MANILA, Philippines – “I miss the ‘I’m going to personally kill what I eat’ days,” one commenter joked on Facebook CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg annual goals post. This year, the CEO took a different tack, moving away from somewhat oddball goals to more sensible-sounding ones. 

Not that the past years have been, at least on a personal level, unproductive for Zuckerberg – he’s at least been able to, as he enumerated, learn Mandarin, code an AI assistant for his home, and read more books. These are things you might expect from your run-of-the-mill millennial. 

For better or worse, Zuckerberg’s not your run-of-the-mill millennial. He’s behind a company that, for the foreseeable future, will continue to shape society. Here are his key points: 

1. Long-term efforts on issues affecting today’s generation

Through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his and his wife Priscilla’s philanthropic instrument, they’re looking to give a hand to solving big-picture issues such as climate change, education costs, housing and healthcare. By 2030, he says the world would have added 2.5 more years to the average life expectancy. 

2. More intimate online communities

Facebook has been talking about more private online communities in the past years, and Zuckerberg repeats it here. “For the next decade, some of the most important social infrastructure will help us reconstruct all kinds of smaller communities to give us that sense of intimacy again,” he says. 

3. Facebook ecosystem as a business platform

Zuckerberg paints a picture of the Facebook ecosystem as a one-stop shop for online businesses: “If we can make it so anyone can sell products through a storefront on Instagram, message and support their customers through Messenger, or send money home to another country instantly and at low cost through WhatsApp – that will go a long way towards creating more opportunity around the world.” 

4. The next big consumer device

From smartphones, he says he see the world eventually moving to augmented reality glasses and virtual reality-powered technologies that will allow us to be present anywhere. Facebook is in the space through their 2014 acquisition, Oculus. 

One problem that these devices may solve is congestion in the cities: 

“The ability to be ‘present’ anywhere will also help us address some of the biggest social issues of our day – like ballooning housing costs and inequality of opportunity by geography. Today, many people feel like they have to move to cities because that’s where the jobs are. But there isn’t enough housing in many cities, so housing costs are skyrocketing while quality of living is decreasing. Imagine if you could live anywhere you chose and access any job anywhere else. If we deliver on what we’re building, this should be much closer to reality by 2030.”

5. Government regulation

Zuckerberg repeats a familiar tune, calling for more government regulation regarding issues of data privacy: “As long as our governments are seen as legitimate, rules established through a democratic process could add more legitimacy and trust than rules defined by companies alone. There are a number of areas where I believe governments establishing clearer rules would be helpful, including around elections, harmful content, privacy, and data portability. I’ve called for new regulation in these areas and over the next decade I hope we get clearer rules for the internet.” 

– Rappler.com