Mark Zuckerberg is on a course where it is the metaverse of nothing for him and his company. As Facebook became Meta earlier this year, it signaled an all-or-nothing strategy for the company. That strategy is not going so well and now thousands of people will lose their jobs.
Meta is seeing its profits fall and its share price tumble. While the company is snapping up engineers from rivals to drive its metaverse aspirations, the realization of the metaverse is still not quite there. Even so, Zuckerberg has said Meta will continue to plunge billions of dollars into the development of its vision.
Considering that spending commitment, the upcoming announcement that thousands will lose their job will be particularly ironic.
Meta currently has a global workforce of around 90,000 and is planning the biggest cull of employees in its history (previously as Facebook). In fact, it will be the biggest tech layoff of the year. Yes, that even includes Twitter, where Elon Musk has been swinging the axe at 50% of employees.
Meta does not plan to lay off 50%, but rumors suggest tens of thousands may be out of a job. At the moment, the company is not confirming or denying reports, but an announcement is expected to come this week.
Low Interest
Last month I reported that Meta is seeing low employee engagement with its metaverse products. In fact, the company has been circulating internal memos to encourage workers to fall in love with software.
Horizon Worlds is essentially Meta’s digital world game, its version of the metaverse. Despite plenty of chatter, a lot of money, and a willingness to throw itself completely into the project, it is unclear how Meta’s solution differs from other digital world concepts.
Memos obtained by The Verge show employee engagement in the project. In a memo from September 15, Meta’s VP Metaverse Vishal Shah is trying to stir more interest amongst engineers and other staff.
Tip of the day: After years of hefting a laptop around, you inevitably build up a menagerie of Wi-Fi networks. For the most part, they’ll sit on your PC, hardly used, but at times a change in configuration can make it difficult to connect to a network your computer already remembers. At this point, it can be beneficial to make Windows forget a Wi-Fi network and delete its network profile.
