about a community that

• 10:12Speaker 13

  was really starved for opportunity. As you saw in the video, you know, we had lost population. The average wages in Richland Parish were roughly $36,000, $38,000 a year prior to this investment. So, the data center went to a place in Louisiana, you know, Mississippi Delta Parish, that was Mississippi River Delta, obviously. It was longing for this opportunity. And we got ahead of that. And I think we got ahead of that very wisely in the way we addressed both the concerns, the impact on the community, the good impact on the community, and the natural resources, and all the things we're hearing, right?

• 10:53Jason Calacanis?

  In a weird way, then, all of this noise is actually somewhat beneficial in the sense that you may just want to go to Dina and say, "We'll just take all your data centers." If you can't, I mean, I mean, quite honestly.

• 11:03Speaker 13

  I think our governor would actually say that.

• 11:05Jason Calacanis?

  Such a discontinuous change in the earnings potential of normal, average Americans.

• 11:10Speaker 13

  Yeah, we, the governor just signed an executive order a few months ago, creating a framework for us under which we will engage with large load users, right? And the privilege that it gives us now is we get to be choosy, right? We have a sales tax exemption, which is critical to be able to land an investment of this size and this scale. But now, we get to really court who our partners are going to be, and the governor claims it all the time. That Meta really was the prototype for us, and it set a very high standard. And that's now the standard we're going to follow. We are not one of those states who is saying "no." We are one of those states that are saying "yes and."

• 11:46Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah. So, maybe you could help us with, it's pretty clear, the economic case for, you know, building and growing and creating jobs. Take us through the list of valid concerns communities have. One of them's pollution. I'm not sure if this is running off of gas or if it's all solar renewables. Increased electricity cost, water, closed loop versus non-closed loop, noise, pollution, and aesthetics. These buildings are awfully ugly, typically as created. Did any of those apply? Did you get any of that feedback from the community?

• 12:23Speaker 08

  Or journalists.

• 12:24Jason Calacanis?

  What's that?

• 12:25Speaker 08

  Or journalists.

• 12:26Jason Calacanis?

  No, no, actually, it's not journalism, actually. What it is, is it's facts, facts. These are the facts of, Dina, the people, hold on, I'll finish. These are the facts that community members have valid concerns about. There are people who have had data centers put next to them that are polluting, that are creating noise, and there are valid water concerns, and there are communities where their electricity went up. So, I'm asking a serious question based on facts. I'm wondering if any of those apply to you.

• 12:51Speaker 13

  Yeah, Dina, you said this was going to be easy. No, no, no. Yeah, clearly, you know, we're all people, right? We all hear, we all have the same concerns. Again, some of it was that we got very lucky with the timing of all this, because those issues were addressed before they became in the public forum of issues. You know, number one, this was farmland. This was agricultural land. And early on in the conversations with the Meta team, they made a decision to use a more expensive but more efficient system that actually uses less water than was being used on that land when it was being farmed, right? It's not a statistic you hear very often. The second piece about the energy, clearly, we're hearing it across the board. But there are two really critical components

• 13:36Speaker 13

  to this. Number one is that Louisiana has abundant natural gas. We have about 32,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in Louisiana today, if we don't add another mile. So, we have access to natural gas everywhere. But in the relationship that Meta created with Antergy, the energy provider there, from day one, before this was an executive order from the president or even the governor, Meta paid for its own generation. It paid for grid resilience. It paid for grid upgrades. It paid for storm costs. Louisiana has storm assessments when we have hurricanes. It happens every now and then. It's paying for storm costs in a state where they didn't operate, right, when these hurricanes hit. So, it's actually taking burdens off of the Louisiana consumer. So, all those issues

• 14:19Speaker 13

  were issues, and they were addressed with the original negotiated deal. And I will say, it's really why it's become the prototype for how we move forward with others.

• 14:29Jason Calacanis?

  So, Dina, this is a question for you. You used to be the deputy national security advisor, so answer this maybe with just a bit of that hat on. I mean, Jason brings up valid concerns, but then there's this data that is so clear for you, but also for others. I mean, you just heard from Satya. Why is this misinformation campaign winning so soundly in America? What has happened? Like, what is going on?

