Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri at Bloomberg Screentime

Summary

Bloomberg Talks: Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri at Bloomberg Screentime

Date: October 9, 2025
Host/Interviewer: Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg News
Guest: Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at Meta

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Episode Overview

This episode features Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at Meta, interviewed live on stage at Bloomberg Screentime. The conversation centers around Instagram’s evolving role in the creator economy, the impact and challenges of generative AI for creators, competitive pressures (especially from TikTok and YouTube), Instagram’s recent product shifts (like the iPad app and TV ambitions), and Mosseri’s advice for creators in the current landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Creator Economy & Generative AI

• AI Changing the Creative Process:
  • Mosseri acknowledges that rapid advances in generative AI are transforming content creation, but stresses it won’t replace creativity.

    "Technology from the creator side is going to change who can be creative... But at the end of the day, creators have their taste, their processes, their judgments... They’re going to use those in different ways than before." (Adam Mosseri, 00:59)

  • He sees AI as democratizing creativity, making high-quality production possible for a broader group, but warns about increased risks of bad actors misusing these capabilities.
• Multiplying Content Production:
  • AI could reduce the cost of content creation to “essentially zero,” multiplying the volume of online content – both positive and negative.

    "What the Internet did... was allow almost anyone to become a publisher... generative AI models... are going to reduce the cost of producing content to basically zero." (Adam Mosseri, 02:25)

• Blurring Lines Between Human & AI Content:
  • Most content will likely be 'hybrid'—created by humans aided with AI tools—blurring lines between organic and synthetic.

    "That line is going to be more and more blurred... I think there's going to be actually more in the middle than pure synthetic content." (Adam Mosseri, 03:49)

2. Content Authenticity, Responsibility, and Labeling

• On Labeling AI-Generated Content:
  • Mosseri describes the challenges of labeling AI-assisted content, especially as AI becomes integrated into standard tools.

    "Trying to automatically label everything... is a little bit of... maybe the wrong focus." (Adam Mosseri, 05:49)

  • He suggests the priority should shift from labeling how content is made to providing more context about who is posting and why.

    "We're going to have to shift emphasis away from the content itself... put more on who's saying it and why they might be saying it." (Adam Mosseri, 07:29)

• Media Literacy & Context:
  • Platforms have responsibility for context—e.g., Instagram’s “About this profile” section discloses account creation date, country, name changes—to help users assess trustworthiness.

    "We can provide context, too, and we do today, but we can do more." (Adam Mosseri, 07:39)

3. Instagram’s Evolution: From Photos to DMs, Stories, and Reels

• Shift in User Behavior:
  • Instagram’s core activity has moved from static feeds to ephemeral and interactive formats (DMs, Stories, Reels).

    “All the growth in Instagram over the last five years or more has really come from DMs and Reels and recommendations and Stories.... That's just not how people use Instagram anymore.” (Adam Mosseri, 08:44)

  • Mosseri notes that posting to the main feed, especially for young users, is no longer primary.

    “If you’re younger than I am, posting to your feed is just not the primary way people express themselves.” (Adam Mosseri, 10:17)

• Product Experiments:
  • Instagram is testing opening directly into Reels on iPad and in India, reflecting the platform’s transition toward immersive, short-form video.

    “If a more immersive media is really driving all our growth... if we can figure out a way to transition the app to that being the experience... that would probably be a good thing.” (Adam Mosseri, 11:11)

4. Competition with TikTok and YouTube

• TikTok’s Influence:
  • Mosseri is candid about monitoring TikTok and YouTube, crediting TikTok with leading in short-form video, breaking new talent, and “exploration-based ranking.”

    “They are better than I think the rest of the industry... at breaking new talent... exploration-based ranking.” (Adam Mosseri, 13:39)

• YouTube's Strengths:
  • YouTube dominates on creator payouts and long-form content monetization.
• TikTok and US Regulation:
  • Discusses the complexities of the proposed US TikTok deal and government involvement, emphasizing that competition fuels Instagram to improve.

    “Competition is fundamentally healthy. They push us to do better work.” (Adam Mosseri, 15:24)

5. Expanding to TV

• TV as a Surface:
  • Instagram is exploring a TV app, acknowledging they may be late relative to YouTube and TikTok.

