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- Meta's CTO says that Mark Zuckerberg will often tell you you're wrong if you offer feedback.
- Then over the next few weeks, Zuckerberg will start to implement the changes.
- The CTO said he finds the feedback loop satisfying, even if you have to take the long view on it.
Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth said when you give Mark Zuckerberg feedback, he listens — and then he disagrees.
"He'll most often tell you that you're wrong," Bosworth said in an interview on "Lenny's Podcast" that came out on Sunday.
Even after he initially disagrees, Bosworth told host Lenny Rachitsky that Zuckerberg will attend several more meetings, which may be completely unrelated, and he'll ask people what they think of the proposed idea or feedback.
Bosworth said he believes Zuckerberg is trying to "pressure test" the feedback and understand different perspectives that he didn't already consider.
Then, he'll start to implement the changes he previously dismissed.
"It's uncanny," Bosworth said in the podcast. "Over the course of the next like week or two, you'll just see shifts."
Bosworth said this applies to all kinds of feedback, whether it's based on a product or his delivery in a meeting.
The CTO said Zuckerberg is voracious for all information and points of view. But he said the Meta boss absorbs so much of it every day that he ends up recompiling everything at night before he comes back to work.
Even if Zuckerberg does make changes based on feedback, Bosworth said he always has a reason for why he did what he did originally.
To be a CEO, Bosworth said that a person needs to have a high level of convinction. Zuckerberg, he said, has the strongest willpower of a person that he's ever met.
In the past, Zuckerberg's level of confidence has been labeled as arrogance, specifically in regard to when he acquired Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion without notifying Facebook's board.
Or, when he said in an AOL Instant Message conversation leaked in 2006 Harvard students were "dumb" to hand over their data. In the exchange, Zuckerberg told a friend that he had access to information he wanted on any Harvard student through Facebook. The CEO has since said he regretted the comments.
But Bosworth said the CEO is a very kind person to work for and he values a broad perspective on everything being discussed.
And despite Zuckerberg's roundabout way of accepting criticism, Bosworth said he finds the process satisfying.
"It really works. It's very effective," Bosworth said in the podcast interview. "But you do have to like take the long view on it."