“Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday. Building the metaverse “remains central to defining the future of social connection,” Zuckerberg wrote, but that isn’t where Meta will be putting most of its capital. Now, Zuckerberg says the company will focus mostly on cutting costs and streamlining projects. The pivot to efficiency, first announced last month in Meta’s quarterly earnings call, comes after years of investing heavily in growth, including in areas with unproven potential like virtual reality. In a letter to staff Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to lay off another 10,000 employees in the coming months, and doubled down on his new focus of “efficiency” for the company. He also encouraged workers to “focus on long-term impact” – perhaps a nod to investor concerns about immediate fallout from the pivot.įollowing the recent name change, Zuckerberg said that he wanted to recalibrate company policies and values – which had not been updated since 2007.Roughly a year-and-a-half after Facebook renamed itself “Meta” and said it would go all-in on building a future version of the internet dubbed the metaverse, the tech giant now says its top investment priority will be advancing artificial intelligence. “We should take on the challenges that will be the most impactful, even if the full results won’t be seen for years.” “‘Focus on long-term impact’ emphasizes long-term thinking and encourages us to extend the timeline for the impact we have, rather than optimizing for near-term wins,” he wrote in his post. The meeting comes as employees confront the company’s rapid shift away from the social media business it has spent decades building. Engineers at Instagram and Facebook have reportedly been encouraged to apply for jobs in the metaverse and artificial reality departments at the company, and Meta has hired thousands of new workers from rival companies such as Apple.Įmployees are not the only ones spooked by the changes: investors seem wary as well. In a recent earnings call, he assured investors: “I’m pleased with the momentum and the progress that we’ve made so far and I’m confident these are the right investments for us to focus on going forward.” Meta’s stocks took a historic plunge following its most recent earnings report, leading the company to lose more than $230bn in market value.īut Zuckerberg has appeared to remain steadfast in his belief that the metaverse is a worthy venture, and has invested $10bn in the project already. Meta not only changed internal rules but also external branding. It said Tuesday it had rebranded the News Feed – one of its best-known products – changing the name to simply “Feed”. It also announced on Tuesday it had officially acquired Kustomer, a customer service management platform (the acquisition had been in the works since it was announced in November 2020).MENLO PARK, CA: Mark Zuckerberg promised to streamline Meta’s business in the year ahead as the company reported mixed results for Q4 2022. Revenue fell by 4% to $32.2 billion in Q4 compared to the same period in 2021, marking the third straight quarter of decline.Ĭosts and expenses shot up by 22% year-on-year to $25.8 billion, dragging down the company’s profit. Meta’s net income of $4.65 billion in Q4 represents a 55% decline from the prior year. Meta said restructuring efforts, including costs related to employee severance, the early termination of office leases and data center restructuring, cost it $4.2 billion in Q4. Zuckerberg told investors he was focused on “continuing to streamline the company,” during its earnings call on Wednesday, saying the management theme for 2023 is “the year of efficiency.” The company laid off 11,000 employees in the quarter.īut the cost-cutting is far from over. “We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams, and when we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end,” Zuckerberg said. Meta expects another $1 billion in restructuring costs in 2023. Part of the efficiency focus will involve cuts.
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