Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, Millennials, and predictions for 2030

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Mark Zuckerberg emails Peter Thiel - January 4, 2020

马克·扎克伯格给彼得·泰尔发电子邮件 2020 年 1 月 4 日

From: Mark Zuckerberg Sent: Saturday, January 4, 2020 2:36 PM To: Nick Clegg, Peter Thiel, Antonio Lucio Cc: Sheryl Sandberg, Marc Andreessen Subject: Re: Milennials

Peter: thanks for writing this all out and helping us articulate this.

Nick and others: for more background, Peter and I have had a number of conversations about what we expect the world to look like in 2030 so we can plan and position our future work accordingly. One theme we've discussed is that many important institutions in our society (eg education, healthcare, housing, efforts to combat climate change) are still run primarily by boomers in ways that transfer a lot of value from younger generations to boomers themselves. Our macro prediction for the next decade is that we expect this dynamic to shift very rapidly as more millennials + gen Zers can now vote and as the boomer generation starts to shrink. By the end of this decade, we expect more of these institutions to be run by and for the benefit of millennials and younger generations. I would bet we'll even see a millennial president within the next few cycles by 2032. This outlook for the future puts our current tone and positioning in stark contrast and has convinced me that we should shift the center of gravity in our messaging to be more focused on millennials.

From a policy perspective, even if boomers are still defining the policies right now, we should make sure we're setting ourselves up to win the debates over the next 5+ years and not just today. We want to be on the side of the future. So this still feels relevant.

From a marketing and comms perspective, this discussion also helps answer a question I've struggled with for some time: who is our core demographic? In trying to build a service for everyone, it often feels like we're not focused on anyone in particular. But because our service is built primarily by millennials, there has been a clear evolution where as our employees and I age and have kids, for example, our products evolve and get better for people in their 30s with kids. If we embrace that we are a company that is playing a disproportionate role in defining the experience of this generation as we grow and evolve, that could also be clarifying in terms of how we talk and who we're talking to.

Beyond how we talk, there's also a question of which issues we focus on and try to provide solutions for. For example, we work a lot on housing, but perhaps there are specific things we could do to make housing more affordable with an emphasis on younger people who don't have large families yet. Or given that so many people graduate college today burdened with crazy amounts of debt, perhaps we should have a larger program for hiring people who didn't go to college to help show that that's a reasonable path as well.

Finally, I think there's also some distinction between me and the company here. While our company has a special role in the lives of this generation, this is likely particularly important for how I show up because I am the most well-known person of my generation. That's why Peter and I have spent some timing discussing things like my philanthropy and commencement speech beyond just FB policies and products. I think this overall shift is something we should consider for how our company communicates and shows up more broadly, but it's something I'm definitely going to think about more in terms of how I communicate.

cn1

发件人：马克·扎克伯格 发送时间：2020年1月4日，周六，下午2:36 收件人：尼克·克莱格，彼得·蒂尔，安东尼奥·卢西奥 抄送：谢丽尔·桑德伯格，马克·安德森 主题：关于千禧一代

彼得：感谢你详细记录这些内容，帮助我们清晰表达这一点。

尼克及其他人：为了提供更多背景，彼得和我进行了多次讨论，探讨了我们对2030年世界的预期，以便我们能相应地规划和定位未来的工作。我们讨论的一个主题是，目前社会中许多重要机构（如教育、医疗、住房以及应对气候变化的举措）依然主要由婴儿潮一代领导，他们运作的方式往往将大量价值从年轻一代转移到他们自己手中。我们对未来十年的宏观预测是，随着越来越多的千禧一代和Z世代拥有投票权，以及婴儿潮一代开始逐渐减少，这种动态会迅速改变。到本十年末，我们预计更多这些机构将由千禧一代及年轻一代领导，并为他们的利益服务。我敢打赌，到2032年之前，我们甚至会看到一位千禧一代的总统。这种对未来的展望与我们当前的语调和定位形成了鲜明对比，并让我坚信，我们应当在信息传达中更多地关注千禧一代。

