I wonder if at some point a leader has to step away - not necessarily because the strategy is wrong (I have no idea); but because for whatever reason, right or wrong - no one really wants that leader to win.
No one in the community likes Zuckerberg. No one wants him to win. Meta - the company - could restore its image and rebuild trust with a new leadership. But not while he is there.
Not commenting on whether this is just - whether he has gotten a bad rap or not. Am speaking just to the reality of the perception.
If it were me - I would step away, not just for the sake of the company - but for my own as well. I would want to take my wealth and see what else I could do with it - how else might I be able to contribute and give back? Think of both Gates and Jobs when apart from MS and Apple. It's not just a chance for the company to reinvent itself, but the leader as well.
Zuckerberg's name is synonymous with Facebook/Meta. People aren't going to start trusting the company even if he steps away. They would have to first change their entire business model and get rid of everything people have a problem with, leaving nothing remaining.
My wife uses Facebook a lot. Coordinating with other parents (mothers mostly) who volunteer at our kid's school. Posting kid pictures for the benefit of grandparents, extended family, and old friends. I think she's pretty representative of who uses Facebook for what nowadays.
And the insane crazy moderation drives her up the wall. Just the other day, she posted an announcement to a private group, asking for parents to volunteer at the school. Almost immediately, Facebook removed it, because it contained "nudity". There was absolutely nothing in the picture but text, and a coloured background. It was obvious why their software thought it was "nudity" though – she'd chosen a pinky-peach background, roughly that of pale human skin.
Barely a week goes by when she doesn't complain to me about some mindless Facebook moderation inconsistency. If Facebook don't improve, eventually someone else will move in and take over that particular market segment, just like TikTok/Snapchat/etc have already taken over others.
> Zuckerberg's name is synonymous with Facebook/Meta
With creating Facebook - maybe. But with trust to Facebook - I know many regular people who uses FB to run all kinds of local groups, and I never heard from one of the "we use FB because we trust Zuckerberg". His name may come up when something is not working or when people get randomly banned for nothing, but never in the context of trust. And, TBH, I can't remember anything Zuckerberg has ever done to make people trust FB more as a company.
PS: Oh, and nobody gives a flying about "Meta". The idea that people are itching for bad-graphics boring super-expensive gadget that would allow them to do something they never wanted to do... that's why this company is in trouble.
People don’t really hold on to grudges for so long. I believe the hatred is manufactured by the media- nytimes, foxnews, bbc, cnn pretty much all media hate him. Why wouldn’t they? He took a big piece out of their pie.
How many tech companies, specifically social media companies, are worth far less than they're touted to? I can easily live without Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Uber... the list is endless. In fact, I don't use any of the most popular tech products on the market. And investors are starting to realize that overinflated numbers mean little. You have a billion users? How many regularly use your product? 10%?
Even Google and Amazon are starting to face reality.
> I don't use any of the most popular tech products on the market
that's a very compelling dataset size of 1.
uber, for one, publishes number of its users and rides, and in 2021 it was about 100 million active users who did a few billion rides. For a public company that delivers a physical service, kind of hard to fudge that.
Uber has an edge here. Decades of regulatory coddling made taxi industry suck so hard that any alternative that sucks less is welcome. I don't care about their business model, but if I need to get point A -> point B, and they can do it with the least inconvenience for me - they get my business. But not all industries have such amounts of accumulated suckage.
Most things most people search on the internet go through Google, who gets to show them ads. They do the same on YouTube. You're joking if you think Google is in any trouble.
In a parallel universe Samsung is spending 10B a year on 3D TV. They are improving software, introducing new stands for their 3D TV sets, acquiring 3D TV production companies. Samsung's CEO Nam is convinced that in the future every household and office in the world will have a wall-sized 3D TV set in every room.
Seems hyperbolic. Meta is spending a lot of money on R&D right now (good news for longterm investors); Facebook is still the place for real-life connections (outside of business); VR is immature but will be a big deal once it lowers in cost.
