Connect with us

Published

on

In this article

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency Libra, how his company will handle false and misleading information by political leaders during the 2020 campaign and how it handles its users’ data and privacy.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came out swinging at the start of the company’s third-quarter earnings call Monday, defending its research on how its services affect users, following numerous press reports Monday based on documents leaked by a former employee.

“Good faith criticism helps us get better,” Zuckerberg said. “But my view is that what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company. The reality is that we have an open culture, where we encourage discussion and research about our work so we can make progress on many complex issues that are not specific to just us.”

Zuckerberg said Facebook does this work “because we care about getting this right.”

The reports came from a consortium of 17 news outlets in the U.S. that were provided internal research by Frances Haugen, a former employee who also provided the documents to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking whistleblower status. They follow an earlier series based on the same documents by The Wall Street Journal, which prompted hearings in Congress and abroad.

The reports revealed that Facebook had been aware of the ways its own services could negatively impact some users’ mental health, push polarized recommendations to users and spread potentially dangerous misinformation. While Facebook has taken steps to make its platform safer on all of these counts, the company’s detractors say it hasn’t acted boldly or quickly enough.

A theme in Zuckerberg’s argument was that the problems Facebook experiences are a reflection of society.

“These issues aren’t primarily about social media,” Zuckerberg said. “That means that no matter what Facebook does, we’re never going to solve them on our own.”

He said polarization began rising in the U.S. “before I was born” while pointing to unspecified research finding that countries with similar social media use have seen stagnant or declining polarization.

He said Facebook often needs to choose between a host of trade-offs, such as providing encryption versus supporting law enforcement investigations.

“It makes a good sound bite to say that we don’t solve these impossible trade-offs because we’re just focused on making money, but the reality is these questions are not primarily about our business, but about balancing different difficult social values,” he said.

Zuckerberg said he has called for regulation so that companies like Facebook aren’t the ones that have to choose between those trade-offs.

He said he’s proud of the research Facebook has done and emphasized the company’s investments in safety and security measures.

But, he said, he worries the response to Facebook’s research could create negative incentives for other businesses to do similar work.

“I worry about the incentives that we are creating for other companies to be as introspective as we have been,” he said. “But I am committed to continuing this work because I believe it will be better for our community and our business over the long term.”

A new ‘North Star’

Toward the end of his opening statement, Zuckerberg announced a new strategic vision for the future of the platform. He said that rather than make Facebook a place that caters to the greatest number of people, it will now place a greater focus on young adults, ages 18-29.

“We are retooling our teams to make serving young adults their North Star, rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people,” Zuckerberg said. “Like everything, this will involve trade-offs in our product, and it will likely mean the rest of our community will grow more slowly than it otherwise would have. But it should also mean that our services become stronger for young adults.”

Zuckerberg said the shift would take “years, not months.”

That change and others Zuckerberg mentioned, including refreshing Facebook and Instagram to put an emphasis on video and leaning into its Reels short video product, would make the platform more similar to TikTok and go after an important part of its user base. Zuckerberg pointed to TikTok as one of the most formidable competitors it’s seen.

Facebook often brings up TikTok’s rapid growth when faced with questions about its own vast power, which is the subject of an antitrust complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has accused Facebook of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the personal social networking space, in part through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Several reports from the leaked documents showed Facebook has increasingly worried about the lack of engagement on its main platform among younger users, which would create an existential threat to its future. Still, the focus on young adults, rather than teens under 18, could ease pressure from lawmakers and others who have warned Facebook against making a version of its products for kids.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

WATCH: How Big Tech could hold on to 2021 gains amid the latest regulation push

Continue Reading

Technology

Snap stock surges 13% after announcing Perplexity AI deal, reporting strong revenue

Published

on

By

Snap stock surges 13% after announcing Perplexity AI deal, reporting strong revenue

Scott Olson | Getty Images

Snap stock surged 13% on Thursday after announcing a $400 million deal with Perplexity AI and releasing its third-quarter financial results.

The company said that it will be integrating Perplexity’s artificial intelligence-powered search engine directly into the Snapchat app.

As part of the agreement, Perplexity is set to pay the social media platform $400 million over one year “through a combination of cash and equity,” according to Snap’s letter to investors.

The social media company expects to start seeing revenue from the deal in 2026.

“Snap’s strategic partnership with Perplexity AI represents a meaningful step toward building out alternative revenue streams, as similar to Pinterest, large advertisers in the US seem to be pulling back from advertising on the platform,” Deutsche’s Benjamin Black said in a note Thursday.

Snap posted solid third-quarter results, reporting revenue of $1.51 billion, which beat LSEG estimates of $1.49 billion.

The company’s daily active users increased 8% year over year to 477 million, surpassing StreetAccount’s projection of 476 million.

Read more CNBC tech news

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Snapchat 3 month stock chart.

Continue Reading

Technology

Duolingo stock plunges 27% on light guidance as company prioritizes user growth

Published

on

By

Duolingo stock plunges 27% on light guidance as company prioritizes user growth

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Duolingo‘s stock cratered 27% on lighter-than-expected guidance as the language learning platform zeroed in on user growth in lieu of near-term monetization.

“We have made a slight shift over the last quarter in how we invest, and we’re investing a lot more in long-term things because we see that as such a big opportunity ahead of us,” CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

For the current quarter, Duolingo expects bookings to range between $329.5 million and $335.5 million, falling short of a $344.3 million estimate from FactSet. Adjusted EBITDA was forecasted to range between $75.4 million and $78.8 million, versus the $80.5 million expected.

Duolingo grew paid subscribers to 11.5 million and topped the 11.38 million expected by StreetAccount. But daily and monthly active users came up short at 50.5 million and 135.3 million, respectively. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had forecasted 51.2 million daily and 137.4 million monthly users.

Read more CNBC tech news

Over the last several months, Duolingo has implemented a slew of new artificial intelligence tools, including an interactive video call feature to try and lure more paying subscribers. The company has also rolled out more language courses in record time with the help of AI.

“There are experiments that put monetization and user growth at odds, and part of my job has been, always, arbitrating between these two,” von Ahn told CNBC.

Over the last few months, he said the company has been “really shifting that trade off to be much more towards user growth.”

Duolingo’s revenues grew 41% during the quarter to $272 million, surpassing the $260 million estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. Total bookings jumped 33% year over year to about $282 million and also beat estimates.

Net income grew to $292.2 million, or $5.95 per share, up from $23.4 million, or 49 cents per share in the year-ago period. The company said net income was helped by a one-time tax income benefit of $222.7 million.

Duolingo also boosted its full-year revenue guidance to between $1.0275 billion and $1.0315 billion. That’s up from its previous guidance of $1.01 billion to $1.02 billion.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Duolingo one day stock chart.

Continue Reading

Technology

Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Reynolds-backed password manager tops $400 million in ARR on AI tail winds

Published

on

By

Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Reynolds-backed password manager tops 0 million in ARR on AI tail winds

Ryan Reynolds (L), Scarlett Johansson (C), and Matthew McConaughy

Reuters

Cybersecurity startup 1Password, by Ryan Reynolds, Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson, has topped more than $400 million in annual recurring revenue, the company said Thursday.

“We believe we’re at a pretty significant inflection point in our journey,” CEO David Faugno told CNBC. “We’re set up for this next wave of disruption, which I think is an even bigger opportunity for us.”

Faugno said he expects the company to surpass a billion dollars in ARR over the next “several years,” benefiting from a shift in the threat landscape due to artificial intelligence and more complex protection needs.

In 2023, 1Password announced that it had surpassed $250 million in ARR.

AI innovation has accelerated demand for better cybersecurity tools to counteract sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Big deals from Palo Alto Networks and Alphabet, and initial public offerings from Netskope and SailPoint have also put the sector in the spotlight.

Toronto-based 1Password was founded in 2005 and counts IBM, Perplexity AI, Salesforce and the Golden State Warriors among its customers, and it’s also signed a multiyear deal with Formula 1 team Oracle Red Bull Racing. The company says it secures more than 1.3 billion human and machine credentials and works with 180,000 business customers.

Additionally, 1Password on Thursday announced it is bringing on former ChargePoint and Barracuda Networks executive Michael Hughes. Former Qualtrics and SAP executive John Torrey will join as chief business officer.

Faugno said both executives complement the company’s strategy to lure larger enterprise customers.

Over the last year, 1Password has undergone a major C-suite shake-up.

Longtime leader Jeff Shiner, who ran 1Password for 13 years, transitioned into executive chair of the board in July. Faugno, who had been promoted to co-CEO a few months earlier, took over the role solely at that time. Faugno joined 1Password in 2023 as president and operating chief.

To date, 1Password has raised about $950 million and is valued at $6.8 billion, according to Pitchbook data. Other investors include actor Justin Timberlake, comedian Trevor Noah, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz and investment firm Iconiq, according to Pitchbook.

Faugno told CNBC that the company is weighing a possible IPO in 2026 or 2027, but isn’t “rushing out to go public.” He said 1Password remains focused on providing the best tools for its customers.

“We control our own destiny,” he said. “From a profitability perspective, we have investors that are playing the long game with us.”

WATCH: CrowdStrike CEO: Don’t buy idea AI will kill software, need it to protect AI

CrowdStrike CEO: Don't buy idea AI will kill software, need it to protect AI

Continue Reading

Trending