Adam Mosseri: AI is a tailwind for authenticity

Adam Mosseri is the Head of Instagram, where he oversees an app used by over 3 billion people. He also leads the team building Threads. Adam has run Instagram for longer than its founders did, after taking over from Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2018. A designer by training, he spent over 15 years at Meta, starting as a designer on Facebook’s mobile app, rising to lead Facebook’s News Feed, and eventually chosen to lead Instagram. During his tenure, Instagram’s user base has more than tripled.

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In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

How the canonical product team structure is changing in 2026, from baker’s-dozen specialist teams to lean pods of four to six generalists

The rise of the “product staff” role—a blending of PM, design, data science, and research into one generalist operator

Why Adam is bullish on designers even as functional boundaries dissolve, and which roles are most at risk

What the Instagram algorithm knows about you, and why it’s only now catching up to what people assumed it knew years ago

Why the rise of AI-generated content is a tailwind for Instagram, and how the company is thinking about creator identity in a synthetic-content world

The two biggest product failures of Adam’s career—Facebook Home and the first version of Reels

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Where to find Adam Mosseri:

• X: https://x.com/mosseri

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mosseri

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mosseri

• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@mosseri

Referenced:

• What happens after coding is solved? | Fiona Fung (Manager of the Claude Code and Cowork Teams): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-the-most-ai-pilled-engineering

• Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-code

• Claude Cowork: https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-cowork

• Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/head-of-claude-code-what-happens

• A rational conversation on where AI is actually going | Benedict Evans: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-rational-conversation-on-where

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Mythos: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/mythos

• Fable: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/fable

• Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble

• Plastic Dream Sequence on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plasticdreamsequence

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com

• Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal

• Facebook Home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com .

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

My biggest takeaways from this conversation:

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