Meta founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that the company’s Meta Connect conference, which offers a glimpse into what the tech giant sees as the future, will take place September 23–24. The conference is typically a major event for the company. Last year, Meta used the stage to debut its AI glasses.
Though little is known about what Zuckerberg plans to showcase this year, he has at least offered a preview of the conference vibes via a new Spotify playlist.
Shared alongside the announcement, the “Connect 2026 Vibes” playlist consists of five extremely mainstream, EDM-adjacent pop tracks, including Jack Harlow’s new release “Say Hello” (perhaps best known for the terrible hat Harlow wore while promoting it), a remix of Tame Impala’s “Dracula,” and “Born Again” by Thai artist Lisa featuring Doja Cat and RAYE. The overall effect is less “visionary tech summit” and more “college party hosted by a startup accelerator.”
Zuckerberg has revealed increasingly more about his music taste in recent years, often while trying to project a looser, cooler public image. Last year, for his wife’s 40th birthday, he dressed up as Benson Boone. He also shared an acoustic version of “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz that he recorded with T-Pain, with the pair billing themselves as “Z-Pain.”
His Spotify profile offers additional clues. Artists Zuckerberg follows include millennial-era staples like Taio Cruz, Gym Class Heroes, Cher Lloyd, and fun., alongside bigger mainstream names like Florence and the Machine, Drake, Lady Gaga, and Pitbull.
The only other playlist Zuckerberg has publicly shared, “2004 facebook coding jams,” paints a noticeably angstier picture, featuring tracks from Trapt, Hoobastank, and Linkin Park. (Zuck still follows Linkin Park co-founder Mike Shinoda’s solo work on Spotify.)
Zuckerberg’s image may have evolved over the years, from the Caesar cut to curls and oversized chains, but one thing has remained constant: “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk. The track appears on both the Connect 2026 playlist and his old “2004 facebook coding jams,” making it feel the closest we’ll get to a personal mission statement.
