The list of critics and critics of Mark Zuckerberg is increasing day by day.
There is, of course, the financial community, analysts, and investors who are ruthless about Meta platforms (dead) The empire of social network entrepreneurs.
Meta shares are down 62.3% since January, reflecting a $570 billion drop in market capitalization.
His billionaire peers, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, make fun of him. Musk called him “Zouk XIV” – an apparent reference to the French king famous for his arrogance and extravagance, Louis XIV.
billions of losses
Zuckerberg’s strategy is what unites all these critics.
The CEO of the metaverse envisioned the future of his company, which includes Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Metaverse is an immersive world in which we will have parallel lives via avatars, using tools such as virtual reality headsets and making use of advanced technologies such as augmented reality.
To quell recent doubts, Zuckerberg changed his company’s name from Facebook to Meta Platforms. Reality Labs, the division that developed this metaverse within the Meta Platforms, has sunk billions of dollars.
As of June 30, nearly $16 billion has already been pumped into his vision for the future with a modest result. Reality Labs reported a second-quarter operating loss of $2.81 billion. In the first half of 2022, losses amounted to $5.8 billion.
In all of 2021, Reality Labs incurred a loss of $10.2 billion.
The metaverse’s image quality, Horizon Worlds, reminds us of old technology rather than the future. Investors are losing patience. Media coverage was negative.
Many are quick to say that the Metaverse is Zuckerberg’s biggest mistake. The billionaire, whose personal fortune has shrunk by more than $77.7 billion since January, continues to beg for patience.
But for legendary investor Michael Perry, there should be no doubt: Meta has become the new Coca-Cola.
Perry is known to have bet, with good reason, on the subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the 2008 financial crisis. He is also one of the few who predicted the current market meltdown.
“It looks like Meta has a new Coca-Cola issue,” Barry posted on Twitter on October 15.
The investor, who runs hedge fund Scion Asset Management, appears to suggest that Meta is a big mistake Zuckerberg made. And he is likely to play a big role. Basically, Meta has to go back to Facebook and what it does best: social media.
New Coke was a sweeter version of the famous Coca-Cola. This drink was introduced by Coca-Cola in April 1985 during the Cola War with Pepsi.
In 1985, Coca-Cola was losing market share to PepsiCo. Blind taste tests have indicated that consumers seem to prefer the sweeter taste of the Pepsi-Cola competitor. So the company decided to reformulate its recipe.
Then New Coke was introduced in April. It left a pungent taste in the mouths of loyal Coca-Cola customers. Within weeks of the announcement, the company was receiving 5,000 angry phone calls a day. In June, that number jumped to 8,000 calls per day, a volume that forced the company to hire additional phone operators. Consumers went so far as to file a complaint against the company to force it to serve the old brew.
The anger surprised Coca-Cola executives.
Seventy-nine days after its initial announcement, The Coca-Cola Company held a press conference on July 11, 1985 to present a legal bug and announce the return of the original classic Coca-Cola formula.
So far, Zuckerberg doesn’t seem ready to part with Metaverse. In fact, the company just unveiled a new virtual reality headset that sold for $1,500. The headset dubbed Meta Quest Pro will ship on October 25th.
The billionaire also promised new and cheaper headphones.
“I think there’s going to be a consumer device like the Quest 2 and Quest 3, the next generation we’re working on, we’re not releasing now,” he said in an interview with Ben Thompson’s Statechery News.
“It’s not this year, but there will be Quest 3 and that’s in the $300, $400, or $500 price range, that area,” he added.