>Facebook is still the place for real-life connections
Most of the people I know left Facebook long ago or never had an account to begin with. For people below a certain age (which includes myself and I'm not young) it will resemble a ghost town.
FB is for Gen-Xers now. Maybe early millenials, but that's doubtful. Some boomers too. But GenX has a good 30-40 years of active lifespan left, so if they don't mess with it, there's some good income stream. But they will definitely mess with it.
VR doesn't need to capture the average facebook user/masses. As long as META can retain devs/early adopters, with great hardware, the ecosystem/community has already been built. High ROI is only inevitable, whales in MMORPG's spend the money because theres a genuine connection with the players/community, that should've become apparent to everyone with NFTs/crypto.
If Zucc's bets on acquiring whatsapp and instagram were plays on time spent/attention, should track that he understands the killer app of VR is going to be time spent/attention. VR isnt just a new medium to tell stories, if it taps into something more primal than anything a screen can convey, then the "next platform" race has already started and META is ahead by leagues
VR absolutely needs to capture the average FB user and the masses. Zuck is not building the new WoW or an NFT marketplace. His goal is to create a highly social, highly monetizable, work/play platform for the planet.
> that should've become apparent to everyone with NFTs/crypto
Right, that's why FB, Meta and its metaverse are so highly regarded in the crypto community.
>Meta is spending a lot of money on R&D right now (good news for longterm investors);
... only if your r&d pays off. If you keep spending ten billion each year on something that looks like a second rate version of second life ca. 2010 combined with VRChat it's fair to say you may have a problem.
> VR is immature but will be a big deal once it lowers in cost
What do you mean by that? It's bad now because it's expensive? I think it's bad now because the tech is not ready (bulky, low resolution, low quality graphics, causes nausea, etc) and because Meta's value prop is incoherent. Team meetings in VR? Catching up with friends in VR? Having legs in VR? (How many people does this appeal to?) If it was 100x cheaper now do you think it would have been much more popular?
Internet and websites are a big deal now, didn't help pets.com. Even if VR takes off - which btw is not a given - that doesn't mean it would be Meta's VR. And "spending a lot of money" is not good news for investors. Spending a lot of money on something that will earn a bigger lot of money may be - but again, there's no proof that's what Meta is going to be.
maybe i'm getting old, but I don't see VR ever being more than a niche play thing. Humans will continue to want real world interactions, not just put on a headset and live in vr. Facebook, et al, worked because they were highly accessible. Having to put on a headset? No thanks.
I support Zuckerberg 100% and think he's doing the right thing, or at least the right kind of thing, even though I think VR will probably fail. Too many businesses are infected with a kind of parasitic capitalism disease - Warren Buffet is the prime exemplar of this - dominate a niche, build a moat, raise prices, extract value, repeat ad nauseum.
Zuckerberg is doing something different. He amassed a gigantic fortune and built a huge company. Now he's trying to innovate rather than simply sit on his hoard and extract value. He's spending his money on real innovation - actual technology. That's good. Plus, he's doing it in complete defiance of media, investors, business types, etc. That takes courage. Good for Zuckerberg.
What is the point of getting control over such vast capital if not to try and build the future?
What do you think is the innovation he's trying to do? So far it looks to me like "let's do SecondLife, but with walled gardens, and we'll sell expensive hardware for it". We could argue whether this is useful in some context and whether maybe some specific kind of meetings would actually benefit from VR, but... VRChat exists - if they bought that and did "VRChat for business", they'd be already better off.
Vr chat? You mean the weird vr social game for furries and anime fans?
I think your comment illustrates to me the disconnect. The criticism is hyper focused on that one app. The quest 2 is a fantastic device. And the software for it is actually fantastic. The hardware and software coming out of reality labs is by far the best as a whole.
And while I don’t think monolithic apps like horizon worlds are going to be more than a gimmick for a long time. Logging in for the first time on the quest pro and chatting with strangers was something else. Of all the hyped marketing in the presentations I rolled my eyes at the focus on “presence” and feeling like you are there with someone but it already lives up to that in my opinion. It was pretty damn cool.