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Well, I think first, the questions that Jason raised are really legitimate questions. And I think we start with a premise that if a community doesn't want one of our data centers, they get to choose. They get to decide. But that we actually have to upfront and way more aggressively explain what our investment and partnership means. And we have a compact, a compact that Susan and Sheldon are describing. First, not just pay for your own electricity, make sure that you're working to drive electricity costs down. The second is the water issue. It's very real in farmlands and rural communities. But there's absolutely now new technology, in fact, AI-driven technology, that makes you able to actually increase water consumption. The third is the teachers. I'll be very honest,

• 15:33Speaker 00

  this was not our idea. This actually happened because this law allows, or in fact mandates, that every extra dollar of tax surplus goes directly to the teachers. And the superintendent was telling me things that just are so remarkable. He used to have a hard time recruiting teachers. Now, his phone is ringing off the hook throughout Louisiana, teachers wanting to come there. And this may end up being the best school district in the entire state. And now, we have taken that learning, and we're investing in teachers and first responders. And you saw, of course, the economic development impact for small businesses. That's our compact. Everywhere we go, Meta makes sure that we, makes sure that we do those things. But to answer your question, Chamath, I don't think that our industry has done a good job communicating,

• 16:18Speaker 00

  just flat out. We have to do a better job. But before you can communicate anything, you've actually got to be meaningful and have real impact. And so, we've started with the premise that we want to be the best actor and the best partner possible. And now, having frankly, the impact that we see in Louisiana, we're very proud of the impact we're having in Texas and Ohio, but I think we have to tell these stories more. And I know you're alluding to, where is this information coming from? You know, it was just with Chairman Cotton and Vice Chairman Mark Warner and the intelligence committees, you know, they do believe they have evidence that our adversaries are trying to gin this up. I can't comment on that, but what I can tell you is, if you wanted to stop America right now, what would you do? This is exactly what you would try to do. If you were any of our adversaries,

• 17:00Speaker 00

  you would want us to stop building data centers in the United States so that we could, you know, we would not be on a path to being AI dominant in the world. This is what you would do. So, whether they're doing it or not, this is definitely an approach you would take. And I actually said to them very respectfully, "These are great jobs, and the communities that want the jobs, want the teacher bonuses, want these investments, should be allowed to have them. And those that don't should opt out. But we certainly don't want our companies, my company and our peers, to start thinking about building data centers in the United States."

• 17:34Jason Calacanis?

  It's so easy to debunk these issues. The water one is the one that's just confounding, that, confounding that that narrative keeps staying alive. I think you did an amazing job. There's a clip on X of this woman with this bottle of dirty water that she trucks around, and you're just like, there's, there's no, there's not.

• 17:50David Friedberg

  You know what I love? I love that it's a federated republic that the founders designed, and some states are going to win, some states are going to be idiots, and they're going to lose. And, you know, you guys are going to have this incredible economic advantage.

• 18:01Speaker 13

  Yeah, I do want to add to Dina's point as well. Just as the teachers are calling Sheldon to consider going to his parish to teach, the minute that got announced, that y'all were giving $50,000 bonuses, I can't tell you how many leaders of rural parishes in Louisiana called me and said, "Secretary, do y'all have any who are considering our parish? Please bring one here." So, the global narrative is not happening in Louisiana. Frankly, I don't believe it's happening everywhere, the way the propaganda says.

• 18:30David Friedberg

  Are there teachers unions calling you from across the country, like other states, saying, "Is this real? How did this work?" And starting to kind of lean in and see if they can participate?

• 18:39Speaker 08

  So, historically, one of the challenges we've had as a rural school system is that our best and our brightest will, they'll do exceptionally well in school, they may even go to our local universities, but when they leave, I have a good idea in my head that they're not coming back to Richland Parish. Because we can't offer jobs that attract them. So, they leave, and they go to other states, and they go to other cities. And now, we're able to write our own narrative, that if you want to leave and go, you can, but you don't have to. We have opportunity here for you, here in Richland Parish. You

• 19:22Speaker 08

  have the ability to stay here, to raise your family. And I think it's changing the narrative in our parish.

• 19:28David Friedberg

  Well, Dina, I know you've got another video for us to watch, also on how do we get more workers to come and participate in this growing economy. While we watch that, why don't we thank Susan and Sheldon for joining us. Thank you both for being here.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 19:42Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you so much.

• 19:52Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Very much appreciate you coming out. Thank you so much.

• 19:59Speaker 06

  I've always wanted to do something big. I know that this is the program that I need to be in in order to discover that.

