Assignment 1

Who is speaking? What is the speakers position, in terms of political, economic, technological power?

The author of the article “The Future is for Everyone” is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, chairman and CEO of Meta Platforms, Inc., an American multinational technology company which owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. 

Meta has been described as a part of Big Tech, which refers to a few largest tech companies in the United States along with Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Nvidia and Tesla. Meta has historically posted huge profits and free cash flow, but it has been intensively investing in AI infrastructure projects for recent years. In the last three years (2023-2025), the technology giant has spent roughly $140bn in an attempt to get ahead of the AI boom. Furthermore, Meta plans to spend $125 billion to $145 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2026, mostly for AI infrastructure, including The Meta’s gigantic ‘Hyperion’ data-center project in Louisiana, which is the size of about 1,700 football fields. 

The above illustrates that Meta has a tremendous economic and technological power, although recent spendings on AI infrastructure have significantly decreased free cash flow of the company, resulting in just $784 million in 1 quarter of 2026 which is a staggering 91% drop from the $8.55 billion recorded in the same period last year. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune is $196.6B according to Forbes, ranked on the 6th place in The World’s Real-Time Billionaires List. The Meta’s 2024 proxy statement reveals that CEO Mark Zuckerberg owns 99.7% of the outstanding Class B shares. While this represents only 13% of the economic ownership, it grants him 61% of the voting power. Most importantly, it also makes him the sole deciding vote on each proposal presented to shareholders. Given that, he is responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy for the company, so he has enormous economic and technological power. 

When it comes to his political weight, he is currently trying to build a strong and productive relationship with the US government and particularly Donald Trump’s administration. Meta previously confirmed that it had donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund in 2025.

How that position shapes what they speak about? How it shapes their perspective?

Taking into account Meta’s tremendous spending on AI infrastructure and other AI projects ($140bn in 2023-2025 and up to $145 bn in 2026), it is clear that Meta is making a huge bet on AI. So despite great revenue Meta is experiencing significant reduction of free cash flow which results in loss of trust from investors who are not certain whether all these massive spendings will pay off in the future. Consequently, the economic position of Meta compared to its competitors from BigTech is weaker at the moment. Apart from that Meta is going through big trials which might potentially result in additional massive expenses for the company.  

That pushes Meta to this article which constitutes a company’s manifestation on the bright future of humanity in the upcoming era of superintelligence and the ways and principles of achieving common prosperity and overall better life by means of products and ideas suggested by Meta’s CEO. 

Obviously, in an attempt to regain investors' trust and win the favour of the US government, the author tries to contrast Meta favourably with AI rivals, sugarcoat reality and persuade customers that their products are well-positioned for the bright future with superintelligence.