Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s rival social network to Elon Musk, is considered a wonder at Meta when formed in just 7 months by a team of 60 people.
While on vacation with his family in Italy in November 2022, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, received an order to meet remotely with Meta’s board of directors to do something to directly compete with Elon Musk, who had just taken over Twitter. been a few weeks.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to take advantage of the competitor’s turmoil to attract users from Twitter to the Meta social network ecosystem. The executive team proposed adding Twitter-like features to Meta’s existing application. Zuckerberg has another idea.
“What if we play bigger?” he said.
The meeting ended at dawn. Mosseri was tasked with developing a standalone application. “Oh my god, we need to find a plan of action, because Zuckerberg is very excited about this idea. You can see that he is very enthusiastic about the new plan,” Mosseri recalled at the time.
Meta announced Threads on July 5, more than 7 months after the meeting, and the application exploded so much that even insiders were surprised. There is currently no guarantee of long-term success for the platform as statistics show that the number of users is decreasing compared to the initial peak.
However, the new social network delivered an “iron punch” to Twitter’s chaos when it reached a record of 100 million users in just the first 5 days and became the most successful application launch event of all time.
As soon as it first appeared as a rumor, Threads also made Elon Musk worried, saying the platform would make the world “manipulated under Mark Zuckerberg ‘s thumb with no other choice”. Threads is also the source that prompted the Twitter boss to challenge the Meta boss to a cage fighting match, although it is currently impossible to determine whether the match actually took place or not.
Threads’ promising start has revived the company, which was going through a series of scandals and major layoffs, while competing with TikTok for the attention of young people. The process of building Threads was described by Meta’s leadership as the way forward for the company, amid obstacles in its ambition to build the metaverse and employees losing trust.
Go fast, break everything
Zuckerberg asked Mosseri to take a risk. Project 92, codename for Threads, was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧. Six months later, the project was completed, reminiscent of Facebook’s previous “move fast and break things” style.
Mosseri assembled a lean team of fewer than 60 people to build basic applications on the shortest timetable, similar to how a startup operates instead of a giant technology company. Some Meta employees said that the application completed by a few dozen people in a short time has become a miracle at the company. Many people saw it as a wake-up call, showing that a fully designed application did not require the bulky machinery of a company with 66,000 employees.
“Quick action, no need for fancy, solid technique, can be done by most human resources, but unfortunately before that all were tied by processes,” an anonymous Meta employee comment.
Meta has long considered Twitter a rival. Zuckerberg once sought to buy this platform for $500 million in 2008. However, with 237.8 million daily users and $5 billion in annual revenue, Twitter is only a small part of the Meta empire and has not ever become a real threat.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter and made controversial decisions, the new Meta leadership decided to take a chance. Zuckerberg wants Threads to start operating in January, two months after approving the plan. Mosseri tempered CEO Meta’s expectations, insisting he needed to assemble the right development team. He withdrew some human resources from the Messenger, Instagram and Facebook development teams.
Alex Spiro, Twitter’s lawyer, in early July accused Meta of soliciting former employees of the company to “accelerate the development of copycat applications”. However, Meta spokesman Andy Stone confirmed that no one on the Threads team had ever worked at Twitter.
“Do the easy things first”
The Threads development team includes two managers, one or two designers, and dozens of software engineers. “That’s different from most of Instagram’s product teams. Instead of a 30-minute presentation on a single design decision, which is common at Facebook and Instagram, we outline six tasks that need to be accomplished in one week,” Mosseri recalls.
To ensure speed, the team removed complex features, including sending private messages and searching for content. They also skipped plans to deploy the product in the European Union (EU), as regulators here prepare to impose regulations requiring technology businesses to provide information about software algorithms.
“We do things that are easy and simple first. That helps reduce product size, limiting the need to constantly add interesting features,” Mosseri said.
Meta hopes Threads can avoid the political controversies that have drawn criticism from Twitter and other social networks. Mosseri also sparked controversy when he said Threads would not proactively encourage political and news content, because the increased engagement did not offset regulatory scrutiny.
Still, if Threads continues to grow, it may be difficult for them to avoid the political decisions that have plagued Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. “Meta cannot eliminate political controversy if it wants to serve those who abandon Twitter,” commented Yael Eisenstat, former head of Facebook policy. She also criticized the acceleration of product launches, instead of carefully considering the ways in which Threads could be abused to spread hate speech and fake news.
When asked about the key to Threads’ long-term success, Mosseri didn’t offer the broad vision he had at Meta. He pointed out four short-term priorities, including helping users build follower lists, improving the content display algorithm, providing a way to only see content from people they follow, as well as Find a way to allow accounts to send private messages.
The excitement about Threads is also reflected in the advice Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom gave Mosseri when he took over the company in 2018.
“Launching a finished product is the best way to improve employee morale, even in a company going through a wave of layoffs and missteps. Make sure you release a product that works.” smooth, everything will be much easier. I promise,” Mosseri said about Systrom’s message before leaving Instagram.
