Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Editor: Yuan Xie snailnj
The company's internal business chaos and the company's external perception resemble the former Yahoo, which are combined with Zuckerberg's meta-universe power, making Meta's new and old employees complain.
Many Meta employees are now complaining about the boss's meta-universe project, which is reckless and increases business troubles within the company but does not bring gains.
A spokesperson for Meta said the company was "going through a decisive period for the company and we will give our all" and that "a lot of people are excited, but they also have a lot of questions".
But the wording of internal employees and outside investors is far less subtle.
Meta is facing the "Yahoo Moment"?
Meta is in a perilous period in its history as Mark Zuckerberg bets on the company's future on an uncertain metaverse.
The company's chaos has begun to remind some of the Yahoo it once was. Yahoo was once the largest internet company, but it faltered under similar threats and never recovered.
A tech industry veteran who has worked closely with Meta executives said, "We have reason to wonder if Meta has its own 'Yahoo moment'" as well."
The person added that it is possible that the social media company will never dominate as it has in the past decade.
In the late 1990s and out of the 21st century, Yahoo was the preferred station for services such as Internet search. As a result, it was crushed by emerging competitors, sluggish response to changes in digital advertising, and the advent of Web 2.0.
Now, Meta is facing its first truly challenging competitor, TikTok, disruptive privacy rules in digital advertising, and the explosion of Web3 startups and technology. Meta's current situation looks very similar to that of Yahoo.
Keith Hwang, chief investment officer at Selcouth Money Management, said the tightening of privacy rules in the advertising industry, the emergence of strong competitors and shrinking user growth "all make the situation look like a potential 'Yahoo moment' for Meta".
"The impression now lingers in the minds of investors, and each of these issues is a huge challenge in itself," Hwang said.
Mark Mahaney, Evercore's top internet analyst, said in a February 2022 research report that the plunge in Meta's stock at the beginning of the year did show the market's "widespread fear of the company's long-term fundamental prospects." "In short, the market is questioning whether this company is now Yahoo 3.0."
Insiders are also wondering. A recently departed senior Meta employee said the similarity of Meta's and Yahoo's journeys was a topic among colleagues. And it's not just recently, it's been there for the past few years.
Another former employee called Meta's Web3 projects such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs look like nothing more than a "game of vanity." This, the person said, is creating a general atmosphere within Meta that the company is past its golden age.
"The only project that Meta is really valuable right now is Instagram, and they're increasingly going down the path of Yahoo."
The internal and external sides questioned the Meta Metacosm: money was spent, goods had to wait ten years
Various challenges are key drivers of Meta's all-out pivot to the metacosm. A recently departed former senior employee said Zuckerberg's recent decision was motivated by concerns that Meta's previous "business was flattening and not growing."
But according to an interview with 10 current and former Meta employees in Inside, employees are now within Meta that these new decisions will not lead to better business performance.
Zuckerberg's all-out pivot could make Meta a major supplier of basic hardware and software for the future metacosm. For now, though, this is a distant possibility, and the cost of vision is very expensive.
In 2021, the company lost $10 billion on metacosm. Even for a giant company like Meta, the world's premier, it's a big expense.
Now, the metaverse is largely empty and contentless, and Zuckerberg himself says it will take at least a decade to fully exploit it.
At various financial and technical conferences in 2021, Zuckerberg himself has repeatedly stated that "meta-universe products are not expected to be profitable anytime soon.". "We expect to invest billions of dollars in the coming years, before the metacosm reaches profitable scale."
Some industry veterans said: "Meta has the courage, funds and ability to finally do a good job in the meta-universe and become a new benchmark in the industry. But they can't afford to make mistakes."
However, both internal employees and outside investors are worried that in the midst of many difficult challenges, Zuckerberg's metacosmary bet may have made a mistake.
According to another recently departed Meta employee, the metaversym project has spent a lot of money so far, but there is nothing to show.
"Compared to the hype it's now on the metaverse, meta-universe product development is far from satisfying its own bragging rights," the person said.
Meta's metaverse project still has nothing to touch or see, let alone actually use."
Another former Meta employee said, "Zuckerberg is betting on markets he doesn't own."
Christie Nordhielm, a professor at Georgetown University who specializes in marketing, said: "Meta is already the old yellow flower five minutes ago in the public perception. In the field of network technology, the sense of spot in cultural identity is more important than anything else.
