$META Is Winning Back Investors as Zuckerberg Goes Into "Founder Mode"

$META CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spent the better part of a year in "founder mode," and the payoff is now showing up for investors, according to Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi. $META stock is up 25% in a month after being down double digits on the year as investors fretted about rising AI capex.
A key part of the strategy is aggressive hiring. This week, Zuckerberg hired $MDB CEO CJ Desai to help bring Meta's AI tools to businesses, a day before a MongoDB investor day. MongoDB's stock fell sharply. In 2025, Meta spent $14.3 billion to bring in the employees of AI startup Scale AI, including Alexandr Wang, who received about $5 billion as part of the deal.
"He'll do whatever it takes to get the right people because he knows the talent is what drives the business," former longtime Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer told Sozzi on Yahoo Finance's Sozzi Unleashed.
Meta's recent product launches:
- Muse AI agent: downloaded more than 5.1 million times so far
- Muse Charm: a standalone pocket device built for voice interaction with the Muse agent
- Meta VR Glasses: $1,299 spatial computing glasses weighing 100 grams, with 5K micro-OLED displays, tethered puck processing, and native eye and hand tracking
- Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3: smart glasses starting at $249
- Ray-Ban Meta Audio: camera-free glasses built for open-ear listening and AI voice interaction
Sozzi wrote that investors may now take AI spending in stride, since they can see what Meta is building and its monetization potential.