2012: Facebook catches up with mobile. Not many people realize that Facebook has an existential fear as action in the computer moves from our desktops to our pockets. This leaves Zuckerberg paranoid about falling behind again when the next big thing happens. He was determined to avoid what Clay Christensen called The innovator’s dilemma, which assumes that dominant companies will perish when the next model emerges, because their success – and their mindset – is tied to the current model. While viewing a demo of Oculus in 2014, Zuckerberg concluded that the future of computing lies in virtual reality. Driven by memories of Facebook’s near-death experiences with mobile devices, he bought Oculus for $2 billion and then full force, change the company name and spend 10 billion dollars a year on research to remove the scientific obstacles that currently make his vision of the metaverse impossible.
In the past, Meta’s problems have always been mitigated by excellent financial results. So what if people hate the company — it’s doing well and the stock is climbing toward that trillion-dollar valuation. Now that those benefits have gone up in smoke, Meta’s shortcomings have come to the fore. The company has been very lax in improving its flagship products. Worse still, there is rot in them.
For years, the big changes on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger were driven by what was good for Meta, not what was good for the people using its services. Instead of improving things like, say, the birthday experience (something people love about Facebook), huge resources are being used to copy Meta’s main competitor, TikTok, which that no one using Facebook is liking. Yes, that approach worked to some extent when Instagram blatantly swipe through Stories from Snap. But there is little chance of copying Meta’s TikTok, Reels, will pass the originator of that format. TikTok is not just one modern discovery algorithms, it also has a cache of people under 40 that Facebook can’t match. And when it comes to retaining top talent at Meta, is being second or third in short-form video (don’t forget YouTube) an inspiring mission?
So what happens next? I have this way! Dear Zuck: Say goodbye to your company. Not in the way that regulators might want, separating Facebook from Instagram etc. But just admit that Meta is ready two companies. One is a tech bet on the metaverse, and the other is a giant social enterprise that is losing the focus of its CEO. Twain should be separated.
Meta then became a project to build mixed reality hardware and software for the virtual world. Zuckerberg will be much happier to return to the exhilarating task of building something from the ground up — he brags in calls of active earnings on the metaverse that will become “history” — and no longer have to stay awake. wake up every morning feel him being punched, as he told Joe Rogan. Funding a research-heavy Meta 2 should be easy. If Elon Musk can pull $44 billion from investors, banks and his own pocket money to buy Twitter, a company that has never reached the billion users goal it set itself in 2009, Zuckerberg surely can certainly make money over a long period of time to develop the metaverse he believes in so much. Apparently the biggest investor would be his current company, which set aside some of the $40 billion cash to bet on the deceased founder. One thing new investors can identify is that the board of directors, not the chief executive officer, will have ultimate control over the company.
