- The conversation is with Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, discussing his role and the future of technology.
- Zuckerberg discusses his role at Facebook and the varied tasks he deals with on a daily basis.
- He talks about the importance of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) in delivering a sense of presence and connection.
- The conversation also touches on the future roadmap for Oculus, Facebook's VR product line, and the potential for AR glasses.
- Zuckerberg envisions a future where AR glasses replace traditional screens and allow for new designs and creative possibilities.
- He believes that VR and AR will be the next major computing platform, even though it may take several years to fully develop.
- The conversation explores the potential of AR to provide additional senses, such as feeling objects without physically touching them.

- The speaker discusses the potential for AR and VR to provide a sense of touch and interaction with virtual objects.
- They believe that many physical objects, such as books and TVs, may no longer be necessary in the future as holograms and virtual interactions become more prevalent.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of improving the form factor and aesthetics of AR and VR devices, with VR focusing on portability and comfort, and AR aiming for a normal pair of glasses appearance.
- They mention the advancements made in reducing the weight and size of VR headsets, as well as lowering the price to make it more accessible.
- The speaker mentions that while Google Glass was an early attempt at AR, their focus is on creating more immersive and interactive experiences rather than a smartwatch-like interface.
- They express a preference for algorithmic ranking over chronological order in social media feeds, and mention their favorite non-Facebook app (Spotify).
- The speaker mentions using Samsung phones and being a fan of Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce.

Talking tech, virtual reality, holograms and the future of devices with Mark Zuckerberg!
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So you must have been like 1 of the earliest People on YouTube then

I would I would consider myself like in the second wave of YouTube There's a lot of like og youtubers from like 2007.

It's been a journey for this So I'm gonna be a see here so quick background Before you go down to the comment section and say, hey, why didn't you also talk about this?

Or why didn't you grill him on this policy or this election stuff.

I'm sure if we had a two-hour podcast episode, we would have gotten to a lot more stuff.

And so we originally had scheduled, we slotted 15 minutes to talk tech.

So my thought was, if we only had 15 minutes to talk tech with Mark Zuckerberg,

So for the Talking Tech series, I think we always start by an introduction.

I don't know if you need an introduction to this audience, but I think people know you as the co-founder of Facebook, the face of Facebook.

What's your role every day and what is that like for you?

Yeah, well I guess I started the company and I've been running it for the last 16 years.

I never really know when I wake up in the morning what is going to be thrown at me that day.

But overall, it's a really interesting mix of intellectual problems.

I just am grateful to get the chance to build stuff that so many people around the world love and use every day.

It varies from the set of apps that you might have on your phone to some more far-reaching advanced technologies like the work that we're doing in virtual and augmented reality, which is personally 1 of the things that makes me the most excited.

We have these announcements coming out at Facebook Connect about some of the new work that we're doing.

Do you split your time on the regular between Facebook, Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp, or is it sort of every day has a little bit of everything?

Yeah, I definitely split my time a bit more because there are just so many pieces at this point that if I were trying to tune into everything every day, then it would just be too much context switching.

So as a matter of fact, what I try to do is have a theme for a week.

And usually I can't get away with just 1 theme, but I'll try to do 2 or 3 things in a week and have most of my time be focused on kind of nailing that and doing a good job at that.

And then of course different things come up.

I'm talking to people throughout the day.

But we have really good people running each of the apps.

It works well as a team and that allows me to focus on some of the stuff that I think is the most important and whatever is coming out that I need to deal with.

So I think 1 of the most interesting parts of the Talking Tech series when I get to speak to people is everyone has a unique perspective on tech in some way.

And obviously you being At the head of a very important company like Oculus, that's what I'm most interested in because at the head of it, you kind of have to have some sort of a vision for what you think the future of it is, which is, I guess, hard for me to wrap my head around.

But Can you talk a little bit about Oculus now?

Like the Oculus Quest 2, by the time this comes out, will be the newest, latest, and greatest.

But what does that future roadmap for a company like Oculus look like?

