The simple reason Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is winning for investors again

For the better part of a year, Meta ( META ) founder Mark Zuckerberg has been in what techies call founder mode.

And for Zuck, there is much more to being in founder mode than showing up at product demos in comfy clothing as if he's pulling office all-nighters like fellow billionaire Elon Musk.

Founder mode, at its core, is being freakishly locked into executing on a long-term vision literally every second of the day. It's a true obsession with the work at hand.

Provided you're a founder with money — such as Zuck — one component of this mode is being ruthless about hiring the people you need for battle. Money is no object. Where that person currently works is irrelevant. If they fit the job description and can put wins on the board, that's all that matters.

Out comes the checkbook and powers of persuasion.

Zuck was at it again this week, snagging MongoDB ( MDB ) CEO CJ Desai to help bring Meta's AI tools to businesses. The fact that this happened a day before a MongoDB investor day underscores how ruthless Zuck is being back in the driver's seat. MongoDB — no small-cap company by any means — saw its stock crash .

"This is Mark. Mark has got the memo, man. He will personally go out and eat with you. He'll deliver soup to you. He'll do whatever it takes to get the right people because he knows the talent is what drives the business like his," former longtime Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer told me on Yahoo Finance's Sozzi Unleashed . Schroepfer is still an adviser to Zuckerberg while also founding tech investment firm Gigascale Capital.

Before the Desai poaching, Zuckerberg spent an eye-popping $14.3 billion to buy up all the employees of hot AI startup Scale AI in 2025. That included well-connected wunderkind Alexandr Wang, who got about $5 billion as part of the deal.

He also hired away scores of other top Silicon Valley minds with lucrative pay packages.

The fruits of Zuck's intensity are now paying off for Meta and its investors.

Meta's new Muse AI agent — which Wang is up all hours of the night posting about on X — has been downloaded more than 5.1 million times so far in its short time in the market.

Meta also debuted the Muse Charm last week. This is a standalone pocket device built exclusively for voice interaction with the company's Muse agent.

Zuckerberg also showcased a major shift toward "personal superintelligence" by unveiling a hardware-meets-AI moment in the Meta VR Glasses.

Weighing just 100 grams — roughly one-fifth the weight of Meta's Quest 3 — the $1,299 spatial computing glasses feature 5K micro-OLED displays, tethered puck processing, and native eye and hand tracking.