Setting a Portfolio-Wide Product Strategy for Meta as Its Product Leader

Imagine you have just become head of product at Meta. What would you do in the role? Explain how you would size up where Meta's products stand today, which strategic priorities you would set, how you would choose between competing options and order them over time, and how you would tell whether your strategy is working. The question is sometimes posed another way: Meta's founder has stepped down, the board has made you CEO, and you are asked what you would do with Meta's products. Answer that version the same way, as product leadership across the whole portfolio, with the leadership change added to what you handle first. ```hint Start from how Meta makes money Begin with what Meta's apps exist to do for people and how that turns into revenue, then ask which forces threaten each part. Ideas that protect today's business and ideas that build the next one belong on different time horizons and need different measures of success. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does the remit cover every Meta product (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, the AI assistant, and the headset and smart-glasses work), or a single app? - Which outcome should the strategy serve first: engagement among younger users, advertising revenue, new revenue beyond ads, or the long-term bet on new computing devices? - Is the horizon the next year, or the next three to five years? - Are acquisitions a realistic lever, given the antitrust scrutiny Meta's earlier deals have attracted? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal tied to Meta's mission and its advertising-funded business model, with the scope of the role made explicit. - An assessment specific to Meta: reach and network effects across its apps, competition for attention, weaker ad signals after mobile privacy changes, regulation, and trust. - Several distinct strategic options judged against stated criteria such as value to people, revenue, defensibility, time to impact and cost. - A clear recommendation sequenced across time horizons, including what would be deprioritized and why. - Success metrics and guardrails for each priority, plus the main risks and how the plan would adapt. ### Follow-up Questions - The board asks you to sharply cut spending on headsets and glasses. What would you keep, and what evidence would change your mind? - Recommendation-driven feeds raise time spent, but users say they see fewer posts from friends. How do you handle that tension? - How would your priorities change if you led only WhatsApp? - What other initiatives should Meta take on, and why? For each one, argue whether it adds real strategic value or is only a nice-to-have.