    “TV's an increasingly important surface... So we're definitely exploring it, but nothing to announce today.” (Adam Mosseri, 17:29)

  • Vertical content could work on TV with creative use of screen space for social context. The focus (for now) is on user-generated, not licensed premium, video.

    “I'd much rather be the second screen… focus on user generated content creators, AI and less on premium long form licensed content.” (Adam Mosseri, 19:48)

6. Advice for Aspiring Creators

• Be Intentional:
  • Mosseri’s main advice is to clearly articulate your goals and craft a content strategy that overlaps platform resonance with personal objectives.

    “Be intentional... Find a content strategy that is at the overlap of those two things. Because reach is great, but reach is a means to an end.” (Adam Mosseri, 21:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI and Creativity:

  “Technology... is going to change who can be creative... but at the end of the day... creators... have their taste, they have their processes, they have their judgments, they have their cultural commentary...”
  (Adam Mosseri, 00:59)

• On labeling AI content:

  “Trying to automatically label everything... is maybe the wrong focus.”
  (Adam Mosseri, 05:49)

• On Instagram’s changing use:

  “If we hadn't built DMs and Stories and Reels, you wouldn't be interviewing me on stage today. We wouldn't be relevant enough to show up at screentime.”
  (Adam Mosseri, 08:44)

• On TikTok’s strengths:

  “They are better than I think the rest of the industry at breaking new talent...”
  (Adam Mosseri, 13:39)

• On competition and TikTok’s US deal:

  “Competition is fundamentally healthy. They push us to do better work... I’m glad that they’re still going to be around.”
  (Adam Mosseri, 15:24)

• On being late to TV:

  “I see that as a mistake... we've been focusing a lot on ranking... the biggest risk that we face is... we don't change quick enough to adapt.”
  (Adam Mosseri, 18:01)

• On creator strategy:

  “Find a content strategy that does both. But that's the job, that's the work. And that's going to require persistence, intentionality, and experimentation. But I really preach the overlap.“
  (Adam Mosseri, 21:11)

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Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:40-02:25 | Mosseri on AI’s impact on creators and creative process | | 02:25-03:25 | The multiplier effect: AI reducing friction for all content creators—good and bad | | 03:49-06:24 | Hybrid content, labeling AI vs. human content, challenges with self-reporting and detection | | 06:29-08:09 | Building user literacy; Instagram’s role in contextual trust and profile transparency | | 08:44-10:17 | Changing Instagram usage: shift from feed to DMs, Stories, and Reels; on-stage informal audience poll | | 10:39-12:24 | App product evolution: iPad/Reels, testing in India, vision for immersive formats | | 12:42-14:42 | Competition: Focus on TikTok’s industry-leading content discovery and YouTube’s payout advantage | | 15:14-17:18 | TikTok’s US deal; importance of competition; Instagram’s focus versus “noise of the week” | | 17:21-18:48 | Instagram TV app exploration, learning from delays, adapting to new user consumption patterns | | 19:13-20:52 | Addressing TV format challenges, user-generated vs. licensed content, and the second-screen philosophy | | 21:06-22:11 | One-sentence advice for creators: clarity, strategy, intention, and overlap with audience needs |

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Final Takeaways

Adam Mosseri provided a candid, forward-looking view of Instagram's transformation in the face of AI and generational shifts. Listeners gained insight into the platform’s philosophical approach to tech, safety, competition, and the evolving nature of creativity. His advice to creators emphasizes the enduring importance of intentionality—even as technological barriers continue to blur.

Transcript

[Indiana University Narrator]

Indiana University is shaping the future of healthcare. Advancing discoveries that become treatments for Alzheimer's, obesity, cancer and rare diseases. And training the providers trusted to deliver them from the lab to the clinic. IU powers medical breakthroughs and the talent behind them. See how IU solves. What's next iu. Edu Impact.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio news.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Well, let's head back to the Screen.

