Meta has a new motto: Work hard, play hard (in the metaverse)

Meta hosted their Meta Connect 2022 event this week. At last year’s event, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s rebrand to Meta. And the focus still remains on the metaverse a year later.

But they have a new motto — Work hard, play hard (in the metaverse):

• Meta announced a new VR headset, Quest Pro, costing $1,499 with only 1-2 hours of battery.
• The headset is pitched as a productivity device with a “mixed reality” experience.

To get businesses on board, Meta revealed a partnership with Microsoft to bring Windows apps to Meta’s metaverse. But if the workplace experience is anything like Horizon Worlds, Meta could be in trouble…

Clown show inside Meta

This week, NYT released a story on the troubles inside Meta…

• Zuckerberg told teams to hold meetings inside the metaverse — just to find out many Meta employees don’t own a headset.
• Employees are referring to key metaverse projects as “make Mark happy” (NYT).
• Only 58% of Meta employees understood the metaverse strategy.

Zuckerberg’s response: get on board or get out. And get out a lot of employees did. In August, Meta’s head of Horizon left with reports of Meta employees leaving in masses. Zuckerberg reframed it as being good.

Investors are running out of patience

Since the rebrand to Meta, its stock has been down nearly 60% — trading at the cheapest levels since going public.

• Losses keep racking up. Meta’s AR/VR division had a $5.7B operating loss just in the first half of 2022. In 2021, the division lost $10B.
• Growth is slowing in its core business. Last quarter, Meta reported its first revenue decline.

Meta also hasn’t released much hard data on the metaverse. This week, they did say $1.5B was spent on games and apps to date on its Quest Store. Far from being considered a success compared to Apple — which paid developers $60B in 2021 for its app store.

Investors want data like monthly and daily active users and time spent on the metaverse. If Meta throws enough money at the metaverse, they could succeed eventually, but it’ll come at the cost of current investors.

What else did Meta announce? See here