The Ads team’s mandate was very simple: make more money, but don’t piss off users while doing so. The monetization side of Facebook was still stuck in that subservient role typical of earlyish-stage startups that are mostly consumer-facing, and with a CEO who abhors grubby lucre. Kind of like a patient mother trailing her destructive toddler and picking up discarded toys along the way, Ads was expected to make money with whatever new features the user-facing side of the company launched.
