Meta
Meta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is an American technology company founded on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg and others, originally as TheFacebook, renamed Facebook, Inc. in 2005, and renamed Meta Platforms on October 28, 2021. It is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company frames its business as social technology, VR, and AR, and describes its purpose as “building the future of human connection” (official About page).
Business and main product lines
- Social apps: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads form the core product line.
- Artificial intelligence: Meta AI is the company’s AI assistant, and Llama is its open-weights large language model family; Llama 2, announced in July 2023, was made available for commercial use. AI models and research are collected at ai.meta.com.
- Smart hardware: the Meta Quest line of mixed-reality headsets and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses made with EssilorLuxottica; this business sits under the Reality Labs division.
Company history and product-line facts are drawn from Wikipedia’s Meta Platforms article and the official pages. Time-sensitive details such as current model versions and product availability should be read from the official pages.
Discussion in the show
- In the opening chapter of Weekly #001, Yang Pan mentions that “Meta’s Muse Spark 1.3 was just released” and lists “Meta’s Muse Voice Transcribe” among speech-to-text models (paragraph one, paragraph two in the Chinese transcript).
- Weekly #001 also touches on first-party AI efforts, with Yang Pan saying “Claude is doing it too, and Microsoft, Meta, Z.ai — I hear they are all doing it” (paragraph in the Chinese transcript).
- In Weekly #002’s chapter “Grok Bot / Muse: why agents need a cloud computer,” Xiangyang Qiaomu says “last week we talked about Grok Bot, and Meta also released something called Muse,” linking it to the return of the chatbot form (paragraph in the Chinese transcript); Yang Pan then discusses Muse alongside the cloud-computer direction for agents (paragraph).
These are release mentions and host opinions from the show and have not been confirmed through official channels; for Muse, Meta’s official channels are the authoritative source.
Frequently asked questions
What company is Meta?
Meta Platforms is an American technology company that operates the social apps Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads, develops the Meta AI assistant and the Llama model family, and makes Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
What is the relationship between Meta and Facebook?
Facebook is both Meta’s predecessor and one of its current social apps. The company was founded in 2004 and renamed from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms on October 28, 2021.
When was Meta founded, and by whom?
Meta was founded on February 4, 2004, in the United States by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes (Wikipedia article).
Where can I find Meta’s AI information?
AI models, research, and product entry points are collected at ai.meta.com. For time-sensitive details such as current models and terms of use, read that official page.