20Growth: Meta CMO Alex Schultz on How All Founders Have to Change Their Marketing Playbook in a World of AI | Is AI Plateauing, What it Means if China Wins the AI Race and Why Zuck is a Generational Leader
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this wide-ranging episode, Alex Schultz, CMO at Meta and author of "Click Here," delivers a masterclass on modern marketing while exploring the seismic shifts AI will bring to business and society. From explaining why (04:33) all marketing is performance marketing, to predicting that AI advances could lead to entire companies being run by one person, Alex shares frameworks for North Star metrics, growth team structures, and navigating the transition from early-stage scrappiness to scaled operations. The conversation spans Meta's dramatic pivot from follower-based feeds to AI-driven recommendations (52:03), the future of search and content creation in an AI-first world, and why continental-scale data centers (20:03) are critical for the next wave of AI breakthroughs—offering leaders both strategic frameworks and tactical insights for thriving in an increasingly AI-transformed landscape.
Speakers
Alex Schultz
Chief Marketing Officer at Meta, previously VP of Analytics at Facebook for over a decade. Author of the new book Click Here about modern online marketing, focused on performance marketing principles and North Star metrics for high-growth companies.
Harry Stebbings (Host)
Host of 20VC podcast (one of the top business podcasts globally). Venture capitalist and founder who interviews the world's leading tech executives, VCs, and startup founders about growth, strategy, and the future of technology.
Key Takeaways
Performance Marketing IS All Marketing
Abandon the false dichotomy between brand and performance marketing. (03:47) Every marketing dollar should deliver measurable results. Even brand campaigns must move metrics—whether sentiment, awareness, or long-term conversion. The hardest marketing isn't direct response; it's brand marketing that actually performs and moves what people feel about you over time.
Split Teams: Core Users vs. Marginal Users
At scale, create separate teams optimizing for power users versus new user acquisition. (07:23) Instagram's notification example proves this: power users need notifications OFF (they get thousands of likes), but new users need them ON (their first like is meaningful). Growth teams focus on marginal users; product teams serve power users. Without this split, employee power users will optimize only for themselves.
Retention Is Your Only Pre-PMF Metric
Before product-market fit, ignore MAU, ignore acquisition vanity metrics. (06:23) Focus obsessively on retention—do people keep using what you built? Companies that game acquisition metrics while ignoring retention hit a gravity wall when acquisition can't overwhelm churn. Get retention right first; everything else is noise until people actually want to return.
Continental Scale Training Breaks Power Limits
The next AI breakthrough requires training across multiple data centers and regions. (20:03) Single-location data centers max out at ~1 gigawatt; the largest power source (Three Gorges Dam) is only 22 gigawatts. To follow scaling laws, you must train across continents—maybe Microsoft's Diablo Canyon plant plus Three Mile Island. Geography becomes your competitive moat.
Click-to-Messaging: The $10B+ Undervalued Business
Business messaging through WhatsApp, Instagram Direct, and Messenger generates north of $10 billion annually and growing fast. (57:37) In Brazil and India—two of Meta's most important revenue countries—people skip desktop and mobile commerce, going straight to messaging-first transactions. Local hairdressers, shops, and services all operate through WhatsApp commerce, creating massive, underappreciated value.
Statistics & Facts
- Meta moved from 100% content shown based on people you follow to 70% of engagement being content you don't follow over five years, representing complete AI-driven disruption of their business model. (51:45)
- Click to messaging is a north of $10 billion business for Meta, with significant growth in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and India where WhatsApp commerce dominates. (57:37)
- Over 14,000 businesses use Pendo to increase revenue, lower costs, and reduce risks through their no-code software experience management platform. (02:10)
- More than 80% of innovation projects stall before reaching execution due to outdated processes, context switching, and misalignment between discovery and development phases. (02:38)
- Instagram's growth team achieved 6% boost in click-through rates using AI-optimized custom stickers for ad click targets, with corresponding increases in conversion rates. (39:42)
