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☆ Zuckerberg Didn’t Move Fast, Still Broke Things
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Dan Gallagher | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Some problems at Meta Platforms—including investors’ lack of enthusiasm for CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse—have been evident since early this year. The company once known as Facebook announced broad layoffs Wednesday morning, in a letter to employees from Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg. The action will cut the size of Meta Platforms ‘ workforce by 13%—about 11,000 employees. Facebook has never done a major retrenchment in its 18-year history, since the bulk of that history has involved double-digit growth and sky-high operating margins. They enabled the company to draw workers by the thousands every year, even in an industry marked by generous salaries and lavish perks.

☆ Tech firms can’t swing the axe equally
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Jennifer Saba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

But mass layoffs in other industries suggests that firms should be careful not to over-fire. Mark Zuckerberg’s $253 billion outfit is preparing to slash thousands of workers this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is blaming a massive drop in revenue as the reason to cull half of the social network’s 7,500 employees. These tech firms, though established, are also largely untested through a downturn. Twitter on Nov. 4 laid off half of its staff, or around 3,700 people, Reuters reported.

Web Summit, the sector’s annual bash held in Lisbon, is doing the opposite. And the usual welter of tech companies, investors and celebrities are still milling around. That new strain of reality-based tech investing has a lot further to go, though. The relative lack of investor focus at Web Summit on new technologies that could really move the dial, such as ways to ease climate change, is striking. The sector, Smith told Breakingviews, will increasingly “influence what people talk about and who comes to Web Summit”.

☆ Meta’s Reverse Darkens Mark Zuckerberg’s Dream
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Laura Forman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Mark Zuckerberg wants to sell the world on his “amazing” $1,500 virtual-reality headset. Meta Platforms said Wednesday that its revenue fell 4% year on year in the third quarter—its second consecutive quarter of annual declines—while net income fell 52%. For the fourth quarter, the company formerly known as Facebook is forecasting revenue to fall ever further annually with the midpoint of its outlook implying a drop of about 7%. Meanwhile, although Meta claims to be making changes across the board to operate more efficiently, its expense projection for the full year remains little changed. Beyond that, the company said it expects operating losses for its Reality Labs division, which houses its metaverse ambitions, to grow significantly next year.

☆ Meta’s spending splurge starts to look troubling
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Lauren Silva Laughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Last year, existing operations generated enough cash to justify the spending spree. If results slip – and the third quarter suggests they could – spending will become a problem. Mark Zuckerberg’s company posted operating income of $5.6 billion, almost half of what it was in the third quarter of 2021, as margins also declined considerably. Last year’s $59 billion in operating cash flow underpinned Zuckerberg’s bold initiative. The company said that daily active users grew to nearly 2 billion, a 3% increase year-on-year.

☆ Meta unveils its much-hyped Quest Pro mixed reality headset
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Meta Platforms unveiled its Quest Pro virtual and mixed reality headset on Tuesday, marking a milestone for Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s break into the higher-end market for extended reality computing devices. The Quest Pro features several upgrades over Meta’s existing Quest 2 headset, which overwhelmingly dominates the consumer virtual reality market. For fully immersive virtual reality, Meta has added tracking sensors to the Quest Pro that can replicate users’ eye movements and facial expressions, creating a sense that avatars are making eye contact. Meta is pitching the Quest Pro as a productivity device, aimed at designers, architects and other creative professionals. For now, that means the Quest Pro stops short of enabling the complex commercial applications Meta has suggested it wants its metaverse tech to support.

☆ Meta's problem is that the metaverse is supremely uncool
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-25 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The biggest problem: It just doesn’t look cool. To get into the metaverse in the first place, you first have to strap on a bulky headset like Meta’s $400 Quest device. VR avatars also need to respond in real time to the ways we move our faces and bodies, which requires powerful computing and graphics processing. Still, FedEx Ground is refusing to offer the kind of across-the-board financial relief to its contractors that Patton and others are seeking. “We recognize that current economic conditions are posing new challenges,” FedEx Ground said in a statement.

☆ Opinion: The metaverse holds great promise — and great risk
▼ + stars: | 2022-04-12 | by ( Opinion Scott Galloway For Cnn Business Perspectives | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

But the metaverse could be so much more than one man’s quest for control over our virtual lives. Like the real world (at least in any capitalist society), it has to incentivize individuals to participate in and grow the economy. The metaverse needs to be a reasonable facsimile of the real world, where I can spend my money and wear my Adidas where I want. Just as in the physical world, freedom is easily lost and our lives easily manipulated. No metaverse built by humans is going to be void of the human instinct to want power, and that power could be enormous.

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