Martin Harbech

We’re just 50 days into 2022, and already…

Nuclear fusion saw another major breakthrough… a ‘huge step’ in the quest for clean energy.

A woman was cured of HIV through a breakthrough stem cell treatment.

MIT engineers created an ‘impossible’ new material… stronger than steel but as light as plastic.

An international team of scientists used supercomputers to unlock a ‘giant leap’ in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

A new ‘game-changing’ carbon capture technology could deliver a step change in our ability to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Researchers set a new Guinness World Record for fastest-ever DNA sequencing technique… using it to sequence a human genome in just 5 hours and 2 minutes.

A new breakthrough in spinal cord implant ‘could potentially allow paralysed people to walk again’.

A ground-breaking new technology regrew a frog’s lost leg… and it might work on humans too.

Surgeons completed the first-ever heart transplant with a genetically-modified animal heart… saving the life of a 57-year-old and taking a big step towards helping solve the global donor organ shortage.

Biodegradable surgical tape has been invented… making some intestinal fixes as easy as ‘duct tape around leaky pipes’.

James Webb, the awe-inspiring $10 billion space telescope 25 years in the making, took its first images… a huge scientific milestone.

An autonomous drone carrying a defibrillator saved the life of a 71-year-old having a heart attack… a first in medical history.

Researchers in Sweden found a promising way to use solar power to convert carbon dioxide into fuel… using ultra-fast laser spectroscopy.

Just a few of many incredible achievements in the first 50 days of the year.

The world is far from perfect, but we shouldn’t forget that about 90% of all scientists that ever lived are alive today. Never before have we had so many people whose sole purpose of work is to better understand how the world works.

2022 is shaping up to be a remarkable year in science and technology.

Links to each achievement in first comment.

This is Vasili Arkhipov.

He was one of three officers on a Soviet submarine near Cuba in 1962... and the only one who said ‘no’ when his captain wanted to fire a nuclear torpedo against the US.

Vasili averted World War 3.

Arguably, he’s the reason most of us are alive today.

History shows us that sometimes the most important contribution an individual can make is to say ‘no’.

An important reminder.

Remember Amazon’s Fire Phone?

Arguably Amazon’s biggest failure ever.

$170 million in direct loss.

Bezos' reaction? 👇

“As a company grows, everything needs to scale, including the size of your failed experiments. If the size of your failures isn’t growing, you’re not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.“

If you never fail, you’re not working on big enough problems.

#leadership #innovation

Big news in London: Today we officially open our new King’s Cross office, a substantial investment with more than 620,000 square feet of office space and room for 5,000 people. 🥳

London is already our largest engineering hub outside the US with more than 4,000 people across our three existing offices in Brock Street, Rathbone Place, and Shaftesbury Avenue.

… and now King’s Cross.

This new building will be home to engineering teams on Instagram, Reality Labs (our teams working on virtual and augmented reality), Workplace, and Ads & Business Products.

Later today, their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will officially open the office. 🤩

Exciting day!

#meta #london #technology #innovation

Exciting new technology from our Reality Labs. 👇

Wrist-based sensors that are able to translate the electrical motor nerve signals going to your hands into digital commands.

The technology behind this, electromyography, has the potential to revolutionize human/computer interaction, and we just shared our vision:

http://bit.ly/3cKHAyB

... now we just need those AR glasses. 😎

A great read for anyone interested in the future of computer interfaces.

#innovation #technology #facebook

This is Katalin Karikó.

We should all thank her.

Three decades ago, her tenacity and perseverance created the foundation for the mRNA research that became instrumental in the global fight against COVID.

But back then, few believed in her work.

Most assumed she would fail.

She couldn’t secure any funding.

She was even demoted.

But she kept going.

She left Hungary in 1985 to pursue her research dreams in the US with her husband, their toddler, and $1200 hidden in a teddy bear.

Following 20 years of painstaking trial and error, Katalin and her research partners finally had the breakthrough that would go on to transform the field of mRNA.

Simplified, an altered hybrid mRNA that could be used without triggering an immune response.

This breakthrough now has the potential to transform how humanity fights diseases... far beyond COVID.

A new era of vaccinology.

When we celebrate scientific achievements, it’s easy to forget the incredible individuals behind.

People like Katalin.

I hope she gets the Nobel Prize.

#science #technology #innovation

Netflix just blew past 200 million subscribers. 🔥

It took them 20 years to reach 100m... and then just 3.5 years to 200m. 🤯

They added 37m subscribers in 2020 alone.

An incredible achievement considering the competition in streaming. 👏

#technology #innovation

The most effective way to prevent AI cheating in schools… explained in 60 seconds.

Full credit (and standing ovation) to Sinead Bovell for this succinct articulation.

When I speak about AI, I often get asked about this… and Sinead just delivered by far the most powerful summary I’ve come across.

AI represents a *profound* shift in human learning and development.

A truly incredible opportunity to up-level and supercharge many of the key skills and abilities that define us as humans.

Creativity.

Critical thinking.

Collaboration.

Embracing this will not only help prepare the next generation for what is inevitably ahead when they reach the job market, it will also enable us all to free up time to focus on the things we do best.

AI isn't without risks and challenges, and responsible innovation is critically important, but the change is coming… and if we’re not careful, we'll end up creating an AI divide for the next generation.

Already some public schools are banning the use of AI… whereas some private schools are proactively teaching how to leverage it as a learning assistant and collaborator.

Let's not forget that what we humans tend to be really good at is often the exact opposite of what computers tend to be really good at.

It’s never been more important to embrace that.

Netflix just overtook Disney in market value. 😳

The craziness of home entertainment continues; Netflix was already the single best performing US stock the last decade... but they're now up another 30% this year already. 🔥

Fun fact: $17k invested in Netflix in January 2010 would be worth $1 million today. 💸

#technology #entertainment

Many years ago, Jeff Bezos was asked a question in an internal company Q&A.

His answer seemed counterintuitive… but it really stuck with me.

One of Amazon’s core leadership principles is ‘Are Right, A Lot’. In short, leaders are expected have strong judgment and good instincts.

In this Q&A, Bezos was asked what he sees as the defining characteristics for people who ‘are right, a lot’.

He thought about this a while and answered:

“People who are right a lot change their minds often“

This concise statement is a powerful lesson in growth mindset.

‘Being right’ is not something we automatically achieve from tenure or level.

It comes from being curious, listening, leading with humility, and proactively seeking to challenge our understandings.

Curiosity and humility are undervalued character traits.

... and a powerful combination.

Today, Amazon has more than 200 million paying Prime members... but did you know the idea came from an annoyed engineer, the initial financial models were awful, and most experts thought it was a terrible approach?

Amazon’s pioneering loyalty programme has been a core driver of their explosive growth for many years.

… but when it first launched, most thought it was crazy.

Many senior leaders felt it was too risky.

Shareholders feared it might take down the company.

‘All-you-can-eat’ two-day delivery for $79/year might sound normal today… but in those early days of e-commerce, it was truly disruptive. The first of its kind.

The challenge was the huge financial uncertainty.

“Our most loyal customers will cost us a fortune!”

“If too many abuse it, we could go bankrupt!”

In the end, the decision was more instinct than data.

It was clear that Prime would be an amazing experience for customers, and members would undoubtedly buy more and shop more frequently.

But no one had any idea just how successful it would be.

It took many years for Prime to fully take off, but it ended up defining Amazon’s trajectory and history.

It turned out that a simple annual fee could fundamentally change customers’ mentality. Once the upfront fee was paid, everyone wanted to get the most value out of their investment. Human nature.

Now, twenty years later, we can look back at the Prime launch as true masterclass in customer obsession… and a powerful reminder of the importance of being willing to test new ideas even when others insist you’re wrong.

For Amazon, the Prime launch was an experiment. Worst case, they would have to roll it back.

As Bezos noted many years later:

“We don’t have enough time for me to list all our failed experiments, but it’s the big winners [like Prime] that pay for thousands of failed experiments”

The lesson?

Innovation comes through constant experimentation.

If you’re afraid to be wrong, it’s impossible to come up with anything original.

A pioneering energy company just launched the first-ever 'tidal charge point'... where drivers can ‘fill up’ electric cars directly from the power of the sea. 🤩

Four underwater 100-kW turbines harvest tidal energy, which is routed to onshore Tesla battery banks.

The team behind this project, Nova Innovation, plans to add another two in the coming years, enabling them to power around 30,000 EV charges per year.

Huge congrats to everyone involved. 👏

#sustainability #innovation #technology

Flying taxis in two years?

Volocopter just secured $241 million to accelerate their pioneering work on urban air mobility.

