UFC CEO Dana White made headlines earlier this month when news broke that he had joined the board of directors at Meta. Now Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has explained his thinking behind bringing the UFC boss onto his team.
When the news was announced, Zuckerberg commented, "Dana White is the President and CEO of UFC, and he has built it into one of the most valuable, fastest-growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world. I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand."
And, during a long-form conversation with UFC co-commentator Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg gave more detail as he explained why he approached White to be a part of Meta's board moving forward.
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"He's awesome. I've been talking to him for a while about that," he said.
"Talk about an amazing entrepreneur, right?
"Because I control our company, I have the benefit of not having to convince the board not to fire me, right? It's not like a normal corporate environment. The CEO just tries to convince the board to let them have their job and pay them more.
"I'm not worried about losing my job, because I control the majority of the voting in the company, so I actually get to use our board to have the smartest people who I can get to have around me to help work on these problems.
"So it's like, alright, who are the people I want? I just want the best entrepreneurs and people who have created different things."
Zuckerberg is well known for being a fan of mixed martial arts, and the UFC in particular, and has been a familiar face at Octagonside at big events over the last few years.
The Meta boss, who also trains Brazilian jiu-jitsu with renowned coach Dave Camarillo in San Jose, has seen at close quarters the growth of the UFC and was fulsome in his praise of White's role in the UFC's rise from banned sideshow to mainstream sports attraction.
"He basically took the sport from being viewed as this pretty marginal thing when he got started – I think John McCain was trying to outlaw it – and yeah, I think (the UFC) and F1 are the two fastest growing sports in the world," he said.
"It's got hundreds of millions of people viewing it. What Dana's done with the UFC is like one of the most legendary business stories, and the brand is beloved."
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Zuckerberg then explained that, in addition to White's success in building the UFC, he hired him to help strengthen the resolve of his board and provide some key experience to help Meta deal with the external pressures the company faces.
"I think he's a world-class entrepreneur, and he's got a strong backbone," he said.
"I think part of what the conversation that I had with him around joining our board was, 'OK, we have a lot of governments and folks around the world putting a lot of pressure on our company, and we need some strong people who are going to basically help advise us on how to handle some of these situations.'
"Running this company is not for the faint of heart. There's definitely a lot of pressure from all these different governments. I could spend all my time doing that, but I'm not even a politician. I just want to spend my time building things, right? So yeah, I think Dana's gonna be great."
White, meanwhile, said that he's excited to be a part of what Zuckerberg and Meta are building for the future.
"I've never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta's board. I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future," he said, via an Instagram post.
"I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level."
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