If you haven't listened to Kara Swisher's Recode Decode interview of Mark Zuckerberg, I highly recommend you do so here. It has been almost 10 years since Lesley Stahl first interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes, when he was 23-years old, and wow has a lot happened since then, including this week's disappointing Earnings Report. Facebook was worth $15 billion back then - today, $506 billion (and that is after this week's 20% haircut).
I won't repeat all of the news here, as I'm sure many of you have been reading along, but what really struck me after listening to Kara's interview of Zuckerberg is just how powerful podcasts have become. This podcast goes into so much detail as compared to a TV show, including one as great as 60 Minutes. If you are at all a fan of business and a leader yourself, I view this interview of Zuckerberg as a must-listen. We are living through an amazing moment in history - with the modern world being socially-networked for the first time, with all of the implications of that (including the recent Russian tampering of our Presidential election). Facebook was just recently one of the top five most valuable companies in the world by market cap and is certainly one of the most important companies throughout the world; their reach and impact cannot be overestimated. In my opinion, they'll be back stronger than ever. And, in my personal opinion as a leader, Mark Zuckerberg does a tremendously great job in this interview. I don't agree with some of his positions but I can also empathize with how difficult it must be to manage a social network of Facebook's size - and determine who the real arbiter of truth is. There is a lot to consider as a leader as you listen to this podcast - how would you handle a similar situation? Or, as Tim Cook says, would you have avoided the situation altogether (also a podcast interview with Kara Swisher, coupled with a new live TV show)? I think about that as I contemplate if Facebook was a B Corporation would they have had this situation at all, but that is a topic for another day. Zuckerberg fired back at Tim Cook on his point, as detailed in this The Ezra Klein Show interview ... also a podcast.
So my main point here is that if you aren't tuning into podcasts, you are really missing out. Kara Swisher is the new Lesley Stahl, and unlike Lesley Stahl she can dig deeper because she isn't so time-constrained in the podcast vs. TV interview format.
I covered some of my favorite podcasts in the Lucky7 post I wrote at the beginning of this year, "The importance of an Always Be Learning life". Tune in and become a better leader.
Credit: Paul Marotta / Getty
P.S., I've been listening to Byron Reese of Gigaom's podcast, Voices in AI, and this debate between him and my co-founder, Bryon Jacob, is one of the best I've ever heard on the coming AI and robotics "disruption". The bit about truck-driver job displacement alone is worth the listen, as that is the typical argument thrown out in these debates. Speaking of an Always Be Learning life, I highly recommend Byron's new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity - it is much better than Yuval Harari's Homo Deus.
P.P.S, The Arthur Brooks Show podcast just launched and this episode on how to disagree with family and friends (on many topics, but notably on politics) was especially helpful to me as an Independent voter (voting for the candidate's policies, character, and integrity over any one party affiliation).