[Indiana University Narrator]

Time main stage, the theater here at Screen Time, and to Adam Massari. He's the head of Instagram over at Meta Platforms.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

He's speaking with Bloomberg news. Kurt Wagner.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Mr. Beast. Everyone in this audience already knows who that is. I don't need to explain who Mr. Beast is. He posted actually on threads. This was his threads post. Which is also your platform. Yeah, that it's scary times for creators because of these gen AI tools that are coming out. What do you think? Should creators be scared? Is this scary times?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I think things are changing really quickly. I think that means that a lot of us, whether you're using a platform like Jimmy is, or you're building a platform like we do on our team, are having to think about how we need to evolve, how we do what we do. The jobs are changing. I don't think that technology from the creator side is going to replace creativity. I think it's gonna change who can be creative. I think it's gonna change how people tell their stories. But at the end of the day, I think that people have creators and creatives. They have their taste, they have their processes, they have their judgments, they have their cultural commentary. And they're gonna use those in different ways than before. Because to produce a video isn't gonna require what Jimmy has historically done with Mr. Beast and these huge sets and these amazing elabor. It's going to be something that anybody can do with access to the right model.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Right. So on the one hand, it will make certain things easier. It will lower the bar for what it takes to produce maybe something that feels highly produced. Does this create more creators? Does this create a upper crust of creators? Because there's now so many more people who can do this?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I think it'll mean that today's creators, if they lean into the tools, are the ones who do will be able to create more or even better content. But I think it also means that there are going to be people who couldn't be creators before, who can now actually produce content of a certain quality or at a certain scale. But it also means they're going to be bad actors who try to leverage these technologies for nefarious purposes as well. So it's going to be. Well, if you take a big step back, what the Internet did, among other things, was allow almost anyone to become a publisher by reducing the cost of distributing content to essentially zero. And what some of these generative AI models look like they're going to do is they're going to reduce the cost of producing content to basically zero. So that will be a multiplier effect on the things that we're already seeing, which is that there's more people producing more content and reaching more people. And there's a lot of good and bad that comes downstream from that.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah. So as someone who creates an algorithm intended to show people things that they want to see, do you anticipate, I don't know if you can break down what the average person is seeing right now in terms of stuff that's AI generated versus maybe more traditional human generated. But what's that going to look like in a year or in five years? Are we going to be seeing a feed just full of AI stuff, or is there a human element that's going to be important here?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Well, today on the big platforms like Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and YouTube, I think there's actually a lot of hybrid content. And too often we talk about synthetic content and organic content and never the shoe shall meet. But there's a lot of content where AI is part of the workflow. Right. Like you might not even know it might be whatever app you're using to do color correction might be using models to do so, you know, stamp tool in Photoshop in the old days to get rid of a pimple, those types of things. But that line is going to be more and more blurred. So it's going to be a little bit less like, what is organic content and what is AI synthetic content and what the percentages are. I think there's going to be actually more in the middle than pure synthetic content for a while. But you will also see experiences that are purely AI. Right. You said this in the last two weeks with vibes in the Med AI app and with Sora too from OpenAI. So I think you're going to see both.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

You mentioned there's a lot of potential for bad actors out there. We talked a few weeks ago, actually, Instagram announced 3 billion users and we had a conversation then. And one of the things you said was you rely, especially with AI on a lot of self reporting. People have to sort of let their audience know I used AI for this. A lot of people don't do that. I'm curious what responsibility you think Instagram and Meta have versus how much of it is on the content creator themselves? Do you need to be identifying that something is AI and alerting the audience to it, or is it all on the creator?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I think that we can do more to identify content that was created with AI. We actually, when we first did it, we were doing. We were using the EXIF data and a bunch of people got mad at us because Photoshop was exporting content and AI was part of the flow. And then we were saying it was AI content, but the creator was like, this isn't AI content. But if you actually looked at how the flow was made, they thought Photoshop.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Was AI, or they were.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

They had used some tool in Photoshop that triggered that. Okay, I think it was Photoshop or maybe it was Premiere. I forget which app. So it's sort of a delicate matter. For what it's worth, though, I think that trying to automatically label everything that was created in some part with AI, particularly when there's a lot of hybrid content where it's only part of the process, is a little bit of. It's not a fool's errand, but it's. It's maybe the wrong focus. I think what's going to happen quickly is that you can still kind of tell when content was created by AI. Not always, but usually getting pretty good.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