从政策的角度看，即便目前还是由婴儿潮一代制定政策，我们也要确保在未来5年及更长时间内赢得这些政策的辩论，而不仅仅是着眼于当下。我们希望站在未来的一边，所以这仍然是很有意义的。

从市场和传播的角度来看，这次讨论也有助于回答我长期以来的一些困惑：我们的核心用户群体是谁？在试图为所有人服务的过程中，常常觉得我们没有特别关注任何一个群体。然而，由于我们的服务主要由千禧一代打造，我们的产品显然随着我们的员工以及我的年龄增长和成家等变化有所演进，变得更适合30多岁有孩子的人。如果我们接受我们公司在定义这一代人的体验方面起着不成比例的作用，那么这也可以明确我们对外沟通的方式和对象。

除了沟通方式外，还有一个关于我们关注的问题和我们想要解决的问题。例如，我们在住房方面投入了大量工作，但也许我们可以做些具体的事情，以更好地解决年轻人负担不起住房的问题，尤其是那些尚未成家的人们。或者，鉴于如今许多人大学毕业时背负着大量债务，也许我们可以更大规模地招募那些没有上过大学的人，以展示这也是一条可行的道路。

最后，我认为我和公司在这里也存在一定的区别。虽然我们的公司在这一代人的生活中扮演着特殊角色，但这对我的重要性尤其突出，因为我可能是我们这一代中最知名的人。这就是为什么彼得和我花时间讨论我的慈善事业和演讲，而不仅仅是FB的政策和产品。我认为这种整体的转变值得我们思考公司如何更广泛地传达和展示自己，同时我也会特别考虑自己在沟通上的改变。

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Peter Thiel on Facebook and Millennials - December 31, 2019

Peter Thiel 在 Facebook 和千禧一代上的表现 2019 年 12 月 31 日

From: Peter Thiel Date: Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 1:03 AM To: Nick Clegg Cc: Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Marc Andreessen Subject: Re: Milennials

Hi Nick,

I thought it might be helpful to put some of my thoughts in writing and am taking the liberty of cc'ing a few others here.

In important ways, Facebook is the Millennial company par excellence. It was started by a team of Millennials and remains by far the most successful Millennial company; as measured by market capitalization, the next closest ones are Stripe and Airbnb, which at $35B and $30B, respectively, are each barely 5% the size of Facebook. The product was initially used by Millennial college students and became an important way in which the generational experience of Millennials differed radically from that of older people; and even today, Millennials remain our most active users.

As a result of this history and success, there is a certain sense in which Mark Zuckerberg has been cast as *the spokesman* for the Millennial generation — as the single person who gives voice to the hopes and fears and the unique experiences of this generation, at least in the USA. Some examples: When Mark shares on Facebook, a part of the narrative is a generational narrative, e.g., that young people are more comfortable with technology and therefore share more on Facebook than their elders. When Mark and Priscilla commit to giving away 99% of their wealth during their lifetimes (and do so at a much earlier age than, say, Buffett or Gates), then this story again gets understood in generational terms, e.g., that Millennials are more generous and philanthropic and start thinking about these things at a much earlier point in their lives. And more dramatically and powerfully, when Facebook connects the world, this gets cast in generational terms, e.g., that the younger generation will bridge the many divisions in our world and build a more peaceful world than past generations were able to build; and when these utopian hopes disappoint, Mark and Facebook receive a disproportionate amount of blame. [This whole arc was traced by David Kirkpatrick, whose 2011 book "The Facebook Effect" encapsulated his utopian projections for younger people generally and whose derangement in recent years can best be understood as the disappointment of these same unrealistic hopes.]

Of course, there are numerous ways in which this role (Mark as Millennial spokesman) is both pretty unfair and highly inappropriate. It is unfair because this much of a burden should not be placed on any single person; and it is inappropriate because Mark is a highly *unrepresentative* example of the Millennial generation, for a whole range of reasons that we do not need to enumerate. But even with these caveats, I believe that we might be better served by understanding that something like this is going on and trying to think about what it would mean for Mark to think of himself as a Millennial spokesman... and perhaps to contrast this with what I take to be our current policy (at least implicitly) — of Mark as a Baby Boomer construct of how a well-behaved Millennial is supposed to act. If forced to make a choice, I would always rather win popularity contests with Millennials than with Boomers!

