In a facecam video, Mark Zuckerberg presents Meta AI, his AI-powered chatbot assistant supposed to dethrone ChatGPT, to his 13 million subscribers on Instagram. His phrasing is relaxed, he wears a chain, his hair slightly longer than usual, and a loose dark blue t-shirt. The sequence makes some Internet users laugh, who are surprised to see a Zuck “ almost cool “. Shortly after, a retouched photo circulated on social networks, which added a three-day beard, as if to accentuate the metamorphosis. The image goes viral. It is commented on with more or less happy jokes (“ before he stole your data, now he steals your wife “). A few days later, Mark Zuckerberg repeated the casual video exercise. This time he is holding a lavalier microphone between his fingers, TikTok style. It announces the launch of Horizon OS, an application store for its virtual reality headset. In his story, he posts a version of his video with a beard filter.
A laughing stock of the web in 2022, a comeback in 2024
“ It has fully entered internet culture », Comments Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois, director of the communications agency We Are Social. The boss has long been caricatured on social networks and the subject of memes. But rarely have these been in his favor.
His new attitude seems to be confirmed in interview format. At the microphone of podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, the CEO displays the same relaxed and smiling air. He comes, among other things, to present Llama 3, the company’s new major language model, which promises to shake up the market. “ He looks human, sure Llama 3 must be running under his hood “, ” joking aside, I like the new Zuck », We can read in the comments. The billionaire is indeed very far from his crestfallen expression, his robotic tone and his eternal “ I’m sorry » repeated to the senators. The subjects are, it must be said, easier to address than that of users’ personal data, the moderation of fake news or child criminal content. For 1h30, the manager is invited to talk about the technological prowess of his models, his advances in computing power, or the importance of his open Source strategy…
Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois, who welcomes the company’s return to favor, notes that he has never seen the creator of Facebook so “at ease”. Especially since the entrepreneur has come a long way. Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg was the laughing stock of the web with his failed turn to the metaverse. This comeback is accompanied by triumphant financial results. In 2023, the company recorded a net profit of $40 billion (at the cost of severe workforce cuts) and a turnover of $134.90 billion, an increase of 16%. It also announced for the first time the payment of dividends to shareholders.
Meta (Facebook): after the flop of the metaverse, is Mark Zuckerberg still the man for the job?
“From awkward geek to virilistic cowboy”
“ It is undeniable that Mark Zuckerberg has changed his public imageagrees Olivier Ertzscheid, lecturer in information and communication science. He went from the uncomfortable geek to the cowboy who plays on the virilistic side. » Because in addition to his change in clothing style and his smile, Zuckerberg also lets it be known that he trains in jujitsu, and that his new hobby is cattle breeding.
This change in attitude has been noticeable for several months. We saw a visibly “media trained” Mark Zuckerberg laughing alongside mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters with more or less spontaneity, lifting weights barely 5 months after knee surgery, exchanging jackets with Jensen Huang (CEO and founder of Nvidia), the other prominent tech boss.
The peak of the virilistic Zuck undoubtedly dates from June 2023. Internet users and the press then follow the preparation for his potential fight with Elon Musk in an MMA cage. The match never took place. But Mark Zuckerberg somehow emerged a winner from this affair. This confrontation project is an opportunity to remember that the entrepreneur is in better physical shape than his opponent – all of this is obviously documented on his Instagram account. Above all: Zuck appears sane in the face of an out-of-control Musk, who continues to be teased in the playground, notes The world.
“ He somehow shows that he can be cool like Elon Musk, by being part of internet culture too, but in a much more controlled version », laughs Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois. It’s quite common in Silicon Valley to see tech bosses adopt an image that counterbalances that of another influential boss. When Jack Dorsey was at the helm of Twitter, he represented the figure of the new-age, somewhat hippie boss. Zuckerberg at that time rather embodied that of the strict, serious boss.
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This is indeed not Mark Zuckerberg’s first change of era. After his beginnings as a geek in tap dancing, he took on more of his role as boss around 2015. The press then regularly devoted the front page to him. Some want to see him as a presidential figure. “Can Facebook save the world? »went so far as to title Wired. Everything changed in 2017 with the Cambridge Analytica affair. Facebook is accused of having participated in the targeting of Internet users during the American presidential election and the Brexit referendum. Mark Zuckerberg then becomes the incarnation of the worst of Silicon Valley, and its bad influence on our democracies.
Mark Zuckerberg shapes his own myth of the entrepreneur
His apparent “redemption” fits perfectly into the myth of the entrepreneur, as explained by sociologist Anthony Galluzzo, author of a work on this subject. After being recognized as a visionary, who turned a whole section of the economy (or even the world) upside down, Zuck took some blows, and came back stronger from his experiences. Indeed, Meta accompanies the development of generative AI with a whole discourse on the importance of security and safeguards, to prevent errors rather than catching them, as was the case previously. We find this same type of entrepreneurial mythology in Steve Jobs. This storytelling, explains the lecturer, is often encouraged by the company itself which sees it as a way to be better promoted in the media and financially.
“ The fact remains that this new image does not always pass the test of reality », observes Olivier Ertzscheid. During his hearing last February before senators on the subject of children’s online safety, a senator suggested that he apologize to the victims’ families. He remains the little geek boy stuck in his costume, not really knowing how to go about it.
And the boss should have other opportunities to apologize in a suit. His company is under investigation by the European Commission for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act. As we go through an election year, its platform is also accused by a recent study of only correctly moderating 5% of political advertisements broadcast on Facebook and Instagram.
“The world is changing, and not in favor of Big Tech”, (Margrethe Vestager, European Commission)
A change of attitude to support its AI strategy
By looking cool and sporty, is Mark Zuckerberg trying to make us forget his panties? For Olivier Ertzscheid this narrative is not really there to create a diversion. This overcommunication is rather linked to its shift towards generative artificial intelligence, and its need to prove to investors that it has an edge. “ Mark Zuckerberg has been there since the beginning », adds Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois. He therefore embodies a new character with each development of a vertical. Here, to talk about artificial intelligence, he uses the codes of developers, who are familiar with open Source and internet culture.
His speech focuses on showing that he has the ability to put this technology in the hands of everyone, at least the billions of users of his platforms. Mark Zuckerberg sees AI as a means of irrigating all of his products. In the United States and a few other countries, Meta AI, its virtual assistant, is now integrated into WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. “ He is betting that the volume of captive users will do everything “. It is also an opportunity to put mini content factories in the hands of users, meaning they can publish more, feed the platforms, and stay there longer. The boss of Meta is planning even further. Still speaking to podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, he imagines a future where “ hundreds of millions of creators » will be able to build their own assistant in order to respond to their subscribers.
In this race for AI, Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois notes that Meta stands out from the others thanks to its controlled communication. A differentiating element since in terms of performance of the models, this comes into play in a pocket square. “ Meta now knows how to use its own social platforms to communicate. This is something that Elon Musk has succeeded in doing very well with X. To follow the new features and developments of the platform, you follow Elon Musk on his own social network. Meta manages to reproduce the same thing here. And that’s a major asset. Microsoft and Google have not managed to make their announcements so viral, despite efforts in advertising for Microsoft and influence campaigns on TikTok for Google “.
