"I updated my grilling app, iGrill, today and it now has Facebook integration that lets you see what other people are grilling right now around the world. Awesome"
About this Quote
Nothing captures Silicon Valley's talent for turning the mundane into a data stream like the idea of "seeing what other people are grilling right now around the world". Zuckerberg frames it as frictionless delight: your backyard hobby, plus a little global window-shopping, plus the glow of being connected. "Awesome" is the tell. It's not awe at food; it's awe at the network effect - the small thrill of real-time social proof applied to meat thermometers.
The intent is evangelism-by-example. Instead of pitching an abstract vision of connectivity, he points to a trivial, sensory scenario where sharing feels harmless and fun. That move matters: surveillance becomes a lifestyle feature when it rides in on something as low-stakes as burgers. The subtext is Facebook's core bet in miniature: if you can instrument anything - location, preferences, habits, even dinner - you can make it social, and if you can make it social, you can monetize it. "Integration" is the sanitized verb for extraction: your cooking becomes content, your device becomes a sensor, your appetite becomes a graph node.
Contextually, this is the worldview of a platform builder who treats the physical world as a backlog of unnetworked experiences waiting to be connected. It also carries the quiet asymmetry of social tech: you think you're getting community, but you're also volunteering telemetry. The joke is that the future arrives wearing an apron, insisting it's just here to help, while it learns exactly when you like your steak medium-rare.
The intent is evangelism-by-example. Instead of pitching an abstract vision of connectivity, he points to a trivial, sensory scenario where sharing feels harmless and fun. That move matters: surveillance becomes a lifestyle feature when it rides in on something as low-stakes as burgers. The subtext is Facebook's core bet in miniature: if you can instrument anything - location, preferences, habits, even dinner - you can make it social, and if you can make it social, you can monetize it. "Integration" is the sanitized verb for extraction: your cooking becomes content, your device becomes a sensor, your appetite becomes a graph node.
Contextually, this is the worldview of a platform builder who treats the physical world as a backlog of unnetworked experiences waiting to be connected. It also carries the quiet asymmetry of social tech: you think you're getting community, but you're also volunteering telemetry. The joke is that the future arrives wearing an apron, insisting it's just here to help, while it learns exactly when you like your steak medium-rare.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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