At Meta we celebrate Metaversaries. 8 years ago today, I joined Facebook. Keeping up with my annual tradition, I take time on this day to step back and reflect on what I’ve learned over the past year.

Year 8 was easily one of the most challenging years in recent memory. Beyond a war, the macroeconomic climate, industry layoffs, the rapid rise of AI, and global turmoil, there were also many quieter, internal shifts that tested my resilience. Navigation during turbulent times isn’t easy, but it is deeply instructive.

Here are 8 hard-earned truths from my 8th year at Meta:

1. Don’t fall for vanity metrics. It is easy to celebrate flashy surface-level numbers. The temptation is to treat metrics that are easy to track as core goals—until those proxy metrics become the target, optimization turns into gaming, and the whole system strays off course (just ask Goodhart). Genuine progress isn’t measured by easy counting; it is measured by sustainable impact, real utility, and long-term value creation. Nothing less, nothing more.
2. Building (with AI) is fun again. Building has moved past the honeymoon phase of novelty. The initial thrill of “magic” has been replaced by the far deeper satisfaction of utility and craft. For a long time, I stepped away from hands-on building for all the usual reasons—time constraints, setup friction, and overhead. But tools like Claude (and Muse since it was hatched) changed the equation: they stripped away the setup friction, handled the tedious implementation details, and drastically shrank the gap between an idea and a working prototype. It freed me up to focus on product thinking, creative problem-solving, and user experience rather than getting bogged down in boilerplate syntax. I was able to revive old side projects, build utility tools I’d been wishing for, and even push code to production for the first time since my onboarding week.
3. Endless learning. Change has been a constant throughout my career, but the sheer velocity of shift this past year raised the baseline—learning new things felt like table stakes just to stay afloat. The real currency hasn’t just been knowledge, but adaptability. Stagnation is no longer just standing still; it is actively falling behind. Staying curious, investing time to understand how new tools work and what they can offer, and constantly questioning my own assumptions became a weekly ritual rather than an annual reflection. We are playing Alien Chess, after all.
4. Having opinions is sexy again — don’t delegate your critical thinking. In an environment saturated with agentic data collection and automated analysis, human judgment is now at a premium. While AI can build whatever you ask for—and even generate the documentation to justify it—it takes conviction, intuition, and strategic clarity to define what actually matters. The temptation to let automated consensus or processes make the call is high, but the most crucial decisions still demand a point of view: one informed by data, but owned entirely by you.
   
   
   
5. Leading at a time of turmoil. Leading when everything is calm is challenging; leading through layoffs, strategic pivots, and global tension redefines the entire job. It requires providing psychological safety while remaining uncompromising on standards. I learned that during periods of extreme turbulence, your team doesn’t need false certainty or rehearsed corporate speak—they need radical transparency about the challenges ahead, absolute clarity on what matters today, and a steady hand on the wheel when the map keeps changing. This past year reinforced that it is precisely in the most troubling times that true leaders surface—not by avoiding the storm, but by being the calm reference point that others can anchor to.
6. From chatting to delegating. This year, my relationship with delegation evolved fundamentally, applied equally to how I lead people and how I leverage AI. In both interfaces, it shifted away from narrow directives, frequent check-ins, and ongoing alignment. Instead, I was delegating entire bodies of work and taking myself out of the loop. When you step back from managing how the work is done, establishing clear intent, boundaries, and measurable objectives becomes absolutely critical. This high-trust, outcome-focused model is the only way to scale—whether you are leading a talented team or directing agentic systems.
7. Communication is the ultimate hard skill. We often label communication as a “soft skill”, but in times of rapid change, organizational restructuring, and high ambiguity, it is the hardest technical discipline there is. Technical expertise gets you in the room, but precise, empathetic, and transparent communication is what actually drives alignment and moves mountains. When everything is in flux, ambiguity is toxic—and the ability to frame complex problems, deliver hard truths with candor, and align diverse teams behind a single intent becomes the ultimate high-leverage skill.
8. Culture is built over years and can be shattered in one decision — values are the most important thing that brings people together. Strategy, organization charts, and product roadmaps evolve constantly, but culture is often assumed to be an enduring constant. However, culture is fragile. It takes years of consistent choices, trust-building, and shared experiences to cultivate, yet a single decision can break it overnight. When structural shifts or rapid change disrupt the familiar culture, you can’t rely on office perks or old routines to keep people together. In those moments of transition, it’s core values—the foundational principles of how we act and treat each other—that are the anchor that keeps people grounded, aligned, and united. And if those core values are scarce, retention becomes an uphill battle.

Entering Year 9 means that Meta is officially becoming the longest I have ever stayed at a single company. Crossing that line says a lot about this place, the great people I work with who make it worth showing up for every day, and how much I’ve grown along the way. Onward!