Now that I think about it. Maybe he doesn’t have to give a damn about marketing vr well. Apple will come in and do that work for him soon.
I doubt his target market is HN users. He wants the youngest generation to get VR and grow up using it. Minecraft, Roblox, all the clones ... many billions of dollars. If you own the platform, even more. Then, when they hit adulthood, they are natives in the technology.
I'm too far from it to know exactly how Facebook is spending the money. In my mental model they are spending it on "make VR work" and that's how I'm thinking about it here.
This is why I hedged a little in my original comment and said that this is at least the kind of thing Facebook should be doing. I really hope they aren't spending all, or even most, of their money on the demos we are seeing. I don't necessarily think their specific strategy is right, but trying to do something is right.
Personally, I'd be spending everything on brain-computer interfaces - because that's the only way I can see VR working. What would happen if you gave a team of scientists billions of dollars a year with the mandate to get a brain-computer interface for the highest level animal on which you could ethically and legally do unlimited experiments? Get that down, work your way up to a less intrusive device targeting apes and then humans, and then you could do real, serious VR.
I agree. It takes guts to buck the trends set by your peers and to forge a new path. Especially as a billionaire, the well traversed paths are already laid out and everyone is an echo chamber of the same message. Zuckerberg is taking a huge risk and gamble by pushing forth with what he believes to be the next stage in how users interface with computational devices. I have no idea if it will be a success but I respect the effort. Meta’s business proposition is vast and rather unclear at the moment as the technology remains in its nascent state. There are a lot of naysayers that like to parrot what they’ve heard but few people seem to be trying to figure out what it’s all about. Without considering it too deeply, I see Meta having an opportunity to reduce the physical costs associated with getting a team and equipment together, things that are normally required to create. It’s possible you won’t need to rent a studio to make music, or have all the professionals flown in to storyboard.
I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, etc. Nor do I hold stock in any of these company’s (or Meta). But I think it takes a lot of strength to move in this direction, so kudos to Zuckerberg. I hope something good comes out of it for all.
Everyone wants another iteration of iPhone and more stupid software. It's all the same. The tech industry is becoming boring and uninspired.
The only tech that gets me as excited as when I was a child is VR/AR. Fun and exciting new hardware. Give me something that I can create and play with.
What kind of moat did Buffet build? Which prices did he raise? It doesn't seem to remind anything in his career. If anything, "dominating a niche" is Zuckerberg's strategy, not Buffet's - the latter's business interests are rather diverse (Wikipedia says his most lucrative investment proved to be Coca-Cola shares).
the future is outsmarting states like China and Russia and avoiding, not profiting from, social collapse. I think he is just choosing something easy enough to accomplish but which might have a reasonably large addressable market.
really hard problems requiring actual innovation? so-called tech guys can only sell ads and personal data, sorry.
Four years ago, the Facebook founder revealed his admiration for Augustus Caesar. Zuckerberg honeymooned in Rome (his wife joked that Augustus was the third party on their trip), one of his daughters is called August, and his strange haircut is reportedly inspired by Augustus’s style. But as he fiddles in the metaverse, ignoring the fact that the rest of his empire is crumbling, he is beginning to more closely resemble Nero.
≥ "He saw the digital future once. Can he repeat the trick?"
Zuckerberg copied an idea someone else came up with, used shady business tactics to screw his cofounders, was lucky enough to start at Harvard which helped differentiate and legitimize his me-too product, then rode network effects to success (mostly because it was managed by competent adults who were as unscrupulous as he is). He's done nothing else. Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus were acquisitions, and the company's core product has become simply a disinformation machine which no one under the age of 25 will touch.
The only thing Zuckerberg has done is make money. Which is all well and good, but his "vision" is non-existent, as demonstrated by his insane focus on VR when he could be doing so much with the platforms he already has.
I'm no fan of Zuck or Facebook, but I will say that his success wasn't due merely to network effects, or else he'd never have beaten MySpace.