It's. It's hard.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Harder. It's getting harder, and I think pretty soon it'll be almost impossible.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

And so I think what we need to do is, sure, we can work more on labeling, but we also need to provide more context for people to make more informed decisions about what to believe and to not. So, like, the way you think about literacy. For, like, my kids, my kids are young, they're nine, seven and five. I need them to understand as they grow up and they get exposed to the Internet, that just because they're seeing a video of something doesn't mean it actually happened. And when I grew up and I saw a video, I could assume that that was a capture of a moment that happened in the real world. And what they're going to need to do is they're going to need to think about who is saying it, who's sharing it in this case, and what are their incentives and why might they be saying it. And there's going to be way more importance if you're going to make good decisions about what to trust and what to allow to inform your own opinions. We're going to have to shift emphasis away from the content itself and not to ignore it, but just away from it and put more on who's saying it and why they might be saying it.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah, but you're doing that as an involved parent.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

But as a platform, we can provide context, too, and we do today, but we can do more today. If you go to my profile, you can go to about this profile. You can see how long I've had this profile, what, what country I'm based in, how many times I've changed my username, a series of signals that you can use to decide how much you want to trust or not trust. Or maybe it's not even about positive and negative. Maybe it's just about my political bias or my financial bias or any other kind of bias.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah, it feels like it's evolving. Obviously, the Instagram app is evolving as well. That was a big part of our last conversation. I think people still think of. I shouldn't say I certainly still. Part of me thinks of Instagram as this feed of beautiful curated photos and videos. Like that is maybe. It's certainly an older way of thinking about it. You're leaning very hard into this sort of newer version of Instagram, which is DMs stories, Reels. Walk us through a little bit about where your priorities are with Instagram right now. Is the traditional feed a thing of the past at this point?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

It's certainly changing. All the growth in Instagram over the last five years or more has really come from DMs and reels and recommendations and stories. But we started as a feed of hypersaturated photos, glossy landscapes. You guys can all picture the aesthetic. And that's just not how people use Instagram anymore. Our biggest risk is that the world evolves. We don't keep up and we just become irrelevant. If we hadn't built DMs and stories and reels, you wouldn't be interviewing me on stage today. We wouldn't be relevant enough to show up at screen time. But moving it forward is also tricky. People get frustrated when they have an experience that they use for, call it half an hour a day, and then someone comes and changes it without asking them. So it's a balance. But we have to, because if we didn't, we would be in trouble. I mean, probably shouldn't do this because nobody can see the audience on camera. But how many of you use Instagram? It's okay if you don't raise your hand really high so I can see. Cool. How many of you keep your hand up have messaged someone in the last two days. Great. Now, how many of you have posted a story in the last couple days? All right, so maybe about half. From about. It was like 80%. How many of you posted something to feed in the last two days?

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

For those watching, the number of hands is very minimal.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

We have seven.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

We went from like almost everybody to seven. Yeah.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

That's how Instagram is used. We connect with friends, we explore our interests, but we do so by seeing a reel and sending it to someone who we think might enjoy it, or responding to a story or sharing a fleeting moment or posting a note. Actually, if you're younger than I am, posting to your feed is just not the primary way people express themselves.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

And that's evidenced by some of the stuff you're doing. So I want to get into this sort of test you're doing with Reels. You launch an iPad app, which people have been clamoring for for a long time. The iPad app opens directly into reels. So it doesn't open into the traditional feed. You're now kicked into this short form video experience. You're testing that in India as well?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Is this the future? Like a year from now, are we all going to open up Instagram and instead of seeing that feed, are we just going to be kicked into, you know, what Maybe feels like TikTok?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

