Luca Colombo - Meta Italia, the new challenges for Facebook and Instagram

“The evolution of social networks goes hand in hand with the artificial intelligence revolution.” Luca Colombo is convinced of it. Since November 2010 he has been country director for Italy at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg's social media giant behind Facebook and Instagram. An electronic engineering graduate of the Politecnico di Milano, when I interview him Colombo is striking for his depth of analysis and the optimism he tries to convey. It is no coincidence that only recently, at the RomeCup, he explained that artificial intelligence was not born with ChatGPT, as people tend to think. Meta's strength has always been long-term scenario analysis: the company has been using AI for years, ahead of its time. The reason? The 40,000 people who review content are not enough to remove material linked to the glorification of terrorism and to hate from the vast sea of social media, so the only solution is research and development in AI. Another challenge for social networks, which have ended their pioneering era, so to speak, is the Metaverse: devices will become wearable and more accessible than our much-loved smartphones, to the delight of fashion designers, who will be able to let their imagination run wild creating limited-edition glasses and watches.

How did your experience at Meta begin?

“After graduating in 1995, I had the opportunity to work at Mondadori as Business Development Manager until 1999. That experience gave me an in-depth knowledge of the publishing sector. Later, my passion for technology and my interest in innovation took over, so when the opportunity to join Microsoft came up, I jumped at it. I stayed with the company for over 10 years, in various roles: sales director at Microsoft Advertising, marketing director for MSN and Windows Live, and finally consumer & online marketing officer. In 2009 Meta, which at the time had 1,700 employees worldwide, decided to open its Italian branch, which officially started the following year: the office was near Via Torino and I remember we were still in the pioneering phase. In the office we had a coffee machine and a fridge we had bought online from the Mediaworld website. Today, of course, twelve years on, things have changed a great deal. But the company, while more structured, still keeps a typical start-up trait: the ability to reach the end consumer. Another distinctive feature is speed of thought and action, two things that fit very well with how we worked at the start. Acting fast means a greater chance of making mistakes and accepting them, and employees are aware of this, because it is still part of our company culture today. At Meta, failure is always accepted, which in Italy is frowned upon, although in recent years this taboo has started to break down. The traits I have described are not found in all American companies, because there are very marked differences between Microsoft and Facebook that come from their markets: the first is designed to serve other companies and businesses, while Meta serves consumers and end users. That means more stimuli, which often prove useful for responding quickly to the consumer, a company culture that isn't exactly American.”

Where does your passion for innovation come from?

“I have had this fixation since I was a teenager: I got my diploma as an electronics technician from the Salesians, and for the first three years I attended the Vocational Training Centre, which still exists today, a secondary school with a strong practical focus that I always liked very much (we spent more than ten hours a week in the lab). I grew up with the magazine ‘Elettronica 2000’, whose issues I still have on my bookshelf, and with my experiments at home. Technology and electronics together mean constant innovation, so even though I have put practical work aside today, this passion for new things, like the Metaverse, coding and AI, remains unchanged. I like to understand where emerging technologies might go.”

The Metaverse and wearable devices: what is the company doing?

“We launched the concept of the Metaverse in grand style in October 2021 at our Connect event, which everyone remembers because that was when we announced the company's change of name. But few people remember that in that hour and twenty-five minutes (Connect lasted an hour and a half) we explained this vision in detail, along with the research and development we are still carrying out. Today the Metaverse is wrongly confused with the concept of virtual reality. The future? Wearable objects will give access to the internet. Just to give an example, at Meta we are developing a small bracelet that detects and measures what you do with your fingers, through which we can send a series of input signals to a phone. In future we will be able to do many more things, and in a much more usable way than today. In terms of timing, I can say it will take between five and ten years of research and development. Even though wearable devices can't generate an economic return in the short term, they are always on our agenda.”

Facebook and Italy: what sets our country apart from others in terms of users?

“One of the things I noticed from the start at Facebook Italia compared with other countries is how strongly Italians take to social platforms: at first the concept of social meant Facebook, but even when Instagram started to catch on in Italy, it grew much faster than in other countries. This shows that Italians' inclination to adopt platforms that let them interact, build relationships and look around is part of their personality. With WhatsApp too, which is instant messaging but also a bit of a social network, Italy is one of the leading countries both in number of users and relative to the total population: in short, it is one of the top countries in terms of penetration.”

Differences between Facebook and Instagram users?

“On Facebook, video and images add to a conversation, whereas on Instagram the image dominates. The differences are about the particular features of the two platforms, not the users.”

How do you see the future integration of technology and social networks, and the risk of living more and more online?