Back in the day, he was basically an insanely good, detail-oriented product manager that kept relentlessly innovating Facebook. Other social networks kept making mistakes, he didn't. Facebook worked and kept getting better, for many years. And it made money because he brought in Sheryl, since he was good at product but not good at business.
But that's all he was, just a really really good product manager. So you're right -- nothing visionary about it. And he had no idea what to do when the News Feed began actually affecting elections and civil wars around the world -- totally and utterly out of his depth.
And now he wants to be the "visionary"... and is taking down the entire company in the process. It's really a sight to behold. And it's the kind of egotistical indulgence that's only able to happen when investors allow founders to keep control.
Readit News
No one in the community likes Zuckerberg. No one wants him to win. Meta - the company - could restore its image and rebuild trust with a new leadership. But not while he is there.
Not commenting on whether this is just - whether he has gotten a bad rap or not. Am speaking just to the reality of the perception.
If it were me - I would step away, not just for the sake of the company - but for my own as well. I would want to take my wealth and see what else I could do with it - how else might I be able to contribute and give back? Think of both Gates and Jobs when apart from MS and Apple. It's not just a chance for the company to reinvent itself, but the leader as well.
And the insane crazy moderation drives her up the wall. Just the other day, she posted an announcement to a private group, asking for parents to volunteer at the school. Almost immediately, Facebook removed it, because it contained "nudity". There was absolutely nothing in the picture but text, and a coloured background. It was obvious why their software thought it was "nudity" though – she'd chosen a pinky-peach background, roughly that of pale human skin.
Barely a week goes by when she doesn't complain to me about some mindless Facebook moderation inconsistency. If Facebook don't improve, eventually someone else will move in and take over that particular market segment, just like TikTok/Snapchat/etc have already taken over others.
With creating Facebook - maybe. But with trust to Facebook - I know many regular people who uses FB to run all kinds of local groups, and I never heard from one of the "we use FB because we trust Zuckerberg". His name may come up when something is not working or when people get randomly banned for nothing, but never in the context of trust. And, TBH, I can't remember anything Zuckerberg has ever done to make people trust FB more as a company.
PS: Oh, and nobody gives a flying about "Meta". The idea that people are itching for bad-graphics boring super-expensive gadget that would allow them to do something they never wanted to do... that's why this company is in trouble.
I agree with you that Zuck should walk away and the company should bring new leadership that can change the image and culture of the company.
Deleted Comment
Even Google and Amazon are starting to face reality.
that's a very compelling dataset size of 1.
uber, for one, publishes number of its users and rides, and in 2021 it was about 100 million active users who did a few billion rides. For a public company that delivers a physical service, kind of hard to fudge that.
Most of the people I know left Facebook long ago or never had an account to begin with. For people below a certain age (which includes myself and I'm not young) it will resemble a ghost town.
If Zucc's bets on acquiring whatsapp and instagram were plays on time spent/attention, should track that he understands the killer app of VR is going to be time spent/attention. VR isnt just a new medium to tell stories, if it taps into something more primal than anything a screen can convey, then the "next platform" race has already started and META is ahead by leagues
> that should've become apparent to everyone with NFTs/crypto
Right, that's why FB, Meta and its metaverse are so highly regarded in the crypto community.
... only if your r&d pays off. If you keep spending ten billion each year on something that looks like a second rate version of second life ca. 2010 combined with VRChat it's fair to say you may have a problem.
What do you mean by that? It's bad now because it's expensive? I think it's bad now because the tech is not ready (bulky, low resolution, low quality graphics, causes nausea, etc) and because Meta's value prop is incoherent. Team meetings in VR? Catching up with friends in VR? Having legs in VR? (How many people does this appeal to?) If it was 100x cheaper now do you think it would have been much more popular?
Zuckerberg is doing something different. He amassed a gigantic fortune and built a huge company. Now he's trying to innovate rather than simply sit on his hoard and extract value. He's spending his money on real innovation - actual technology. That's good. Plus, he's doing it in complete defiance of media, investors, business types, etc. That takes courage. Good for Zuckerberg.
