You probably don’t want a message like that in your inbox. On November 9, 2022, Meta CEO Marc Zuckerberg wrote to his workforce, announcing that 13 percent of them will soon be laid off. That corresponds to over 11,000 employees.
Zuckerberg did not say exactly how the layoffs will be divided across the individual areas, but all branches of the company should be affected. He raises only two departments in the official post out:
“Although we are making cuts in every organization, both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, some teams will be impacted more than others. Recruiting will be disproportionately affected as we plan to hire fewer people next year. We will also restructure our business teams more […]«
Zuckerberg speaks of the most difficult changes in Meta’s history and blames himself. The reason for this is, of all things, the above-average sales increases that were achieved by Covid-19 and the associated online boom.
He and “many others” assumed this was a permanent increase that would continue post-pandemic, which is why he significantly increased investment in Meta.
»Unfortunately, the development did not go as I had expected. […] I made a mistake and I take responsibility for that mistake.«
What Zuckerberg doesn’t mention is that the “significantly increased investment” was likely the $15 billion that went into Reality Labs, the Metaverse project that not even their own employees feel like it.
The situation is therefore particularly bitter for the employees of the Reality Lab, who are fired despite the huge investments in their project, especially since laut Business Insider no one knows exactly where the $15 billion went. Bonus payments for employees were most likely not.
However, it is not known how many employees will be laid off from the Reality Labs. We assume that Meta will stick to the prestige project Metaverse for the time being, despite heavy financial losses. In the last three months alone, $3.672 billion has been invested in the project, while “only” grossing $285 million.
According to its own statement, Meta still expects heavy losses from the Reality Labs in 2023. The Metaverse is not expected to actually make a profit until 2024. Until then, Meta’s executives are probably hoping to stall shareholders with the upcoming release of the Meta Quest 3 VR glasses. According to the current status, this should appear in 2023.
As is well known, Meta is not the only tech giant that is currently being turned inside out. There’s also a lot going on on Twitter, because Elon Musk is the new managing director of the short message service and has a lot planned:
Elon Musk announces radical changes for Twitter: costs for users, layoffs for employees
What do you think of the mass layoffs at Meta? Will you use the Metaverse once it really starts? Write your opinion in the comments!
