Zuckerberg already warned in January that cuts were coming, although he prefers to talk about “flattening” the “organic structure and eliminating some layers of middle management”
Mark Zuckerberg will continue to drive layoffs and shift efforts from the metaverse to artificial intelligence
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP
2022 was a difficult year for Meta, with layoffs, restructuring of some teams and new priorities. Mark Zuckerberg assured that this “difficult” period was behind us and that 2023 would be the year of efficiency, although it will end up being very similar, because new layoffs are expected, more investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and less metaverse, the flagship project that it doesn’t finish booting.
As reported by Bloomberg, the world’s largest social networking company is cutting more jobs, in addition to the well-known 13% reduction last November that affected 11,000 workers. This imminent round of cuts is being driven by financial objectives and is independent of the “flattening”, pointed out internal sources consulted by this medium.
Meta thus tries to weather the economic storm
ARND WIEGMANN / Reuters
This new phase of layoffs is expected to end next week, according to people familiar with the matter. Those who work on the plan hope to have it ready before the CEO takes paternity leave for his third child, which may be imminent, these same sources tell this medium.
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Zuckerberg already warned in January that cuts were coming, although he disguised them as efficiency: “We are working on flattening our organizational structure and removing some layers from the middle management to make decisions faster, as well as implementing AI tools to help our engineers to be more productive.
The CEO of Meta is also trying to get the most out of his employees, those who continue to work at the parent company of Instagram, WhatsApp or Facebook. According to Bloomberg, the highest-level managers will share tasks with their subordinates to eliminate duplication and be as efficient as possible.
Meta thus tries to weather the economic storm. The technology company has just overcome a difficult year: it obtained a net profit of 23,200 million dollars (21,273 million euros) in 2022, which represents a 41% drop compared to the result recorded a year earlier, as reported by the company at the beginning of anus. The good news came with the announcement of the share repurchase plan of 40,000 million dollars (36,678 million euros), which excited investors.
Zuckerberg is also not unaware of the failure of the metaverse, in which he has invested millions of dollars so far and which has only given him losses, at least for now. Reality Labs, the department in charge of developing it, increased losses by 34% in 2022, up to 13,717 million. It is the third year that the businessman has been disappointed, because he continued in the red and also reduced his turnover by 5% per year, up to 2,159 million.
new goals
From the metaverse to artificial intelligence
Zuckerberg already warned in January that cuts were coming, although he disguised them as efficiency
LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
At the moment, Meta is putting patches and has decided to open its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds to minors, to see if interest in the metaverse pervades that segment. It intends that adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 can participate, according to an internal document to which The Wall Street Journal has had access.
But, out of conviction or necessity, Meta has begun to reorient its strategy. Now, it will also compete for the creation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, modeled after ChatGPT.
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“We are exploring experiences with text (like chat on WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like Instagram creative filters and ad formats), and with video and multimodal experiences. We have a lot of foundational work to do before we get to the truly futuristic experiences, but I’m excited about all the new things we’ll build along the way,” the CEO said in a post on Facebook, in a new turn by the manager, who seeks efficiency (cuts and equal profit) at all costs.
