Meta Platforms
Meta's mission is to build the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible. The company is focused on developing the metaverse—an interconnected digital ecosystem spanning virtual and augmented reality technologies.
Founding Story
The company was originally established on February 4, 2004 as TheFacebook, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin, and Andrew McCollum while they were students at Harvard University. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. The site was initially exclusive to Harvard students before expanding to other universities. In June 2004, Facebook moved to Palo Alto, California. On September 20, 2005, thefacebook.com officially dropped the 'the' and became Facebook. The company was renamed Facebook, Inc. in 2005.
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Leadership
Founders
Mark Zuckerberg
Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Meta. Studied computer science at Harvard University before moving the company to Palo Alto, California. Responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy.
Eduardo Saverin
Co-founder who served as the company's first chief financial officer and business manager. Brazilian-born, worked on Facebook's business aspects and was the first co-founder to part ways with the company.
Dustin Moskovitz
Co-founder who worked as a programmer on Facebook. Later went on to co-found Asana and Good Ventures. Named the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
Chris Hughes
Co-founder who helped promote and develop the site in its early days alongside Zuckerberg, Saverin, and Moskovitz.
Andrew McCollum
Co-founder who served as the site's graphic artist in the early days of Facebook.
Executive Team
Mark Zuckerberg
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Founded Facebook in 2004. Studied computer science at Harvard University. Responsible for setting overall direction and product strategy, leading design of services and development of core technology and infrastructure.
Dina Powell McCormick
President and Vice Chairman
More than 25 years of experience in global finance, national security and economic development. Spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs as a partner and Management Committee member. Served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald J. Trump and Assistant Secretary of State under President George W. Bush.
Business Model
Revenue Model
Meta's business model is primarily advertising-based, allowing its services to be free for users. Advertising accounted for 97.8% of total revenue as of 2023. The company operates a dual-sided market serving end-users and advertisers. Revenue comes from selling ad space on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger using a variable pricing model based on auctioning ad placements. Additionally, Meta offers a subscription model in Europe for ad-free services and generates revenue from Reality Labs hardware sales (VR/AR devices). The company also provides enterprise solutions through Workplace by Facebook.
Pricing Tiers
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads are free for end users, supported by advertising revenue
Entry-level mixed reality headset with 4.5X the resolution compared to Quest 2
Premium mixed reality headset with Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, double the GPU processing power
Professional-grade VR headset with pancake lenses and advanced features
Premium subscription offering ad-free experience on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in European markets
Enterprise platform for internal communication and collaboration
Target Markets
- Individual consumers (B2C) - global users across all age groups
- Advertisers and businesses (B2B) - over 3 million active advertisers as of 2016
- Small and medium businesses
- Enterprise organizations
- Content creators and influencers
- Developers building on Meta platforms
- Social networking and connecting with friends and family
- Content sharing (photos, videos, stories)
- Instant messaging and communication
- Business-to-consumer marketing and advertising
- E-commerce and online shopping
- Virtual and mixed reality gaming
- 3 million+ active advertisers
- 200 million businesses using Meta's tools
- Sevilla FC
- Spotify
History & Milestones
Dana White, John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst join Meta Board of Directors
Llama hits 1 billion downloads
Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick released - first open-weight natively multimodal models with mixture-of-experts architecture
Oakley Meta glasses, Performance AI glasses, introduced
Stock reached an all-time high; surpassed $1 trillion market capitalization
2 AI Tools by Meta Platforms
Meta AI
2moAI assistant by Meta powered by Llama 4, integrated across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and available as a standalone app and web experience.
Meta Llama
9moState-of-the-art open-source large language models for commercial and research use
