Strategy question
How would you decide between investing in WhatsApp vs. Messenger?
- Meta
- Strategy
- Hard
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Whether the candidate can reason about portfolio strategy across two products with overlapping but distinct positioning.
How to approach it
- Clarify the investment question: is this about engineering headcount allocation, feature parity, or which app leads a specific new capability (payments, business messaging).
- Define each app's distinct positioning: WhatsApp as global, privacy-first personal and small business messaging, Messenger as more US-centric and tied to Facebook's social graph.
- Assess growth potential: WhatsApp's larger and faster-growing international user base versus Messenger's stronger ties to Facebook's ads and commerce ecosystem.
- Weigh strategic risk: consolidating investment in WhatsApp risks ceding US messaging share, while ignoring it risks losing WhatsApp's much larger global growth.
- Recommend where to lean, for example prioritizing WhatsApp for global growth and business messaging while keeping Messenger on a maintenance-plus roadmap, with the key risk named.
What a strong answer includes
- Names each app's distinct strategic role instead of treating them as interchangeable messaging products.
- Grounds the recommendation in WhatsApp's larger global user base and stronger emerging market growth as the deciding factor.
- States the risk of the recommendation explicitly, such as losing Messenger's US market relevance.
Common mistakes
- Treating the two apps as identical products competing for the same users.
- Giving a recommendation without naming the risk or tradeoff involved.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would this recommendation change in the US market specifically?
- What signal would tell you the investment bet was wrong?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop