I think it is hard to call IG and WA bets. He simply bought the competition that was set to wreck his platform.

Meta actually pioneered the Buy The Competition strategy in a brand new way.

1. Larger acquisitions. IG was $1B for a 13 employee company. WA was $22B. We were all talking about how big those numbers were at the time, but looking back they seem like mid-sized acquisitions. Before, most companies would have looked at these numbers and tried to build it themselves, or underbid, or just not pull the trigger. Blockbuster and Netflix. Yahoo and Google.

2. He meet the user where they were. He made no meaningful and instant change to the apps. There was no rebranding. They still have their own login screens and apps. Many casual users might not notice their major platforms are owned by the same company. Compare this to more old-school tech companies like Oracle buying Sun, or a national cellphone provider buying a regional one, or whatever happens with AOL-Time-Warner-Discovery.

Why didn't other CEOs buy them to wreck Zuck's platform?

Not as easy as it sounds, most acquisitions are not integrated well. He was astute in determining they were going to be 100X what he paid( and he paid a lot by the standards of the day).

Also extremely astute to stay the hell away from buying Twitter.

I know you're right about Asia and Latin America, but should any one platform or person have that much power?

no one can dare to ban an American company unless they want to be invaded or sanctioned

No I don't that's why I said I don't like him or the platform. But the products are great, and there is no competition. And neither India or Latin America built domestic products to rival Whatsapp/Insta/FB.

Sure but these are low-risk bets for him personally. When they don't work out 8,000 folks pay the price and he is still one of the richest people on the planet who will never have to worry about money, food, housing, or healthcare.

It may be explained more by his FOMO, he tried crypto, NFT, metaverse, VR and now AI. This feels more like correction of mistakes at pandemic than bold bet at future.

You might want to read Sarah-Wynn Willams 'Careless People' or listen to one of her interviews. Your opinion about him might change.

I plan to read it, I've no doubt he's a douchebag, but most hyper-successful CEOs are psychopaths.

OP is not saying Mark is a good person, but a ballsy CEO. And he is.