So when you. Yeah, so the test in India right now is an opt in and it opens, you have stories at the top still. But if you scroll down, it scrolls into reels. But if you look at the reels tab and the main feed tab, there are two primary differences. One is full screen media at a time. So you see one piece, one photo or video at a time, and that is the reels tab. Whereas feed is free scrolling and then reels has more videos and more recommendations and feed has less, but they both have recommendations, they both have photos, they both have carousels, and they both have videos. It's just a balance. And so it's really a design difference and then a ranking difference. I think just swapping them doesn't really make sense. But I think that if a more immersive media is really driving all our growth, if we can figure out a way to transition the app to that being the experience that you swipe into, then that would probably be a good thing. If we can make it happen, the question is, can we make it happen responsibly without pissing everybody off, without really hurting the business? Because the monetization efficiency of video is lower by finding the Right balance. It's probably not ranked exactly as one is or the other is today, but that is definitely something I want to.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Explore from the outside. It's hard not to look at that and think TikTok. TikTok is driving this change for you. How much do you think about TikTok as a. It's obviously a major competitor, but I'm wondering how much something like this is driven maybe by what you're seeing from competition.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Curious about this data. What is this data? Adults 18 to 34, average audience by hour. I don't know what that means. Cool. Definitely think about TikTok. Definitely think about YouTube. Definitely think about Snapchat. I mean the immersive viewer predates TikTok, right? I think Kakao Stories pioneered the stories format which was an immersive viewer in Korea. It was popularized by Snapchat worldwide. So they should get a lot of credit for that. TikTok was applying that immersive viewer, that native first experience to short form video and they should get a lot of credit for that. And now obviously you've got YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook reels and the rest of it. We think a lot about TikTok because they are really good at what they do. They are better than I think the rest of the industry at this point at a couple things at breaking new talent at.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Is it like identifying up and coming creators? Is that what you mean?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Yeah. So the way it works is when you're ranking content and you want to drive engagement, it's easier to drive engagement by showing content that you know lots of people like than to try and discover content that you might love that you didn't even know about yet that might be from a really small name or a small creator. And that's called exploration based ranking. When you try to literally almost test out things to see if they have legs, if there's an audience for them, they are really good at exploration based ranking. We're closing that gap, but we're not all the way there yet. YouTube isn't actually great at that. YouTube is the best, I think in the market at paying out creators through rev share ads. That's because they're still mostly long form. And long form they've done a really good job with their pre roles and their mid roles. But I think TikTok has been really culturally relevant because they've been able to break small names, they've been really timely. See trends happen really quickly and they've just been reliably really fun and entertaining.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah, there's Obviously, I'm sure you followed there's a deal now, a proposed deal for TikTok to stay in the United States. It's kind of unique because it calls for the US Government to be somewhat involved in, if not managing, at least overseeing, this new US TikTok. Does this worry you at all like that the US government might perhaps have an incentive for TikTok to do better than Instagram.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Be careful of my words.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

We're all friends here. You're welcome to say whatever you want.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

What could go wrong?

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I'll say a few things. One, I do think it's good that TikTok is still going to be in the U.S. it would certainly make our lives easier on the professional side to have less competition, but I think competition is fundamentally healthy. They push us to do better work. I think it's good for the consumer and it's good for competition. So I'm glad that they're still going to be around on the specifics of the deal. It just seems all very hard to parse. It looks like more or less there's a bit of an ownership and a rev share change, but not an actual real change in how it's built and in, you know, because, you know, ByteDance and TikTok share code historically most of the most, the strongest ranking work has come out of China. Like, I don't see anything that suggests that any of how it's actually built is going to meaningfully change. It just seems like an ownership stake and a rev share going that's split between obviously ByteDance and the new owners here, but it's the same app, the same ranking system, the same creators, you're following the same people. It all sort of seamless. So it seems a little bit hard to. I'm not sure what to make of that. It doesn't seem like it's a major change in terms of incentives. Yeah, I mean we always want to be considered. We always want to consider all the incentives of the most relevant parties involved. But I just want to stay focused on how do we make sure Instagram does a great job where they're better than us, how do we catch up where we think we've got a competitive advantage, how do we double down and how do we keep moving forward and trying to make Instagram as valuable as possible for people and then try not to get too sucked into the noise of the drama of the week who.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

May be supporting your direct competitors, all that stuff.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

We think about it, but we try to focus on what we can control and Spend less time on what we cannot.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

We only have a few more minutes. This always flies by.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

It really does.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

There was a report that you guys are building a TV app. Are you building a TV app? Let's make some news. This is it.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