And now Meta is in the public perception, the former Internet celebrity at the carnival party who feels the need to go around and talk about "I'm actually cool.""
Ygal Arounian, managing director of Wedbush Securities, also said: "It is uncertain whether Meta will succeed in the metaverse. It's still strong and dominant, but that doesn't mean it's going to be that way forever."
The boss is impatient, the employees are confused, and no one knows what they should do
The people also said that since Facebook changed its company name to Meta in October 2021, employees in the cash flow departments of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and advertising departments have also been confused about their future job positioning and current efforts.
According to a recently departed former Meta director, Meta is now "desperately promoting the vision of a universal metaverse" within the company, which is "the only thing Zuckerberg wants to talk about."
Despite the enthusiasm, the boss's anxiety is not immediately translated into job functions by the executives for most employees.
Meta's commercial team, a popular division of the company, has made it particularly clear to its employees that it does not intend to invest in any meta-universe projects until at least 2023.
A current Meta employee said: "Because there is no coherent business strategy, colleagues really don't know what to do and what progress to deliver. It's basically fomenting disorder and anxiety."
Meta is trying to change that by setting up a senior in-house PR team to better spread the ambition to communicate its metadata internally.
Former employees said the company was "forming a dedicated metaspace team" whose leader would cover all groups within the company. Its mission is to let employees know that the top "has an executive manual for metaverse projects," even if it doesn't actually exist.
A Meta spokesperson denied the claim, but acknowledged that Vishal Shah, vice president in charge of Metacosm, was indeed "sharing a broader vision with all the leaders in the company."
This is a textbook confession in disguise.
The former director-level employee said that the meta-universe was undoubtedly Zuckerberg's focus, so much so that he was said to be reviewing all the new product demos with Andrew Bosworth, the new chief technology officer in charge of the Virtual Reality Lab, and personally reviewing all the collaboration plans and ideas of the Virtual Reality Lab.
"If the metacosm was where Zuckerberg was looking forward to the company's future, he wouldn't have ceded the specifics to anyone else, even the nominal project leader," the former employee said.
Meta employees have less than half confidence in Zuckerberg
The loss of confidence among internal employees has been caused since the name change to Meta.
In the November 2021 Employee Survey, respondents received overwhelming praise for their direct business leadership, including categories such as "Employee Management" (84% positive), "Work Collaboration" (83% positive) and "Team Impact" (85% positive).
However, in the view of the company's future and senior leaders, Meta employees' praise has dropped sharply: the positive evaluation of the company's future is 65%, while the confidence in the senior leaders is only 49%.
The combination of the two means that only 51% of respondents chose the "optimistic about the future of the company" option, 55% of the respondents chose the "proud of the company" option, and only 47% of the respondents explicitly chose "will continue to stay in the company".
To get out of the predicament, zuckerberg must continue to be president
Turns like Meta are not new. Amazon, Disney, IBM, and Microsoft have all founded success in new industries years after their founding, but few companies have made such a huge shift.
Some industry veterans said that Zuckerberg spent money in the "meta-universe" or "virtual reality lab", which can actually be interpreted as, "I know these projects are useless at the beginning, but I want to continue to explore."
"For this kind of social networking technology, you have to invest gradually to discover what works, and the improvements are based on the user experience."
Now that Meta has almost unlimited funding, it is natural that it is not possible to make a difficult single choice like in the entrepreneurial stage, and can try to do everything at the same time on multiple fields and multiple projects.
Although Zuckerberg's current PR profile is less positive, he is still widely regarded as a remarkable operator. If Meta is to successfully rebuild its advertising business, compete with TikTok, and become the best in the metaverse, he will need to continue to be CEO.
Industry veterans said, "Zuckerberg has amazing perseverance. And has the founder's thinking and the authority within the company. He said run, employees don't jump."
"If they bring in an outsider to take over as CEO, investors and project managers will squeeze the company dry for cash flow." Then Meta will really be the next Yahoo."
Resources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-meta-metaverse-oculus-ar-vr-cto-andrew-bosworth-connect-2021-10
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-yahoo-insiders-comparison-metaverse-pivot-stock-struggles-2022-4
https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-obsession-driving-some-employees-nuts-2022-4