What is the point of getting control over such vast capital if not to try and build the future?
What do you think is the innovation he's trying to do? So far it looks to me like "let's do SecondLife, but with walled gardens, and we'll sell expensive hardware for it". We could argue whether this is useful in some context and whether maybe some specific kind of meetings would actually benefit from VR, but... VRChat exists - if they bought that and did "VRChat for business", they'd be already better off.
But actual innovation? I just don't see it.
I think your comment illustrates to me the disconnect. The criticism is hyper focused on that one app. The quest 2 is a fantastic device. And the software for it is actually fantastic. The hardware and software coming out of reality labs is by far the best as a whole.
And while I don’t think monolithic apps like horizon worlds are going to be more than a gimmick for a long time. Logging in for the first time on the quest pro and chatting with strangers was something else. Of all the hyped marketing in the presentations I rolled my eyes at the focus on “presence” and feeling like you are there with someone but it already lives up to that in my opinion. It was pretty damn cool.
Now that I think about it. Maybe he doesn’t have to give a damn about marketing vr well. Apple will come in and do that work for him soon.
This is why I hedged a little in my original comment and said that this is at least the kind of thing Facebook should be doing. I really hope they aren't spending all, or even most, of their money on the demos we are seeing. I don't necessarily think their specific strategy is right, but trying to do something is right.
Personally, I'd be spending everything on brain-computer interfaces - because that's the only way I can see VR working. What would happen if you gave a team of scientists billions of dollars a year with the mandate to get a brain-computer interface for the highest level animal on which you could ethically and legally do unlimited experiments? Get that down, work your way up to a less intrusive device targeting apes and then humans, and then you could do real, serious VR.
I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, etc. Nor do I hold stock in any of these company’s (or Meta). But I think it takes a lot of strength to move in this direction, so kudos to Zuckerberg. I hope something good comes out of it for all.
Everyone wants another iteration of iPhone and more stupid software. It's all the same. The tech industry is becoming boring and uninspired.
The only tech that gets me as excited as when I was a child is VR/AR. Fun and exciting new hardware. Give me something that I can create and play with.
Supposedly Oculus has a young userbase as well.
really hard problems requiring actual innovation? so-called tech guys can only sell ads and personal data, sorry.
Four years ago, the Facebook founder revealed his admiration for Augustus Caesar. Zuckerberg honeymooned in Rome (his wife joked that Augustus was the third party on their trip), one of his daughters is called August, and his strange haircut is reportedly inspired by Augustus’s style. But as he fiddles in the metaverse, ignoring the fact that the rest of his empire is crumbling, he is beginning to more closely resemble Nero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Burning_ROM
Nero wasn’t all that bad. Ok, he was but are they saying Zuck ain’t bad?
Zuckerberg copied an idea someone else came up with, used shady business tactics to screw his cofounders, was lucky enough to start at Harvard which helped differentiate and legitimize his me-too product, then rode network effects to success (mostly because it was managed by competent adults who were as unscrupulous as he is). He's done nothing else. Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus were acquisitions, and the company's core product has become simply a disinformation machine which no one under the age of 25 will touch.
The only thing Zuckerberg has done is make money. Which is all well and good, but his "vision" is non-existent, as demonstrated by his insane focus on VR when he could be doing so much with the platforms he already has.
Back in the day, he was basically an insanely good, detail-oriented product manager that kept relentlessly innovating Facebook. Other social networks kept making mistakes, he didn't. Facebook worked and kept getting better, for many years. And it made money because he brought in Sheryl, since he was good at product but not good at business.
But that's all he was, just a really really good product manager. So you're right -- nothing visionary about it. And he had no idea what to do when the News Feed began actually affecting elections and civil wars around the world -- totally and utterly out of his depth.
And now he wants to be the "visionary"... and is taking down the entire company in the process. It's really a sight to behold. And it's the kind of egotistical indulgence that's only able to happen when investors allow founders to keep control.