Yeah, so if you look at the kind of broad history of technology, We get these new major technology platforms every 15 years or so.

And each 1 delivers a more immersive experience and allows us to communicate with the people and businesses and things that we care about around the world with just higher fidelity.

And when I look at what we have today on our phones, phones are pretty amazing, right?

You have this incredibly powerful computer in your pocket, but it's not the end of the line.

And there's all these things that I think are not that good about it.

It pulls you away from the world around you.

So the question that I've been asking is, what's the next wave of technology?

What's the next platform going to be and what's that going to deliver for how we all connect.

And for me, the essence of virtual and augmented reality is that you need to have a technology that delivers this feeling of presence, right?

The sense that you're actually right there with another person and all the different sensations that come with that normally, right?

Not just seeing someone on a screen but you know having the spatial audio so it sounds like if someone's standing over there the audio is coming from there.

Having it so that you can kind of, if you're interacting with them and you have an object, you can pass them the object, right?

And it's kind of real time and there's no latency.

You know, our eyes refresh every 5 or 10 milliseconds.

So you know, having it so that you can have this whole 3D world and what other people are doing render in real time faster than that.

In every other type of technology platform that we've had, you know, game consoles on TVs, computers, you kind of, you get some pretty amazing software, but you're basically trying to convince your brain the whole time that you're in a different context than you actually are when you're really just kind of sitting on your couch or your desk.

VR and AR are the first platform where it really just convinces your system that you're in a different place.

You almost have to try to convince yourself to snap out of the reality sometimes and realize, hey, this actually isn't real.

So there's a long line of technology that we need to develop to fully deliver that sense of presence.

But I think that that's really what we're in the business of doing with the Oculus virtual reality product lines and with the augmented reality glasses that we're working on over the coming years is just how do we deliver that sense of presence and connection for people?

Yeah, I think that I like that train of thinking.

My, a question I get asked a lot is like, I do video now on YouTube, and my goal is always to make the highest quality video possible.

So like I can put a product in front of you and it looks as realistic as possible, almost like you're holding yourself.

Maybe the next version of tech reviews 10 years into the future after it's YouTube videos?

And my natural answer has been, I think VR makes the most sense.

If I could literally kind of like put you in my shoes, then you'll feel like you're in the car that I'm driving or holding the phone that I'm holding.

Have I been giving a good answer this whole time?

I mean, I certainly agree with that, but you know, I mean, our company is probably investing the most in virtual and augmented reality of anyone else in the world.

So yeah, I mean, I would hope that 10 years from now or 5 years from now, people will have a relatively sleek pair of goggles that they can put on and basically transport into your studio where you are.

And instead of just holding up the phone in front of you like you just did, they could grab it, that you can hand it to them, and they can play with it and kind of experience that themselves.

Or maybe the lighter weight version of that would be augmented reality, which I think you're still going to have to go into some kind of different mode to want to put on sunglasses or goggles and have that fully immersive virtual experience for virtual reality.

But I think augmented reality, once that hits and you have a normal pair of glasses that, you know, good looking kind of normal glasses, not anything that's super thick or anything like that and that can last all day long but can project holograms into the world, Then you'll be able to do a version of your show where your hologram can just show up on my couch right here, and you can hand me the phone, and I can kind of take the phone as a hologram and play with it like that.

1 kind of trippy thing that I think about that's further out is once we have really good mature AR glasses, we won't even necessarily need other kinds of screens anymore, right?

Things like TVs, you know, tablets, all these things could just be digital holograms and could be apps that some kid halfway across the world in some other place makes.

And you'll be able to get completely new designs for things like TVs and different kinds of shapes that are not like the regular thing that Samsung can make in their factory.

And I think that there's just going to be a crazy amount of creativity that gets unlocked in a lot of innovation when a lot of stuff that physically today has to be produced in a factory, which obviously most people don't have access to doing that, can just get turned into an app that can be a hologram that you can give to someone.