• 20:07Speaker 14

  In order for a lot of technology to advance, we need the infrastructure. Meta is blessing these guys with the opportunity to be a part of that, to help lay foundation for the future. You can come into the program with no prior experience. After you finish your four weeks here, be able to go into the workforce.

• 20:25Speaker 15

  I'm grateful for this opportunity. I'm excited to actually get to do the work.

• 20:30Speaker 14

  To have a group of students who are taking the opportunity serious and are doing it with passion, that means everything. Once they're able to finish our course, there's so many different paths that they can take.

• 20:44Speaker 06

  The more that we learn and establish this workforce, the more we can impact future generations.

• 20:50Speaker 15

  I feel like it will change the world. I'm ready to work.

• 21:00Jason Calacanis?

  You were telling me a story about like a posting for fiber optic technician. Can you just tell that story because I think it's incredible?

• 21:08Speaker 00

  So even in our site in Louisiana, one of the issues is that we just can't find enough workers. And you really need a set of obviously welders and pipe fitters and construction workers, electricians. But there's something that every data center site really needs fiber technicians, the people that just actually lay and cut the fiber. And we just could not find enough people. And so we just made a curriculum and we partnered with a few people, CBRE and others. And we realized that this program just didn't exist. So we decided if you can do it for fiber technicians, why not go beyond? It's a five-week fast-track training program where you get all of your safety training. You get designated something called job site ready so you can get the job.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  We at Meta guarantee you a job if you graduate on one of our data center sites. And you have that certification with you, whether you want to stay at our site or elsewhere. And the missing piece is that while there are, as David Sacks has said over and over again, there are 500,000 open jobs for these roles over the next couple of years. But there is this gap between people actually getting those jobs. And it's because it turns out if you're a waitress, or you're an Uber driver, or you are a home healthcare worker, you live paycheck to paycheck. You cannot afford to take that time off unpaid. The training is weirdly very expensive, OSHA training and things like that. And what if you do that and you don't get a job? So we launched America's Workforce Academy. We launched it, I don't know, four months ago.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Forty thousand Americans applied. We've graduated 250 people. And we have a 90% retention rate. So people that are getting into these contractor jobs on our data center sites, you can see they've learned a new trade, they've left behind a job that wasn't as fulfilling. And that of course, every company that's hiring them is just thrilled. It's also something that's interesting, David, that you and I talked about, which is we have partners across the board in this program. We called, we didn't put Meta in the name because we are so excited to be working with other companies that are interested in recruiting these workers as well. But we're working with the unions. Sean McGarvey, the head of the trades in AB2, is a friend and we made a great partnership with him.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Some of those workers are on union sites, some are non-union. But an interesting voice that has emerged in this debate is the unions. The union leadership now is saying, "We want to be anti the anti-data center backlash." "These are our jobs. These are for our people." And so they actually put out even before the midterms, a note saying they are only going to support candidates that support data centers.

• 23:47Jason Calacanis?

  How much balance?

• 23:52Jason Calacanis?

  How much balance sheet capital does it take to get this thing off the ground? And do you see the other majors, the big eight, kind of joining forces and having this new educational track kind of become a de facto standard in America?

• 24:05Speaker 00

  You know, all of us are working on this. In fact, I just talked to Ruth Porat at Google. She's done an incredible job on workforce. And she's actually brought together, we're going to join this alliance. Larry Fink at BlackRock has joined the alliance. She's bringing together other companies. You know, we might, you know, might compete on models and products, but we don't want to compete on people. We, as an industry, I think are doing this part well, where we're really working together. Because anybody that gets trained to work on a metadata center site can certainly go to a Google site or a Microsoft site. And so this is a place where we've really come together.

• 24:37Jason Calacanis?

  How do you, how do you expand the capacity? So there's 40,000 that applied, but you picked 400. That's 39,600 that...

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, and we started four months ago and now we're literally getting calls from Mary Barra at GM. "I'd like 1,000 employees." You know, once you have the curriculum and the certification and the partners to deliver it, you can do these everywhere. We're doing them in community colleges, VFW halls. In that particular program, you actually have to have a site that's kind of like a model data center so that you can show how to train the fiber technicians. But we're working with the Association of Builders and Contractors. They have, you know, thousands and thousands of places across the country where they operate.

• 25:16Jason Calacanis?