We're exploring TV. TV's an increasingly important surface. It's been very important for YouTube. Neil's talked about that publicly, the CEO there. It's been very important for TikTok. So we'd like to figure out how to make sure that we have. We show up in a compelling way on all the relevant devices. So we're definitely exploring it, but nothing to announce today.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Why now, though? Why explore it now versus a few years ago? Because, as you point out, I wish.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

We had explored it a few years ago. Okay.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Why didn't you?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

We've been busy. It seems like every year is a little bit more intense and a little bit more wild. I see that as a mistake, though, on my part, so I'll take ownership for that. We've been focusing a lot on ranking. We've been focusing a lot on evolving the experience forward. We've been focusing a lot on safety and parents. We've been focusing a lot on just compliance. Like I said, the biggest risk that we face is that the world changes too quickly. Not too quickly. It's going to change quickly. And we don't change quick enough to adapt. And if behavior in the consumption of these platforms is moving to tv, then we need to move to TV too, as a form factor. And if we're late, that's on us right now. That's on me.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

It's on you right now.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

These videos with your deep voice that sounded heavy.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

It came off a little more dramatic than I expected. When I'm on Instagram looking at video, it's almost all vertical video. When I look at a tv, it's not. Have you, through this exploration, have you thought about whether the stuff that's on Instagram today works on TV or do you need to go out and, you know, basically source new video that fits a TV screen?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I think the vertical content can work on tv because I think we can also show. There's a couple. We can show social context. We can show you the comments, we can show who else is watching. There's a bunch of things we can do with that space. We do still have horizontal content. We might need to lean into that too. But I'd rather first figure out how we can embrace the content ecosystem that already exists and the creatives that already exist on the platform. And if we have to expand, if it turns out we have to expand, then we'll certainly consider that.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Then I was going to say, is there a world in which you go and license more kickback content?

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I don't like licensing content if I can avoid it. We pay for lots of licensing in general. People are going to share stuff on our platform whether or not we want them to, music licenses, et cetera. We're always going to try to make sure we pay people for the rights when we need to. But I'm not interested in trying to go get sports rights or exclusive entertainment rights because I'd much rather be the second screen. I'd much rather be where you talk about the game or the movie we're in. I feel like connecting with your friends and short form video can be really symbiotic and short form video and long form video can be really symbiotic. But long form video and connecting with your friends is really difficult to do in one place. If you're just watching a basketball game or a movie or an hour long show, it's a lot of time that you're not actually talking to a friend. A lot of things you're not sending to friends or seeing that you might send to friends, et cetera. So I'd rather focus on user generated content creators, AI and less on premium long form licensed content.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

We've hit all the zeros very last, so that I don't get in trouble. What's your one tip? If you're a creator trying to hit it big on Instagram today, what's the one piece of advice you would give? And again, short, so that I don't get, you know.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

Yeah, you don't get too much trouble. Now I can just filibuster and get.

[Interviewer (Bloomberg Host)]

Yeah, exactly, get me back.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I think it's really important to be intentional specifically to articulate what you're trying to accomplish by using a platform like Instagram. So you might be trying to sell a product or raise awareness for a cause, or, you know, build up demand for a brand. Just write down what you're trying to accomplish and then also to be very clear about what is going to actually resonate with an audience, what's going to work on the platform. And you need to find a content strategy that is at the overlap of those two things. Because reach is great, but reach is a means to an end. So if you find content that is engaging, but it's not actually helping you move towards your goals, it's useless. And if you find content that is going to help you with your goals, but no one sees it. It's not going to be effective. It is much harder to find a content strategy that does both. But that's the job, that's the work. And that's going to require persistence, intentionality, and experimentation. But I really preach the overlap.

[Akshat Ratty (Zero Podcast Host)]

There are two kinds of people in the world. People who think about climate change and people who are doing something about it. On the Zero podcast, we talk to both kinds of people. People you've heard of, like Bill Gates.

[Adam Massari (Head of Instagram at Meta)]

I'm looking at what the world has to do to get to zero, not using climate as a moral crusade, and.

[Akshat Ratty (Zero Podcast Host)]

The creative minds you haven't heard of yet. It is serious stuff, but never doom and gloom. I am Akshat Ratty. Listen to Zero every Thursday from Bloomberg Podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.