So I'm really excited about it, and that's why we're just so focused on this, and we have thousands of people working on this at Facebook, because I just do think that this is gonna be the next major computing platform, even if it takes several years to get there.

Right, and so do you see a world maybe where screens or displays are sort of a past where you literally can project with AR if the tech is good enough?

You can just hold a rock or whatever, like a very simple, inexpensive object and with your AR, turn it into a screen, if that makes sense.

You know, I mean, the real thing will always have somewhat amount of more fidelity than you'll be able to get with augmented.

I mean, like haptics are 1 area where you want to feel something.

You pick up a rock or an object and it kind of has more weight.

But I do think we're going to get other senses through augmented and virtual reality that may not be possible in the physical world.

So let's say for example, Cam, like I'm kind of feeling around on my desk and my hand is getting close to a water bottle, right, today you don't feel the water bottle until you touch it, but it's possible in AR or VR that we can provide some kind of sense.

So as you start getting close to an object, you start feeling some kind of resistance or some sense that you're near something, which of course is how some other animals navigate the world through sonar and different things like that, getting a sense of different...

I think a lot of new things are going to be possible.

It's not that it's going to replace all physical things, of course not.

A lot of things you still need to be physical.

But a lot of different types of media, books, games, different things that people have, TVs.

It's not actually clear that in the future those all need to be physical objects anymore.

I think a lot of them, you know, if you're sitting next to me, your hologram is here with me, you know, and maybe another friend is kind of sitting next to you on the couch, hologrammed in from somewhere else, and we want to play a game of cards, and I can just kind of snap, and here's a virtual deck of cards, and I can like hand them out.

Right, it's like, I just think that that's going to be pretty wild.

So I think that that's going to be really powerful, But there's obviously a lot more technology that we need to develop before we can get there.

Gotcha, yeah, see, this is why it was a good idea to talk to you, because I'm not thinking this far into the future, and now I'm like, okay, you gotta address all of your senses, you know, your sense of sight, your sense of hearing, but also you can introduce new senses, which is kind of crazy.

I've been wondering about It could go with AR or VR What do you think is more important for?

People to adopt this tech the actual quality of the tech and the experience itself, or the minimization of the form factor?

Because I'm thinking, you mentioned earlier, like the glasses, maybe having like a thicker rim, but not too thick and being relatively unobstructed.

Is that as important, or Which do you focus on first?

Well, I think it's a little different between virtual and augmented reality.

For virtual reality, because a lot of people, you're doing it at home, or you're kind of doing it in an area where it's kind of reasonable to be fully immersive, the way it looks is not, I think, the biggest factor.

I think if we were talking about people walking down the street wearing a VR headset, I think that would be a different situation.

You don't want to be fully immersed in some other world where you're walking down the street.

So for VR, I think there are all these reasons why you want to get it smaller.

Of course, you want it to be more comfortable.

The lighter it is, the more comfortable it's going to be for people to use.

And of course, anything that people are going to use, you want to be cool, right?

It's, I mean, you care about how the headphones that you're using look, right?

It's like, you know, you probably like the design of them, right?

For AR, I think there's going to be a completely new threshold, You know, because that's meant to be worn and you're interacting with the world around you and just bringing holograms into the world, that I think has a very high bar for kind of aesthetics and feeling like it's a normal pair of glasses.

So, you know, if you think about the range of glasses on that, from, you know, really thin-rimmed glasses to pretty thick-rimmed glasses, I don't know if we can cram all the electronics into a very thin-rimmed glasses anytime soon, But the goal is going to be to try to get all the electronics and things that we need to produce that into kind of a normal thick-rimmed pair of glasses.

But then in the meantime, for virtual reality, we just want to get it as light as possible.

So for Quest 2, the goal, we got it 10% lighter than Quest 1.

And we made it so that it's not just lighter, it's also smaller.

So the headset piece is smaller, but also the strap is a soft strap instead of the hard strap, which when it was a little heavier, you kind of needed a hard strap in order to make it so the weight distribution worked on your head and that the harder strap could kind of support that.

