"If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems"
About this Quote
The real hinge is “the most important problems.” Who decides what counts as “important”? In practice, that authority sits with leadership, metrics, and market incentives. The phrase collapses a messy democratic question into a managerial one, converting value judgments into optimization tasks. It’s also a convenient escape hatch: when critics point to harms, the response can be reframed as a prioritization issue, not a responsibility issue. We’re focused on “the most important” things, so lesser concerns (privacy edge cases, civic side effects, content moderation failures) become regrettable but rational trade-offs.
Context matters: Zuckerberg’s career has been a long attempt to recast Facebook’s controversies as growing pains on the way to a grander purpose. This quote belongs to that tradition of CEO language that borrows the cadence of humanitarian triage while keeping the levers safely inside the company. It works because it flatters the listener’s desire for effectiveness and seriousness, while leaving “impact” and “important” just vague enough to accommodate whatever the next pivot requires.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Zuckerberg, Mark. (2026, January 18). If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-we-want-to-have-the-biggest-impact-the-best-184041/
Chicago Style
Zuckerberg, Mark. "If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-we-want-to-have-the-biggest-impact-the-best-184041/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-we-want-to-have-the-biggest-impact-the-best-184041/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.






