Meta publishes restructuring charges of $4.2 billion

Perhaps Mr. Zuckerberg’s biggest problem with shareholders is his fault. He is pursuing his vision for the metaverse, a next-generation version of the internet that he believes will connect different worlds, from augmented and virtual reality to different kinds of game worlds and other experiences. That work is done in the company’s Reality Labs division, which is led by longtime Zuckerberg confidant and Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, better known as Boz.

That was no problem when Mr. Zuckerberg was showing steady, reliable growth quarter after quarter. But given high spending and a tough economic climate, analysts have raised concerns about the viability of Mr Zuckerberg’s grandiose plans – concerns he has largely ignored.

“I think that’s going to be a very important thing, and I think it would be a mistake for us not to focus on one of those areas, which I think will be fundamentally important going forward,” he said in a statement. call with investors last year.

To compensate for continued spending on the Metaverse, the company has spent the past six months trying to cut costs. It has greatly reduced benefits and non-essential travel for employees. It cut 13% of its workforce in November, eliminating the positions of around 11,000 of its employees, particularly in the recruiting and business divisions.

Mr Zuckerberg blamed the global economic downturn for the layoffs. But he also blamed himself, in part, as he and other tech executives pointed to their excessive exuberance at the start of the pandemic. As the world has been ordered to shelter in place, the pandemic has led to more people relying on online products and services than ever before, prompting tech companies to add new positions. in the blink of an eye.

Mr Zuckerberg and others admitted they had been too quick to estimate that a largely digital life was the new reality for many, even as that reality changed again with the advent of vaccines and more and more more people returned more freely to the physical world.

Mr Zuckerberg said Meta’s best days lay ahead of him. The company has invested in artificial intelligence in hopes of improving its business over time. Better AI, he said, will lead to better content recommendations on the company’s flagships — like Reels, the TikTok-like video feature inside Instagram and Facebook — which, at in turn, will entice people to spend more time in its app family.