WASHINGTON — Mark Zuckerberg lamented the rise of "culturally neutered" companies that have sought to distance themselves from "masculine energy," adding that it’s good if a culture "celebrates the aggression a bit more."
"Masculine energy I think is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it," Zuckerberg said during a nearly three-hour-long conversation with podcaster Joe Rogan published on Friday.
"It's like you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy," Zuckerberg said during the episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. "I think that that’s all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung toward being this somewhat more neutered thing," he added, before discussing his passions for mixed martial arts and hunting invasive pigs in Hawaii.
Zuckerberg, who launched his career by rating the attractiveness of women at Harvard University, added that he grew up with three sisters and has three daughters, and wants women to succeed in corporations.
"If you're a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it's too masculine. It's — there isn't enough of the energy that you may naturally have," he told Rogan. "You want women to be able to succeed and have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people no matter what their background or gender."
Meta's policy changes
The podcast episode was released just days after Meta loosened its content moderation policies for Instagram and Facebook to allow more leniency for users criticising immigrants, transgender and nonbinary people, or making exclusionary statements based on someone’s sex or gender. On Tuesday, Meta also announced the end of third-party fact-checking in the United States, and on Friday, the company said it was halting many of its internal training and hiring efforts aimed at making its workforce more diverse.
The Friday episode marked Zuckerberg's second appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan, who is considered to be the most popular podcaster in the world, has 19 million subscribers on Google's YouTube and more than 15 million on Spotify.
In the interview, Zuckerberg expressed discomfort about engaging with the traditional press, adding that podcasts are helping to fuel a "sea change in terms of who are the voices that matter."
President-elect Donald Trump joined Rogan's podcast as Election Day neared last year, fuelling what came to be dubbed the "podcast election" as campaigns turned to them instead of traditional media to get out their message. Zuckerberg has been repositioning his company to be more Trump-friendly in recent months and had dinner with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's club in Florida. Zuckerberg also plans to attend Trump's inauguration.
Zuckerberg slams Biden
Since the US election, Zuckerberg has sought to align himself with the incoming administration — praising Trump publicly, donating to his inaugural fund, appointing a key supporter to Meta's board and most recently changing his platforms' content policies.
Zuckerberg criticised the Biden administration during the Rogan interview, claiming White House officials would "scream" and "curse" at Meta employees amid discussions about how to moderate content related to Covid-19 during the pandemic.
"It was brutal," Zuckerberg said, adding that the administration overstepped in its requests to take down posts about the coronavirus pandemic, including satire, sowing distrust among the electorate. He previously wrote about these complaints in a letter to Congress in August.
"The US government should be defending its companies, not be at the tip of the spear attacking its companies," Zuckerberg said. In contrast, the Facebook founder said he is "optimistic" about Trump returning to the White House.
"I think he just wants America to win," Zuckerberg said.
President Joe Biden, in a rare White House press conference on Friday evening, expressed dismay over Meta's decision.
"It's just completely contrary to everything America is about. We want to tell the truth. We haven't always done it as a nation. We want to tell the truth," said the president. "And you know, when you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff, it is — anyway, I think it’s really shameful."
