Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains bullish on the company’s metaverse plans even if it costs to the company a lot in terms of cutting the workforce and even incurring billions worth of losses.
Mark Zuckerberg attempted to ease concerns that he and his company were not concentrating enough on their main business while they worked to develop the metaverse in a videoconference at the 2022 DealBook Summit in New York.
Trying to debunk the myth that the corporation is only interested in the metaverse, he added that the great majority of his time and the vast majority of the company’s effort is going toward social media operations.
Apparently, only 20% of the company’s investment portfolio goes into Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse development arm, according to Zuckerberg.
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40% of that investment is used to create its Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, with the remaining half or more going toward creating what he calls the long-term most critical form factor, such as normal-looking glasses that can place holograms in the world.
Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged, as he did earlier this month when he addressed the workforce about company-wide layoffs, that he failed to anticipate the economy’s cyclical downturns and that his significant investments in the metaverse are now being followed by the difficult choice to scale back.
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For those who are skeptical of Meta’s metaverse initiative, Zuckerberg stated, “if you’re getting skepticism, you’re pushing hard enough.”
“I think things look very different on a ten-year time horizon than the zone that we’re in for the next few years […] I’m still completely optimistic about all the things that we’ve been optimistic about,” Zuckerberg added.
Zuckerberg stated something similar in May, saying he expects Meta’s metaverse play will result in a “significant” loss in the short term. Meta CEO is well aware of the fact that the metaverse plan will result in losses for up to 5 years, which will have a heavy impact on the company’s stock.
