A lot has changed since Mark Zuckerberg last year boldly proclaimed the company formerly known as Facebook would charge the world headfirst into the so-called metaverse. A historic technological slowdown captured hold Meta and leave it with 11,000 fewer employees and a stock price down a whopping 65%. meta said burned over $10 billion in its metaverse vision during this time with little to show for saving avatars with barely working legs and a $1,500 helmet without real use cases. John Carmack, the legendary engineer who lent his ear to Meta, even recently called he leaves. Now, with the end of 2022 in sight, the company says it plans to burn even more cash as the new year approaches.
In one blog post titled “Why We Still Believe in the Future”, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth acknowledged the financial headwinds but said the company would still commit to dumping nonetheless About 20% of the company’s overall costs and expenses in the Reality Labs segment of its business next year. This unique division, which is responsible for Meta’s VR headsets and future-facing Metaverse platforms, reported $9.44 billion in losses this year according to Insider Information.
“We never thought it would be easy or simple, but this year has been even harder than we expected,” admitted Bosworth. “Economic challenges across the globe, combined with pressures on Meta’s core business, have created a perfect storm of skepticism about the investments we are making.”
Bosworth went on to oppose “short-term thinking” which he said would limit companies to investing only in large, expensive products during boom times. Although the executive said Meta made some adjustments, he said that the overall plans for the metaverse aren’t going anywhere.
“I can say with confidence that after one of the most challenging years in the company’s history, Meta remains as committed to our vision for the future as we were the day we announced it. “, Bosworth added.
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Although 2022 may seem like a failure from the outside, Bosworth said he believes Reality Labs engineers have succeeded in developing a product, The Meta Quest Pro, which puts state-of-the-art hardware in the hands of developers. Additionally, Bosworth pointed to the growing popularity of social experiences on the Quest Store as proof that VR users are actually interested in hooking up with headsets. Going forward, the exec said Meta wants to spend more time focusing on ways to help Horizon Worlds developers succeed in 2023. Bosworth hinted to growing competition in the coming years, all but naming Apple and its long-rumored helmet.
“While we will continue to find ways to work more efficiently, what will not change in 2023 is our vision and the long-term research effort we are undertaking to achieve this,” Bosworth added.
This reassuring tone, while probably welcome to Meta engineers, goes against a growing chorus of frustrated investors and outside critics. One such investor, Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner, wrote a scathing piece open letter to Zuckerberg earlier this year saying that Meta had “drift into the land of excess”.
Previously enthusiastic departures are also leaving the company. This week, Doom co-creator and programming legend John Carmack resigned from his position as a consultant at Meta. In one noteCarmack said he stands behind the company’s hardware, but said teams working on that hardware are “constantly self-sabotaging[s] and waste[s] effort.”
There’s no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the efficiency that would make me happy,” Carmack said.
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