  Why is it so expensive, outside of you guys basically backstopping this, to get something like job site ready and OSHA awareness? I mean, this should seem like you go online and...

• 25:27Speaker 00

  I think the thing that we unlocked is that we actually pay during the training what you would get if you are already in the job. It used to be that there's a very low fee or an apprentice fee for so long that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't the full payment of the job. And so we do that from the beginning. And then of course, these jobs, I mean, David and I have been in Pittsburgh with some of these workers. And you know, these are jobs, welders make $100, $120,000 a year in Pittsburgh. That is meaningful, great work. And I think the unlock that we're very proud of with this program is that there just wasn't a clear and fast path to getting on the job site and to having a guaranteed job.

• 26:07Jason Calacanis?

  It's great that you have these jobs because with AI progressing so quickly, these developers are going to need something to do. And so I think they can segue into electrician jobs. I'm kidding, obviously. But absolutely fantastic work on the data centers, fully support it. Great job on the Meta glasses, amazing. And this effort...

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Where are your Meta glasses, Jason? I gave you such cool...

• 26:30Jason Calacanis?

  They're right here on the bag, right in my backpack. They're, no, they're actually super impressive.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  I brought mine to wear with you.

• 26:36Jason Calacanis?

  This effort is truly impressive, but you said you wanted me to do a fastball or two. And you didn't want it to be... She didn't say that, J Cal. She literally asked me for at least one fastball. I would love to go get a J Cal fastball. Okay, so we'll just keep it all softballs. Before you ask a question, please, please come back. Go ahead, Jason. No, no, no, we can just go, we'll go softballs.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Go ahead, go ahead. Totally kidding.

• 26:58Jason Calacanis?

  We have Meta here and you just paid the largest settlement in, second only to the tobacco industry. And just ahead of BP Oil, two of the biggest disasters this country ever faced. And this one is particularly tough.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  And they wonder why they call him fake news.

• 27:19Jason Calacanis?

  No, I...

• 27:19Speaker 00

  The numbers are wrong.

• 27:20Jason Calacanis?

  Dana, I'm happy to talk about the Meta glasses if you prefer.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  I'm so, actually, seriously, I'm so...

• 27:26Jason Calacanis?

  Go read your effective altruism.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  I'm actually really glad you asked me about it because...

• 27:30Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, well, let me finish the question. You may not be.

• 27:34Jason Calacanis?

  So I'm going to lean in now, so to speak.

• 27:40Jason Calacanis?

  The real, I think, challenge a lot of us have with Facebook as an organization, and these are amazing, the videos are super inspiring and well-produced. But you guys really did damage, significant damage to children. You knew that these products were too addicting. And the philosophy of the company, from the beginning when Chamath was there, "Hey, move fast, break things, let's go super fast." My sincere question is, how has the culture changed inside of Facebook? And you're making a new series of potentially more addicting products with character-based AI companions, with Muse as a product. So I'm curious, what's changed in the organization? And what did you learn from that record-setting find?

• 28:23Jason Calacanis?

  And something that is, you could have done a lot better on.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Well, I totally disagree with basically every single premise in your question.

• 28:32Jason Calacanis?

  The $17 billion settlement says otherwise.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Do I get to speak or are you done with your 10-minute question? Okay, I totally disagree with the premise of that.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  I've only been there eight months. I was on the board for a year and I can tell you because I work with these people every day, they are really, really focused on ensuring that parents are empowered, teens are supported, and I couldn't be actually more proud of the agreement that we just made. We made it with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across the United States and the territories. We are now setting industry standards. We agreed that if your state signed on with us, that children under 18, not 16, can only be on our platform for two hours a day. The app shuts off after that and it completely shuts off at night. There are no notifications during the school day at all of any kind.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  And frankly, parents have way more supervision now. Many, many ways that they can decide what their kids are on, how long they're on and what they're seeing. And I think that we're proud of that because if others in our peer group joined, this could be pretty historic and game-changing. And Jason, I'm a mom of six daughters, so this is really personal to me. I watched them grow up in this generation. And I feel that, you know, we really can actually find a way to come together. The reason your numbers were wrong on the settlement is because we actually agreed to give an additional $5 billion and to go down to only one hour of use on our platform if YouTube, TikTok and Snap join

• 30:07Speaker 00

  us. Because as we know, as we know, people leave one set of apps and go to another. But wouldn't it be pretty amazing in America if children under 18 could only be on apps for an hour a day, shut off at night? And I don't, I just think that's... Yes, 100% yes. Thank you.

