Mark Zuckerberg / Instagram
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder, Meta CEO, and one of the five wealthiest people on planet earth, had to explain to his young daughter that he is not a full-time cattle rancher. He spoke about this in an interview this week (below) and how fun the project has been in his pursuit of creating the most delicious cattle on earth.
Back in early January, Mark Zuckerberg revealed to the world his insanely awesome cattle ranching side hustle at his Ko’olau Ranch on Kauai, Hawaii. There, Zuckerberg is raising wagyu and angus cattle in a vertically integrated system where the cattle are fed meals of macadamia grown on the property and they drink beer brewed on the property.
The end goal is to create some of the most delicious cattle on planet earth and MZ revealed that to the world via Instagram where he also told BroBible’s Brandon Wenerd more about the process.
Zuckerberg told BroBible “It’ll take a couple more years to fully explore how this diet affects taste, but at a minimum macadamia nuts are very high nutrition density with lots of proteins and fats. Beer helps induce appetite so they eat more as well.”
Mark went on to add “There is some research on the affects of alcohol on relaxation and muscle tension, but I’m not convinced on that one way or another yet. Given the sheer volume of mac nuts and beer we’re talking about, it makes sense for us to vertically integrate and grow/produce ourselves. We’ll tune the beer to whatever they enjoy most over time. Of course they also graze on their pasture as well so getting the right nutrients in the soil still matters a lot. I have a lot more theories for how to improve this over time. Pretty sure this will be a lifetime hobby.”
In a recent interview with the Morning Brew, the Meta CEO spoke about how his young daughter thought he was a cattle rancher and focused on ‘Mark’s Meats’ as it’s being called.
Mark Zuckerberg said: “I always joke with Priscilla and my daughters now that if I’m ever done with Meta, I’m going to run Mark’s Meats.”
“And you know, if you’re like a kid, right? (Like) my daughters, it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around what Meta is, right? It’s just very abstract (if) you’re a young kid, right?”
“So my daughter for a while… She just thought that I was a cattle rancher. She’s like ‘alright, dad, that’s clearly what you do… It’s like ‘Mark’s Meat’ isn’t ready for prime time yet, but you’re really focused on it. I get it. It’s like you’ve got a few of these cows.'”
Mark Zuckerberg: ‘I’m Trying To Create The Highest Quality (Beef) We Can’
Mark Zuckerberg continues: “And I just have this project where I want to see if we can produce some of the highest quality meat in the world. And I think most commercial cattle operations are basically constrained where you can’t put more into the cow in terms of quality of ingredients than you can then turn around and sell the cow for when you’re done.”
“I obviously don’t have that issue. I’m not trying to do this commercially. I’m just trying to create the highest quality stuff that we can. So I think it’s pretty fun to like vertically integrated.”
“So I’m like, all right… what is the densest, most nutritious thing that we can feed these cows to basically get them to be the healthiest and gain weight as quickly as possible? (To) just be the most delicious cows.”
‘It’s Just Fun’ — Zuckerberg
“And it’s like…alright, as a human, what do you think is the thing that basically you just sit and eat a lot? It’s beer and nuts, right? Nuts (are) super dense. Beer induces appetite which I think people are familiar with. It induces appetite I think is the kind of formal jargon in the cattle industry for ‘gets them to eat a bunch.’ Which is why for a long time a lot of the highest quality Wagyu beef they basically fed it beer.”
Mark Zuckerberg continues: “There’s this whole thing about ‘does it make it more relaxed?’ The scientific literature on that is a little mixed. I read a bunch of this. I’m not… I’m not convinced on the relaxation point, but I do think it’s clear that it makes them eat more and then they gain more weight. So, yeah, so but I just think it’s like super fun.”
“It’s like… Alright, let’s brew our own beer. Let’s grow our own macadamia nuts. Process that. Have our kids be a part of the process of figuring out what it’s like to run this kind of a process. (It’s) easier for them to do that than to have them be involved in the software business so I think that kind of makes sense.”
“And… I dunno, it’s just fun.”
From the outside looking in, it sure looks fun. Having the means and time to brew your own beer and grow your own macadamia nuts to create the most delicious cattle on earth at your private cattle ranch in Hawaii… That right there is living the dream.