Mark Zuckerberg Rejects Closed Platforms with a Firm ‘F*ck That’

In his two decades of leading the company now known as Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has undergone numerous transformations. More recently, he has been presenting a less filtered version of himself. During a live-streamed conversation with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, the Meta CEO seemed to veer away from his scripted talking points.

The discussion started ordinarily enough, with both billionaire executives commending each other on their AI achievements. Zuckerberg highlighted the company’s recent AI Studio announcement before delving into his usual talking points, which lately have included pointed criticism of Apple.

Zuckerberg then launched into a lengthy rant about his frustrations with “closed” ecosystems like Apple’s App Store. None of this is particularly new, as the Meta founder has been feuding with Apple for years. However, Zuckerberg, who is usually quite composed in public, showed a rare moment of frustration by telling Huang that his reaction to being told “no” is “fuck that.”

“I mean, this is sort of selfish, but, you know, after building this company for a while, one of my goals for the next 10 or 15 years is to ensure that we can develop the fundamental technology for social experiences. There have been numerous instances where I tried to build something and was then told, ‘nah, you can’t really build that by the platform provider,’ and at some level, I’m just like, ‘nah, fuck that,’” Zuckerberg stated.

“There goes our broadcast opportunity,” Huang remarked. “Sorry,” Zuckerberg responded. “Get me talking about closed platforms, and I get angry.”