He’s one of the few leaders who witnessed Meta’s evolution firsthand from its scrappy early days under a twenty-something-year-old Mark Zuckerberg to one of the world’s most powerful platforms.
But the biggest lesson he took away from that period wasn’t about scale or speed—or grinding all hours of the day to make it. Ott credits Zuckerberg with teaching him the opposite: To focus on making the biggest impact you can during working hours.
Key Takeaways
- Tech executives like Palantir CEO Alex Karp have said they don't care if or where employees went to college—work performance matters more.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook (photo above) has said a four-year degree isn't required to work at Apple.
- Tech has seen a number of college dropouts make billions, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Executives at top tech companies are telling young people to rethink the purpose of education, and even whether they should attend college at all.
Tech has had a range of successful college dropouts in its history, and the industry is being shaken up by the growing influence of artificial intelligence, leaving some new graduates struggling to land the high-paying jobs that were once plentiful.
Award-winning filmmaker and historian Ken Burns said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is "an enemy of the state" who belongs in jail.
Burns joined The New York Times’ "Sway" podcast to promote a new film about Muhammad Ali and was asked if a particular tech figure could be as culturally significant in a few decades as the boxing legend is now.
"I mean, I hope Zuckerberg is in jail by then," Burns said.
"This is an enemy of the state, and I mean the United States of America. He doesn’t give a sh-t about us, the United States," Burns continued. "He knows he can transcend it. He can get away to any place. And so it’s just about filthy lucre, that’s it."
Burns then turned his attention to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
"Because these people — and Sheryl is a complicit — the Nuremberg of this, is if it ever happens, which it won’t, will be pretty interesting," Burns said. "The way that we’ve been able to temporize and say, ‘Oh, it’s okay, we’ll just go a little bit further,’ right?"
Host Kara Swisher answered, "Yeah," and moved on to the next topic.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. READ MORE
