He definitely has horrible product instincts, but he also bought insta and whatsapp at what were, back then, eye-watering prices, and these were clearly massive successes in terms of killing off threats to the mothership. Everything since then, though…

I know but isn't "massive success" rubbing up against antitrust here? The condition was "Don't share data with Facebook"

He’s an incredible operator and has managed to acquire and grow an astounding number of successful businesses under the Meta banner. That is not trivial.

Almost every company in Facebook's position in 2005 would have disappeared into irrelevance by now.

Somehow it's one of the most valuable businesses in the world instead.

I don't know him, but, if not him, who else would be responsible for that?

We were very confident by ca. 2008 that Facebook would still be around in 2025. It's no mystery, it's the network effects. They had started with a prestige demographic (Harvard), and secured a demographic you could trust to not move on to the next big thing in a hurry, yet which most people want contact with (your parents).

It didn't even start as a social network - it started off as a site to vote on the hotness of female Harvard students based on stolen photos.

It just so happened that he does appear to have some leadership and business talent, but IMO the company is still as creepy as it ever was.

In fairness it was apparently both genders