But now that it's lighter, we crossed a threshold where you can get the soft strap, then that has a double benefit because now the soft strap makes it a lot smaller.

So I can just, you know, chuck it in my backpack when I'm on the go a lot more easily and it makes it a lot more portable so it's functional.

So I think that that kind of thing really matters.

And we're definitely gonna continue focusing on just smaller, faster processors, better screens, until you get down to the retina displays.

We also were able to lower the price from $399 to $299, which I just think is gonna make it possible for a lot more people to access that and get into VR.

And that's something that I'm really excited about.

Also, whenever I think about AR, I think my brain naturally goes back to remembering Google Glass back in the day.

And I'm curious, when you're thinking about the future of what you want AR to look like do you ever look back at the past like Was was Google Glass ahead of its time?

Well, I think that the idea that you're gonna want to have some information in context there I think it makes sense to work on that.

And I think that we'll see other types of glasses come out, I'd imagine.

I don't know what Apple and others are working on.

But there's 1 version that the tech can take, which I think you can kind of put, you can kind of think of as like a smartwatch on your face.

Right, so it's like, what do you use your smartwatch for?

You know, notifications, you know, maybe some information, and maybe you could have that in the corner of your eye.

Yeah, I think that some people might like that.

That's not personally the thing that I'm super excited about building for a number of reasons.

1 is I come at this from the perspective of how do we connect people better?

So, you know, having some kind of information in the corner of your eye is a different, is just not as powerful from my perspective as being able to have like hologram Marques here with me and being able to like to interact and kind of share objects or play a game physically together.

That I think is just like a completely different value proposition that's gonna be harder to build, but I think is worth waiting for to get to that.

So I think you'll kind of see different things.

Google Glass was sort of an early take on the kind of smartwatch on the face type of thing.

And I don't know, I'm sure others will try that too.

That's not the main thing that we're focused on trying to build.

So I have a little bit of a rapid fire, little this or that questions, and we'll see what you think.

Ooh, well, I mean, I feel like I'm kind of the algorithmic guy.

So it's, I mean, look, there's a place for both.

At the end of the day, if your cousin or someone, you know, if they have a baby or some milestone happens, it's like, you just kind of expect that you're going to see that.

And people get upset when they miss that because it was 40 posts down because it was in chronological order.

The other thing that we just found is that when we made the whole thing chronological, it basically encouraged people to spam, right?

Because a lot of pages were like, oh, I could get to the top by just posting stuff really, really frequently.

So I kind of think like having an option to see things chronological in a world where most pages expect that their content is gonna have to be ranked and therefore has to be good content, is a valuable, is kind of a good balance.

But having it go all chronological, I think, kind of produces some bad effects.

I feel like that's the level-headed algorithmic answer.

I prefer good algorithmic to chronological.

Well, I mean, these days, I'm in Purple Air a lot, but I don't know if that's good.

I mean, that's because of the California wildfires.

It's the air Yeah, I mentioned Spotify earlier I probably spend more time in Spotify than almost any other app I like music a lot same I think Daniel is a great entrepreneur and a good person And it's it's a good company and I think they've just done a great job with their work.

All right, phone in your pocket right now.

You know, I've been using Samsung phones for a few years, and I'm a big fan of them, and I think that they build great phones.

I also just think, as someone who's building a company where billions of people around the world use our products, most of them use Android phones.

So I think it's pretty good for me and for the management team of the company to have exposure to using different Android phones instead of all just having iPhones, which would probably be the default for a lot of folks.

Last 1, craft hickory smoked barbecue or sweet baby rays?

I think it's well known on the internet that I am a SweetBabyRays fan.

I like barbecuing and I guess I'm a SweetBabyRays fanboy.

I appreciate the time I know you're a busy guy.

So taking the minutes to spend with me was appreciated and hopefully I'll take all this this new knowledge about the future of VR and AR with me.

See all Marques Brownlee transcripts on Youtube

Talking Tech and The Metaverse with Mark Zuckerberg!