How Facebook works: Secrets of the social network's engineering process

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees recently that the company's long-term goal is to "bring the metaverse to life" — helping to create an interconnected world of physical, virtual and augmented reality spaces that will reshape the way we work, interact with each other, create new things, and generally experience life.

So how exactly will Facebook approach such an audacious plan? 

A new book called "Move Fast: How Facebook Builds Software" doesn't delve into the metaverse, specifically. But in looking at Facebook's engineering practices — the way the company makes stuff — the book examines the digital DNA of the social network, sheds new light on its most infamous motto, and explains the inner workings of a company that wants to reshape the human experience, again. 

Facebook influences the engineering culture and economy not just in its hometown of Menlo Park, Calif., but also in its development offices in the Seattle area, where it employs 7,000 people. And of course, ultimately, Facebook's internal practices end up influencing people around the world who use its products.

On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we talk with the author of the book, Jeff Meyerson, the longtime host of the Software Engineering Daily podcast, about the ways Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Google make things, and what those different approaches tell us about where they're taking us.

Audio editing by Curt Milton, theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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