Strategy question
Which vertical should be the focus for Facebook Watch? Why?
- 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
Strategic prioritization for a video platform competing against established players, requiring a defensible content vertical choice.
How to approach it
- Assess the competitive landscape: YouTube dominates general video, streaming services dominate premium scripted content, leaving a gap in social, shareable video.
- Consider the platform's unique asset: Groups and the social graph, which favor content people discuss and share within existing communities.
- Evaluate candidate verticals: live sports highlights, creator-driven community shows, and user-generated community content.
- Prioritize community-oriented, discussion-driving content since it leverages Groups uniquely, unlike YouTube or Netflix.
- Explain the mechanism: content that sparks Group discussion drives both watch time and platform stickiness.
- Recommend piloting with a few creator partnerships in one vertical before broader investment.
What a strong answer includes
- Grounds the vertical choice in the platform's actual competitive advantage, the social graph and Groups, rather than chasing incumbents head-on.
- Explicitly rules out premium scripted content and general video as areas with no edge.
- Names a concrete mechanism, Group discussion driving stickiness, tying the content choice to the platform's core loop.
- Recommends a bounded pilot before full investment, appropriate given content bets are costly and slow to prove out.
Common mistakes
- Recommending premium scripted content, an area with no competitive edge against established streamers.
- Not tying the vertical choice back to the platform's unique assets.
- Giving a vertical recommendation with no rollout or validation plan.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you convince creators to build content specifically for this vertical?
- How would you measure whether this content drives Group engagement versus just passive viewing?
- What would make you pull back on this vertical if it underperforms?
More strategy questions
- How would you decide between showing more ads on the Facebook Newsfeed vs showing a "People you may know" recommendation widget?Meta · Strategy · Hard
- How would you decide whether to build a feature or fix a bug (assuming both take the same engineering effort)?Meta · Strategy · Easy
- An engineer suggests showing suggested Buy/Sell Groups on users' newsfeed instead of the People You May Know section. How do you determine if that is a good idea or not?Meta · Strategy · Medium
- Why should Facebook enter the dating market and how would you execute it?Meta · Strategy · Hard
- What should Airbnb's strategy be during the COVID-19 pandemic?Google · Strategy · Hard
- Imagine you're a PM at Amazon and you're working on a partnership with Facebook that has the goal of leveraging FB's friend network to drive Amazon sales. Walk through the lifecycle for building this integration/partnership.Amazon · Strategy · Hard
More questions from Meta
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