[You can think of Pete Buttigieg as a (political) example of what Mark absolutely should *not* be: Buttigieg is very popular with older Baby Boomer voters and shockingly unpopular with Millennial voters of his age and younger. Buttigieg's basic message is that the system is working reasonably well and this is precisely why younger voters do not like him — he is the sort of super annoying Millennial who tells the Boomers what they want to hear and thereby glosses over the many ways in which the generational compact in our society has been badly broken.]

Now, it is much easier to describe a problem than to describe the solution, and I think a "Millennial tilt" or "Millennial message" needs to be thought through in very context-specific ways. Some of the following examples may be a bit unfair because 20/20 hindsight is always easier:

(1) As seen through a Boomer vs. Millennial lens, Mark's commencement speech at Harvard probably was a major missed opportunity. I take it as self-evident that universities worked for Boomers and do not work for younger people; and therefore the choice was between giving a positive speech that reassured the 60-something parents or a more critical speech that resonated with the 20-something graduates. In my judgment, we tilted way too far towards the former. [And I suspect that we never even thought that we were doing just that — if we are going to tilt in a Boomer direction, it should always be a matter of conscious choice.]

(2) From a Boomer vs. Millennial lens, one would have a very different set of philanthropic priorities. I would be tempted to draw a very sharp contrast between CZI and the Gates Foundation by asking questions about what kinds of philanthropy resonate with the younger generation (vs. what kinds of philanthropy Boomers think younger people should be doing!). As it is, CZI strikes me as a "me too" version of the Gates Foundation — which is problematic for the various reasons Marc and I discussed with Mark and Priscilla in Kauai.

(3) Perhaps we should consider Millennials as a diversity criterion for our Board of Directors. Besides some of the tech CEOs, who are the Millennials that we would consider adding to our Board? Should we aim to have two or three Millennials on our board? If we did, how would it change the nature of the discussion at the Board level?

(4) A more aggressive investment policy in the tech ecosystem in Silicon Valley would be another way in which Facebook could participate in and identify with the Millennial generation, closer to home. By contrast, the decision to spend money in buying back shares (from our Baby Boomer shareholders or the Baby Boomer money managers invested in Facebook stock) is perhaps the more conventionally Boomer tilt on what one should do with Facebook's positive cash flows.

These are just some brainstorming starters and I'm sure we can think of many other examples.

I will be back in California on January 3 and feel free to call me at [REDACTED]; would be happy to discuss more on the phone or in person.

Best, Peter

cn1

发件人：彼得·蒂尔 发送时间：2019年12月31日，周二，凌晨1:03 收件人：尼克·克莱格 抄送：马克·扎克伯格，谢丽尔·桑德伯格，马克·安德森 主题：关于千禧一代

嗨，尼克，

我认为将一些想法写下来可能会有帮助，因此冒昧地抄送了几位其他人。

从许多重要方面来说，Facebook是一家最典型的千禧一代公司。它由一支千禧一代的团队创立，并且迄今为止仍然是最成功的千禧一代公司；以市值衡量，紧随其后的公司是Stripe和Airbnb，但它们的市值分别为350亿美元和300亿美元，仅为Facebook的5%左右。这款产品最初由千禧一代的大学生使用，成为千禧一代在经历上与年长一代截然不同的重要方式；即使到今天，千禧一代仍然是我们最活跃的用户群体。

由于这一历史和成功，在某种意义上，马克·扎克伯格被塑造成了千禧一代的代言人——成为唯一一个代表这一代人在美国表达其希望、恐惧和独特经历的人。例如：当马克在Facebook上分享内容时，部分叙事就是一个代际叙事，比如，年轻人对技术更加适应，因此在Facebook上的分享比年长一代更多。当马克和普莉希拉承诺在有生之年捐出99%的财富（且比巴菲特或盖茨等人更早做出这个承诺）时，这个故事同样被理解为一个代际视角，比如千禧一代更加慷慨和具有慈善精神，并且在生活的早期就开始考虑这些事情。更具戏剧性和力量的是，当Facebook连接全球时，这也被描绘成一种代际的成就，比如年轻一代将弥合我们世界的诸多分歧，建立一个比以往世代更和平的世界；而当这些乌托邦式的希望未能实现时，马克和Facebook也承担了不成比例的责备。（戴维·柯克帕特里克在2011年出版的《Facebook效应》一书中追溯了这一叙事的整个弧线，书中对年轻人的理想化预测在近年因未达预期而令他感到失望。）

当然，将马克塑造成千禧一代的代言人这一角色在许多方面既不公平也不恰当。这种责任过于沉重，不应由任何一个人来承担；而且马克也是一个非常“不具代表性”的千禧一代，这其中的原因我们无需一一列举。但即便如此，我认为，若我们意识到这种趋势正在发生，并思考若马克以千禧一代代言人的身份自我定位会意味着什么，或许会更有利于我们，而不是像当前政策（至少隐含的政策）那样——将马克描绘成婴儿潮一代所期望的、行为得体的千禧一代。如果必须在两者之间选择，我宁愿赢得千禧一代的喜爱而非婴儿潮一代！

（你可以将皮特·布蒂吉格看作是马克不应成为的一个“政治”例子：布蒂吉格在年长的婴儿潮一代选民中很受欢迎，但在他这个年纪的千禧一代选民和更年轻一代中却非常不受欢迎。布蒂吉格的基本信息是系统运作得相当好，而这正是年轻选民不喜欢他的原因——他是那种对婴儿潮一代说他们想听的话的超级惹人烦的千禧一代，从而掩盖了我们社会中代际契约的严重破裂。）

当然，描述问题要比描述解决方案容易得多，我认为“千禧一代倾向”或“千禧一代信息”需要根据具体的情境深入考虑。以下一些例子可能有些不公平，因为事后看来更容易判断：

（1）从婴儿潮一代与千禧一代的视角来看，马克在哈佛的毕业演讲可能是一个重大错失的机会。我认为，大学对婴儿潮一代有效，但对年轻人却效果不佳；因此，选择是在一场正面的演讲中安抚60多岁的家长，还是在批判的演讲中与20多岁的毕业生产生共鸣。在我看来，我们过于倾向于前者。[我怀疑我们当时甚至没有意识到自己在这么做——如果我们要在婴儿潮一代方向倾斜，那应该总是经过深思熟虑的选择。]

（2）从婴儿潮一代与千禧一代的视角来看，慈善优先级将有很大不同。我可能会倾向于将CZI与盖茨基金会形成鲜明对比，提出这样的问题：什么样的慈善能够引起年轻一代的共鸣（与婴儿潮一代认为年轻人应该从事的慈善类型相对比）！目前的情况是，CZI在我看来是盖茨基金会的一个“跟随者”版本——这在马克、普莉希拉与我和马克·安德森在考艾岛讨论时显得有些问题。

（3）或许我们应该考虑将千禧一代作为董事会多元化的一个标准。除了科技界的几位CEO外，我们会考虑哪些千禧一代加入董事会？我们是否应当将目标定为拥有两到三位千禧一代董事？如果我们这样做，会如何改变董事会层面的讨论？

（4）在硅谷科技生态系统中采取更激进的投资政策，可能是Facebook以更贴近自身的方式参与和认同千禧一代的一种方式。相比之下，决定用资金回购股票（从我们的婴儿潮一代股东或投资Facebook股票的婴儿潮一代资金经理那里回购），则可能是对Facebook正向现金流更传统的婴儿潮一代式处理。

这些只是一些初步的头脑风暴，我相信我们还可以想出许多其他的例子。

我将于1月3日回到加州，随时可以给我打电话【已编辑】；我很乐意通过电话或当面讨论更多细节。

祝好， 彼得

[This document is from Tennessee v. Meta (2024).] [本文件来自田纳西州诉 Meta (2024)。]

Other documents from Tennessee v. Meta were first reported by@natashanyt(June 22, 2024): https://nytimes.com/2024/06/22/technology/zuckerberg-instagram-child-safety-lawsuits.html… 田纳西州诉梅塔案的其他文件首先由@natashanyt（2024 年 6 月 22 日）。