Their ambition is to provide affordable and sustainable air taxi services to the world's largest cities, and they believe the first commercial flights will be ready in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Their vision is for flying taxis to be autonomous. 😳

#innovation #technology #mobility

The Holy Grail of VR is the ‘Visual Turing Test’.

It’s the moment when a virtual experience becomes so convincing it makes you question if it’s real.

No current VR technology is close passing this test.

The technology simply doesn’t exist.

… yet.

Today we publish a deep dive into our long-term quest to pass the ‘Virtual Turing Test’, and we share details on several VR prototypes currently being worked on in our Reality Lab.

VR, together with AR, has the potential to change the world as much as or even more than personal computing, and indistinguishably realistic visual experiences will play a huge part in that.

If you’re interested in what the next great computing platform might look like, I highly recommend having a look inside our labs. 👇

https://bit.ly/39GAXjv

It’s still early days, but it’s hard not to get excited about the incredible potential ahead.

#technology #innovation #vr #research

Hugely exciting graph… until you look at the y-axis.

Wind energy is progressing at great pace… but still from far too small a base.

Interestingly, last year China added more wind energy capacity than the rest of the world combined. 🤯

… and they just announced a mind-blowingly ambitious project; a 43.3gw wind farm, the largest in the world.

… but back to the y-axis.

China still only gets ~8% of total electricity production from wind, marginally above the global level of 6.5%.

As a comparison, my home country, Denmark, broke the 50% mark two years ago… and then proceeded to sign off the largest construction project in the country’s history; the world’s first artificial wind energy island to provide sustainable energy to another 3 million households (in a country of 5.9 million people).

Very encouraging global trajectory…. but I wish more countries were this ambitious.

Big messaging update today! 🥳

New DM experience on Instagram, seamless cross-app communication, and 10 new features - including ‘Watch Together’.

Here's a 50-second summary. 👇

This morning I was fortunate enough to participate in a competitive debate at Oxford Union, one of the world’s foremost debating societies for more than 200 years.

The topic was ‘big data and artificial intelligence’.

… and I lost.

But the experience was truly incredible.

Three key learnings from the day:

1) Our ability to empathise with both sides of an argument is the foundation for a meaningful debate.
2) Humour is a powerful tool, also self deprecation. My favourite debater of the day made us all laugh, many times, even though the topic was serious.
3) Facts and logic are critically important, but storytelling elevates arguments. “People will forget what you said, but remember how you made them feel.”

When I grew up, I never imagined I would one day be in the great debating hall of Oxford University with truly amazing people from all over the world.

Feeling very lucky today.

Big launch today: Instagram Reels! 🥳

A new way to create and discover short, entertaining videos on Instagram.

Full details: https://bit.ly/2C4Khgi

#socialmedia #instagram #facebook

‘Are our eyes really worth 10 times more than our ears?’

In 2019, Spotify founder Daniel Ek wrote a post titled ‘Audio-First’.

In it, he reflected on the fact that we spend roughly the same amount of time on video as we do on audio… but where video is a trillion dollar market, audio is 'just' hundred billion.

This led him to the insightful question above.

… and that became the start of Spotify's ambitious plan to create world’s best podcast experience.

Since then, they have made four strategic acquisitions and signed a series of high-profile content deals.

Today, Spotify offers 2.9 million podcast episodes, and nearly 100 million people now use their platform to listen to podcasts.

Strategy starts with asking the right question.

#technology #strategy #spotify

Imagine a world where lightweight, stylish glasses could replace the need for a computer or smartphone.

A full paradigm shift in how we interact with computers.

It may sound like science fiction, but it’s a future our research scientists and engineers are building in our Reality Labs.

If you’re interested in this fascinating topic and the opportunities it might unlock, here’s our 10-year vision:

http://bit.ly/3cecvmI

A great read for anyone curious about what the next big computer interface might look like.

#innovation #technology #facebook

Ever been in a meeting and realised…

This could have been a short email.

It’s fascinating how often unnecessary meetings are quietly accepted as a necessary part of work.

Or how often valuable meeting time is spent talking through content that could have been a pre-read.

Meetings are key to collaboration, creativity & culture. They can be the most amazing part of work. But I wish it was more socially acceptable to ask…

“Should this really be a meeting?”

Interestingly, the fewer meetings we have, the more the ones we have will count.