“The history of mass communication and new media has always seen the arrival of an emerging technology. Do you remember when our parents demonised television, which drew us in and changed our behaviour? Every new device has to be used properly, and that is the job of the family and the school, because depending on how you use any technology, it can be an opportunity or a problem. We have to remember that technological innovation has made life simpler for many people, with a higher level of interaction than a passive medium like TV. The combination of technology, platforms and information allows people to do many things. As a company, we are strongly committed to spreading in-depth knowledge of the tool among clients and consumers and to fighting the abuse of technology, two things that go hand in hand. As a parent, I am working to teach my children to use it responsibly.”

On disinformation and fake news, which go viral on social media: what measures can be taken?

“Disinformation has always existed, but obviously the pervasiveness of the platforms today has amplified the phenomenon. As a company we have stepped in to limit it as much as possible. It is hard to act on opinions, on what I call ‘the shades of grey’, which are more difficult to identify than clear-cut colours like black and white, which you can recognise immediately. To expose news that is objectively false and harmful, Meta has for several years worked with fact checkers who, when suspicious posts are reported, check them and, without deleting them, give the information back to the user. If the post is false, it is flagged as such with a link to the true story and its visibility is reduced. As I said, it isn't removed, because we want people to recognise the fake and to develop an ever more critical eye. During the pandemic, for example, information was spread on WhatsApp that was not only incorrect but also harmful to health; in that case we removed it. We also acted on ‘chains’, messages forwarded many times, to warn that they might be fake news. To limit the phenomenon, we went from 10,000 people reviewing content to 40,000, who still aren't enough given the volume of data, although artificial intelligence has helped us make the platform as safe as possible.”

All the crises we have faced, from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine and others of a personal nature, always expose our fragilities. What relationship do you have with your most intimate, human side?

“As an engineer, I consider myself very focused on analysing numerical data, very objective and very direct. I like facts, so I'm not an emotional person. That said, there have been moments in my life that moved me deeply and changed my priorities somewhat. I had a serious illness, a tumour discovered at the age of 41, when my children were one and five: the week it was diagnosed, in 2011, was like an earthquake for me. Before, work was central; now the priority has become health, so that I can spend as many years as possible with my children, who are now twelve and sixteen. So I have routine check-ups and do a lot of sport. I am also trying to get across to my colleagues the importance of prevention, because health can never be taken for granted.”

Of the challenges you face, is being a father perhaps the hardest?

“Yes, especially with one teenage son and one pre-teen it isn't always easy to relate to them, even in managing day-to-day life. My aim is to guide them towards their own path, to help them understand which might be the best one for them, bearing in mind what the world of work will look like in ten years. History and experience help, but they can't predict the future.”

How are people selected at Meta: on personality traits or on skills?

“In my personal approach, skills are not the main deciding factor. For me there has to be a cultural fit, in other words the ability to live in this environment, which matters more than specialist expertise in a profession or function. Because you can be extremely well prepared, but if you can't grasp that the company moves fast, that the structure is particularly lean and that there are ambitious goals you have to live by and interpret correctly, you might be the best professional on the planet but you'll crash after two days. In short, you need to internalise the company's values and understand those needs to succeed in the market.”

What is your approach to luxury?

“At Meta Italia luxury plays an important role: we work with many companies in the sector around the world. Being able to work with so many Italian companies recognised abroad as excellences is for me the best way to stay close to a fascinating market segment that characterises Italy and France. As for me, I am passionate about watches, which I have built over the years and which I collect. And being able to manage my own time is a luxury for me. Meta guarantees flexible hours and the possibility of remote working, and that matters.”

Most small and medium-sized businesses are on social media: how do they manage to do business there?

“Consider that 200 million businesses have an Instagram page or a Facebook profile and, of these, 10 million spend on advertising. We are talking about small businesses, a large slice of Meta's market, such as restaurants, bars, cinemas, hair salons and beauty centres, which have found something extra on our platforms. With us they create value, even just by posting something. Consider too that 190 million small companies, while not spending money on advertising, are still present because social media lets them keep their clients updated and reach potential ones; in a word, it gives them the chance to grow their business. We give them free services, while the others have decided to invest in campaigns. In both cases, they gain recognition for their brand and their product or service, winning a new audience.”

Have copy policies for selling on social media changed a lot too?

“At the start Facebook was text only, then came images, videos, stories, reels and so on. The challenge for companies that want to keep up with the times is to work out which of these levers might be the best one for them. That is why copy and format are going through a considerable revolution.”

What challenges are you facing at the moment?

“During the pandemic there was a strong acceleration of digital, which is now rebalancing. The challenge today is to get back to growth rates for the sector in line with those before the pandemic, more organic and more stable growth. In practice, the many investments made during Covid have to be rebalanced. I have also set up a mentorship programme with Bocconi University with 28 CEOs and 28 students, as well as helping out some organisations in the non-profit sector. In future the aim will increasingly be to have a positive impact on the community by making available the professional skills and experience I have built up over the years.”

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