• 30:26David Friedberg

  Do you think it should be universal, Chamath, or do you think it should be controlled by the parent? Like, give the parent basic...

• 30:33Speaker 00

  It is controlled.

• 30:34David Friedberg

  What's your view?

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Well, it is, meaning, obviously, a parent can override it. But our app actually just does turn off.

• 30:41David Friedberg

  Default, I see.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  Obviously, a parent. It's funny, I was in Texas this weekend at the Texas-Ohio State game. My alma mater. And it was really funny. I had so many people come up to me and say, "You know, this turning off," because it's literally happening, "turning off Instagram is hurting college recruiting, football recruiting." I'm like, "What? What are you talking about?" In Texas, we put all of our kids' videos on Instagram and they get recruited. So it is interesting. I said, "Well, we live in America. That's up to you. You can decide as a parent if you want to do more." But it does actually shut off and a parent has to override that.

• 31:19Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I think it's incredible. I remember just being with my kids at the dinner table and my son was trying to show me something and he had hit the limit, just turned off. And there's nothing, and I was like, "This is fantastic."

• 31:28David Friedberg

  And what did you do? You're like, "Leave it off"?

• 31:29Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What's that?

• 31:30David Friedberg

  You're like, "Just leave it off. You don't care."

• 31:32Chamath Palihapitiya?

  The reason is, as a parent, it's whack-a-mole. Because the content is syndicated across all these platforms. And that's why what you're saying is so right. When my son, when my kids, my five kids, go to school, they interact with YouTube as their primary outside of school mechanism because so much of the school content and educational content is there. So even if you shut off Shorts and Instagram, they pop up over here. So it is this whack-a-mole problem for parents and it's a full-time job to manage it. And so if there is effectively like a labeling and like, you know, a decision on governance by these companies, it's deeply helpful for all of us that have jobs or trying to live a life and raise kids normally, so they don't become zombies.

• 32:14Jason Calacanis?

  Zach, you're very active managing your kids' mobile phone usage.

• 32:16Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, how many do you have?

• 32:19David Sacks?

  Look, I think the new defaults probably are better. I mean, just thinking about my kids' usage, yeah, it'd be nice if it turned off after, you know, an hour or two. So, yeah, look, I think that's an improvement. I do have to sort of defend Meta because I do think that there was a little bit of a ridiculous pile on where, you know, the company's getting sued by adults who are blaming the use of this completely voluntary product. No one's forcing you to use any of these social networking products. And then something goes wrong in their life that has many causes, and then they're suing Meta and winning big judgments. And then the state AGs get in on the act and all the trial lawyers...

• 33:04Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And the trial lawyers, the trial lawyers got half the money, I thought.

• 33:07David Sacks?

  Yeah. So let's just acknowledge that there is a little bit of a shakedown going on here as well. I mean, let's face it, that is kind of how the American court system works. But look, I think that they have reached a resolution that I think is net beneficial and I like the new defaults. And ultimately, this is about parental control. You know, parents should choose what, you know, and how, what apps their kids use and for how long. It should not be the government doing that. It should be the parents.

• 33:34Jason Calacanis?

  Dina, can you...

• 33:37David Sacks?

  And we should just make it as easy as possible for the parents to do it. And in my view, the only reason to do these new defaults is because of the whack-a-mole problem. It is sometimes difficult for the parents to like...

• 33:46Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, I mean, that is, I'm glad we're having this discussion. I think the issue for me has been the industry got very addicted to gamification and designing products to be addicting. And increasing time spent on app was, in fact, internally what Facebook was focused on. The challenge is, you know, you can be too good at something. And I think Facebook, along with YouTube and their algorithm, were just too good at addicting people to it, whether they're adults or kids. And I will commend you, even if it was late as an organization, in doing the right thing now and then leading the other organizations to do the right thing.

• 34:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let me build on what you're saying with a statement. And we, Satya, talked about this. I think Jensen will talk about it. Elon will talk about it. But we are, you're going to hear this word, RSI, over and over, over the next 18 months, recursive self-improvement, which is this idea that if you define a function, a reward function for an AI, and let it go, it's going to self-improve. So to your point, Jason, anything, whether it's, you know, World of Warcraft, or Angry Birds, or whatever app, you put it into an RSI loop and you add the reward function being time, all these apps will proliferate. Microsoft Word will keep you there for nine hours if it can. So if, unless companies make a decision, like you guys, to say, "Here's a threshold and beyond this threshold, we're just going

• 35:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  to turn it off," it's going to be kind of turtles all...

