In an effort to reshape the public image with Facebook’s transition to Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new company values that emphasize Meta’s vision for the future.
Zuckerberg shared the changes to Meta values, and explained what they mean, in a letter sent today to all of the company’s employees.
When Meta was known as Facebook, it was known to operate under a mission statement: “Move quickly and break things.”
As the company matured, these values were eventually changed to: “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
Now known as Meta, the company does not operate under a single mission statement.
Instead, Zuckerberg provides a list of values that guide how the company operates every day.
Meta is bringing back the “Move Fast” mantra — this time without the reckless abandon of “breaking things” in the process.
Explained in more detail in the following sections, these are the values of the new Meta company:
- Move quickly
- Focus on long-term impact
- Build great things
- Live in the future
- Be direct and respect your colleagues
- meta, metamats, i
Since it’s not readily apparent what these values mean (especially the latter ones), Zuckerberg explains what each of them means in more detail.
New Meta Company Values
Move quickly
This value is about acting expeditiously while removing obstacles to high-priority initiatives.
Zuckerberg stresses the importance of moving fast as a team, not everyone moves fast on their own.
“Move Fast helps us build and learn faster than anyone else. This means acting quickly and not waiting until next week to do something you can do today. At our scale, this also means continually working to increase the speed of our highest-priority initiatives by removing barriers that systematically get in our way. It’s about moving quickly together—in one direction as a company, not just as individuals.”
Focus on long-term impact
This value is about keeping the company focused on goals that take time to reach, and not being distracted by short-term gains.
Focusing on long-term impact focuses on long-term thinking and encourages us to extend the timeline for impact we have, rather than optimizing for near-term gains. We must tackle the challenges that will have the most impact, even if the full results are not visible for years.”
Build great things
Zuckerberg wants to ship better products than “good.” This value reflects the company’s goal to ship products that are as inspiring as they are useful.
“Build Awesome Things pushes us to ship things that are not only good, but also amazing. We’ve already built products that are useful to billions of people, but in the next chapter we’ll focus more on inspiring people as well. That quality bar should apply to everything we do.”
Live in the future
Zuckerberg envisions a future in which opportunities are not restricted by one’s physical location. This value defines Meta’s dedication to being a “distributed first” company.
“Living in the Future guides us to build the future of distributed work we want, where opportunities are not limited by geography. That means operating as a distributed-first company and being first-to-first in the futuristic products we build to help people feel present together no matter where they are.”
Be direct and respect your colleagues
Zuckerberg wants employees to have more meaningful conversations with each other. This value aims to guide the team in that direction, while also recognizing the need to be respectful.
“Be direct and respect your colleagues. It’s about creating a culture where we’re candid and willing to have difficult conversations with one another. At the same time, we’re also respectful and when we share feedback, we realize that many of the world’s leading experts work here.”
meta, metamats, i
Zuckerberg wants Meta employees to be known collectively as “Metamates.” This value is about promoting a greater sense of connectedness.
“Meta, Metamates, Me is about being good stewards of our company and our mission. It’s about our sense of responsibility to our collective success and to each other as team members. It’s about taking care of our company and each other.”
In conclusion
Zuckerberg signs his letter with the following statement:
“At the end of the day, values are not what you write on a website but what we hold each other accountable for every day. I encourage you to think about these values and what they mean to you as we begin this next chapter for our company.”
Source: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook
Featured image: FellowNeko/Shutterstock
