Meta PM Interview - The Social Audio Case Study

Welcome to the eighth edition of PM Interview Prep Weekly! I’m Ajitesh, and today we’re tackling a product design case that comes with a fascinating backstory of failure and opportunity.

Facebook has tried podcasts and Clubhouse clones, but nothing has worked for them when it comes to audio. This is unlike their successful adoption of Snapchat Stories and TikTok features. The common criticism? They treated audio as just another content format rather than reimagining it as a social experience.

At Google Cloud, we had rich competition from AWS and Azure, and often these companies had already launched features that seemed worth copying. But here’s what I learned: our implementation in almost all of the case after proposal, internal discussion, design choices etc ended up being very different.

There are things Google could do that AWS couldn’t—and vice versa—because of our infrastructure investments, how our go-to-market teams operated, and crucially, how customers perceived us. Google Cloud was seen as the analytics and AI-focused cloud provider. If we tried executing a pure infrastructure play in regulated industries—even if it worked brilliantly for AWS—we’d struggle. Our account teams wouldn’t know how to sell it. It wouldn’t fit our product narrative.

We constantly had to ask ourselves: What can our teams actually sell? What can we execute better than anyone else? How does this fit with our existing products and overall story?

This pattern repeats across all of big tech, and today’s case is a perfect example. Audio products that worked beautifully for Spotify, and to some extent Clubhouse during COVID, completely failed at Facebook. Meanwhile, Clubhouse’s DNA lives on successfully in Twitter Spaces. But Facebook? They shut everything down.

Make sure you showcase the these cultural and organizational nuances in interview. Especially toward the end when reflecting on your approach, show that you understand how ideas must be adapted to a company’s specific strengths is a critical skill.

Now let’s explore: If you were a PM at Meta today, knowing what failed before, how would you approach building an audio product?

The Case

Interviewer: “Meta has built incredible infrastructure for digital connection through photos, videos, and messaging. However, audio remains relatively underexplored in our core offerings. How would you design an audio product for Meta?”

The Interview Approach

I follow a simple 3-step approach for product design cases:

Find a specific customer segment
Map their specific problems
Brainstorm and prioritize solutions

Here’s how I’d tackle this case:

1. Clarifying Questions

I’d start by explaining Meta’s position in audio—they have the infrastructure but audio remains passive, not social.

Then I’d ask a few key questions:

Are we focusing on music or spoken content? (Spoken content like podcasts avoids licensing complexities)
What’s our timeline? (12-18 months for MVP, with a 3-year vision)

2. Set Clear Goals

For Meta, near-term success means:

Engagement first: Are people sharing, commenting, co-listening? The first 12-18 months must focus on engagement—whether people love using it. Monetization comes later.
Critical mass: Can we get enough users to create a true social experience? For social media, without critical mass, even intense engagement from a few users won’t matter.

3. Customer Segmentation

I’d focus on users who consume content but have a high propensity to create—the flywheel has to work both ways. Creator attraction and monetization is a huge challenge that Spotify and TikTok solved well, and Meta is solving for Reels. But let’s focus on which organic users could both consume and create.

I identified three key segments:

Gen Z podcast fans (18-25) - They enjoy podcasts, love creating, prefer bite-sized content, and share memes constantly. They’re not getting the perfect audio product because Spotify isn’t social and episodes are too long.
Long-distance relationships - Want to feel connected without always being on video. WhatsApp calls come and go, but don’t give that “in the same room” feeling of discussing and sharing moments together.
Self-help and interest groups - Need to be “in the room” to share moments and reflect together. Podcasts don’t enable this, and while Clubhouse tried, it struggled with intimacy at scale.

I chose Gen Z podcast fans because:

High social sharing rates of any demographic
They made TikTok sounds a cultural phenomenon
Want bite-sized, shareable content

4. Problem Deep Dive

Let me map the Gen Z podcast journey:

Discovery: Trying to figure out which podcast to listen to
Listening: Actually consuming the content, often feeling alone
Sharing: Want to share moments in real-time but can’t—you note it down, send a WhatsApp message later saying “hey, listen to this part,” and hope they remember to discuss it

From this journey, three core problems emerge:

Can’t share specific moments: “I heard something amazing in a podcast but can’t share that specific 30-second moment”
Isolated discovery: “I don’t know what my friends are listening to”
Async discussion: “My friends and I love the same podcast but discuss it out of sync on WhatsApp”

I’d prioritize the sharing problem because it’s uniquely solvable by Meta and creates immediate value.

Framing as a “How might we” statement: “How might we enable Gen Z to share podcast moments with friends in real-time?“

5. Solution Design

Simple: ClipChat with AI Interjection Goes beyond YouTube’s passive clip-and-share by making clips interactive and personalized. Uses Meta’s AI capabilities (like NotebookLM’s approach) to create engagement:

Capture 30-60 second audio clips and share, but here’s the twist: you can interject with questions
AI responds in the podcaster’s voice, creating a dialogue that never existed
Add your own commentary, reactions, or follow-up questions
The AI can extend the story, answer “what if” scenarios, or debate points
Share these interactive clips to Stories/Reels where friends can add their own interjections

Medium: Audio Remix Rooms It’s not just listening together — it’s creating new content from existing content.

Create “remix rooms” where you blend real friends + AI personas + podcast content
Pull specific podcast moments and have AI-powered hosts facilitate discussion
Mix multiple podcasts on the same topic for meta-conversations
Friends can drop in async, but their voices get woven into the ongoing dialogue

Complex: AudioVerse (Metaverse Audio) Leverages Meta’s metaverse investments to create experiences impossible elsewhere:

VR/AR podcast experiences where you’re “in the studio” with hosts
Create virtual listening parties

MVP Definition

I’d recommend starting with Audio Remix Rooms as the MVP:

It has novelty required to capture user and media attention
Doesn’t have high barrier to adoption (Meta headset for AudioVerse)

Success Metrics:

Number interactive clips created per user per week
Creators see increase in full episode listens from clips

Practice This Case

Want to practice this case with an AI interviewer that thinks like a Meta PM?

Practice here: Tough Tongue AI - Meta Audio Product Design

The AI interviewer will probe your understanding of social mechanics, push you on differentiation from Spotify, and ensure you’re leveraging Meta’s unique capabilities — just like a real interviewer would.

PM Tool of the Week: NotebookLM

This week, let’s talk about NotebookLM from Google — a tool that has changed how I do user research.

As PMs, we constantly deal with information overload: user interviews, survey results, competitor analyses. NotebookLM lets you upload all your documents and query them like you’re talking to an expert who’s read everything.

Features I like:

Upload anything: Transcripts, PRDs, competitor teardowns, user feedback
AI synthesis: Ask questions and get answers citing specific sources
Audio summaries: Generate podcast-style discussions of your research and listen on your way to work

There’s an argument to be made that we need vertical-specific NotebookLMs. If someone builds a NotebookLM specifically for PMs with rich integrations and thoughtful UX, that would be pretty interesting to try.

Found a PM tool that’s saving you time? Reply and tell me about it!

What’s your take on social audio? Is there still opportunity after Clubhouse’s rise and fall? Hit reply—I’d love to hear your perspective.

About PM Interview Prep Weekly

Every Monday, get one complete PM case study with detailed solution walkthrough, an AI interview partner to practice with, and insights on what’s new in PM interviewing.

No fluff. No outdated advice. Just practical prep that works.

— Ajitesh
CEO & Co-founder, Tough Tongue AI
Ex-Google PM (Gemini)
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Meta PM Interview - The Social Audio Case Study

The Case