• 35:11Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, which was my point, is how does it inform product decisions going forward? You got this incredible new product, Muse. You're in the mix on the bots. But again, I think the leadership and challenging the other organizations is what I will give you kudos for. I don't want to speculate...

• 35:26David Friedberg

  I want to talk about this addiction thing as it relates to the product that we all tried on backstage. We all put on a Meta glass. And I'd never, I've never had the product before. What is the repeated use case of that product, do you think? Like, what is it that gets people, because, you know, yeah, the glasses, sorry. Yeah, so like, I remember when Google had the goggles and then Apple had VR, and everyone's had an effort at putting something on your face, and none of them have stickiness. They're all like really interesting novelty experiences. And then your usage tapers off and you kind of put it in the drawer and it's like a cool tech relic.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Well, they're very stylish. These are the Kylie Jenners. No, actually, we are so excited about this as a product. The engineers have been working on this for 10 years. You make a good point that if people don't look good in them and they're not stylish, they're not going to put them on. But, you know, billions of people wear glasses, whether they're to see or obviously sunglasses. And we're really excited about the features. You can obviously listen to music. The only way I listen to All In every week is wearing my Meta glasses as I'm walking or working out. They actually have the incredible speaker and so your phone calls are perfect. And now we have a couple of features we're really

• 36:41Speaker 00

  excited about. Conversation focus. So when Chamath is, you know, at dinner with his beautiful wife and he actually wants to hear her, if he looks at her, all the noise, it goes away except her voice, which is pretty cool. And then translation.

• 36:55Jason Calacanis?

  That's great.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Translation as well.

• 36:57David Friedberg

  Can I do the opposite when I'm...

• 36:58Jason Calacanis?

  Chamath, it's interesting, Dina, it's interesting you bring this up, Dina.

• 37:02David Friedberg

  Great.

• 37:03Jason Calacanis?

  Chamath was just telling me...

• 37:04David Friedberg

  More of that.

• 37:05Jason Calacanis?

  Chamath was just telling me he got the new Apple AirPods 5 specifically because of wife-canceling mode.

• 37:11Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It's the opposite. I want the opposite feature.

• 37:13Jason Calacanis?

  You can actually tune in, but I know that with...

• 37:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let me tell you why you're wrong and I'm right. Okay, thanks then.

• 37:17David Sacks?

  By the way, with these products, you're, you know, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't in the sense that if you design it poorly, no one's going to want to use it. If you design it really well and it's a big success, a bunch of trial lawyers are going to say it was addictive. And then you get sued for that.

• 37:33David Friedberg

  So true.

• 37:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Dina, can you... I'm sorry, I just wanted to move to AI for a second before...

• 37:37David Friedberg

  No, I want to finish on this. So like, so, but it has this kind of recurrent use case built into it at this point. Is that, because I really want to understand if this becomes...

• 37:45Speaker 00

  There isn't so many people are working, I mean, all of our peers are working on wearables. It's because I do think people want to be part of the world. They actually don't want to be holding boxes, walking around. They actually really want to be able to talk to their family, take a picture, take a video, listen to music and it be hands-free. We have Oakleys that are really, really cool for extreme sports. So the use cases are just everyday life. And I think you're going to show a video. The thing that surprised us was one use case that we hadn't anticipated and that, blind veterans. Actually, somebody was joking with me. They said, "How are you getting blind people to wear glasses?" That doesn't make sense to me. Can we show this video? It is such an honor to be here. We're in Austin, Texas, at a VFW hall where Meta

• 38:29Speaker 00

  mates are sitting down with amazing men and women who've served our country and who lost their eyesight. They have just been telling us they feel like they're getting their independence back. And we're so proud to be giving them Meta glasses.

• 38:42Speaker 18

  I took them to church. They have the scriptures on the screen in front. I've never been able to read that. But I asked Meta and it read the words for me.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Seeing these extraordinary servicemen and women, all we've been saying is thank you. Thank you. We don't have America without all of them. And as a big surprise, we are about to introduce them to Chris Stapleton.

• 39:04Speaker 19

  I just want to come by and say thank you for your service. It's ungrateful for you.

