Meta also continues to feel pressure from Apple, which has made a slew of privacy changes to its iOS software in recent years, crippling Facebook and Instagram’s ad-targeting abilities and causing the company to bleed money.
Perhaps Mr. Zuckerberg’s biggest problem with shareholders is of his own making. He pursues his vision of the Metaverse, a next-generation version of the internet that he believes will connect diverse worlds, from augmented and virtual reality to different types of game worlds and other experiences. That work is done in the company’s Reality Labs division, which is led by Mr. Zuckerberg’s longtime confidante and Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, better known as Boz.
That wasn’t a problem as Mr. Zuckerberg posted steady, reliable growth quarter after quarter. But amid high spending and a difficult economic climate, analysts have raised concerns about the feasibility 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 if we didn’t focus on one of these areas that I think are going to be fundamental going forward,” he said in a conversation with investors last year.
To offset continued spending on the Metaverse, the company has been trying to cut costs for the past six months. It has Reduce perks to a large extent and unnecessary travel for employees. The company cut 13 percent of its workforce in November, cutting the jobs of about 11,000 of its employees, particularly in its recruiting and operations units.
Mr. Zuckerberg blamed the global economic slowdown for the layoffs. But he also partly blamed himself when he and other tech leaders pointed out their hubris in the early days of the pandemic. As the world was ordered to protect itself locally, the pandemic brought with it a wave of people relying on online products and services more than ever, which in turn caused tech companies to create new positions in no time.
Mr. Zuckerberg and others admitted they were too quick to appreciate 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 people venturing more freely into the physical world.