• 39:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Chris Stapleton is the best.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  He came and joined us. It was actually on 9/11 and just a couple of days ago. And what we learned is that a group of blind veterans from the organization that supports them came and actually worked with the Meta engineers and designed specific features. And it just turns out, obviously, the glasses can see for you and read to you. One of the gentlemen I was sitting next to put the glasses on and he said, "Hey Meta, call John." And I was sitting there, I couldn't hear, obviously, what he was hearing, and he just started sobbing. And I said, "Is everything okay, sir?" He said, "That's the first time I've ever called my son on my own."

• 39:46David Friedberg

  Oh, that's cool.

• 39:47Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wow.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  So we're seeing these kinds of use cases, of course, that we're incredibly proud of.

• 39:51David Friedberg

  I guess AI creates the unlock for the glass form factor. That makes a lot of sense.

• 39:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Is that the form factor that you think kind of gets AI in a prevalent way for most people in the world? Is the glasses' form factor? Or is there something else you think?

• 40:05Speaker 00

  I'm sure there will be many products. I mean, I think what I have learned from our team is that, you know, glasses are a thing. People wear glasses and it's something that, you know, many, many people, they're affordable. And people, obviously, we really worked hard. Mark was very focused, not just on the design, but the weight of it. So it takes a lot to put the technology in here and to still keep it stylish and light.

• 40:27Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You're a minority owner of Ray-Ban, no?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Or of Luxott?

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Very small. Yes, they're our partner. Yeah, we have an exclusive with them.

• 40:34Jason Calacanis?

  I think that's why people should reconsider these, you know, as a product category, because I've had them since Google Glass. And the battery never worked. They were too bulky. You look like a dork in them. And now, the battery works. And because you can control them, you know, not with Siri, which is still kind of broken, but this actually works. And when you're with your kids and you want to take videos when you're skiing, or you want to take pictures, it actually, you know, putting a phone between you is much more intrusive. So I think this actually brings you into the real world. And the translation feature is also very slick. So when you go to Japan, or you go somewhere and they're talking to you in another language, it can actually translate. Or if you see a sign, boom, just instant translation without taking your phone out. It's time for people to reconsider

• 41:19Jason Calacanis?

  these specifically for those reasons.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Thank you. You've used them a long time, though, so you really know.

• 41:25Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, the batteries, the battery problem, the fidelity, just, they didn't work. And now it does. Yeah, so.

• 41:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Dina, just talking about Dario's essay this weekend, there was a report, but it was unverified, that Zuck said something to the effect of, "We need to go as fast as we can." I don't know if that was kind of misinformation. No, no, it was like a report that just hit Twitter at the same time that Dario's, or X when Dario's hanging out. But just taking a step back broadly, how did you process that essay and the call for regulation? Or how are you guys thinking about this?

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Well, first, I really agree with a lot of what Satya said. I mean, the premise, the starting point, is that safety is paramount. And that is something that Mark talks about all the time. I watch daily how he and Alex Wang and Nat Friedman, who run our lab, think about it. And they're, and a whole team of people exist to think about the safety of the models. And I, and I think that, you know, there are very legitimate questions around that. I think the difference is that Mark just has a very different view. And I think that view is based on 20 years of a business model of empowering and connecting people. And that 3.6 billion people are on our platform every single day. 200 million

• 42:41Speaker 00

  small business owners operate their business every single day. And so his belief is that the more you distribute this technology, the more people that have superintelligence and are able to reach their potential, are able to have access to education and healthcare that they could have never imagined before, learning that they could have never achieved before, is not only better for each of those individuals, but it's better for society as a whole. So he fundamentally just believes, when he wrote in his piece, "The Future is for Everyone," that the democratization of artificial intelligence will actually lead to a more stable society.

• 43:17Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  That is just a fundamental belief that he has. And I think that the thing that he thinks about is, so then what is his role? What is our role? And I think we were extremely proud to have the very first American open source model, just a few weeks ago.

• 43:33David Friedberg

  Well, Dina, you've got a lot on your plate. We really appreciate you taking the time to come and join us today. We covered a lot. It was awesome. Thank you for being here.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  Thank you, guys, so much.

• 43:42Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you so much.

• 43:43David Friedberg

  Thank you.

• 43:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We're gonna walk up. That was great.

• 43:46Jason Calacanis?

  That was great.