Meta Earning Results Q3 2022 [pdf](s21.q4cdn.com)
s21.q4cdn.com
Meta Earning Results Q3 2022 [pdf]
https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-Third-Quarter-2022-Results-2022.pdf
395 comments
> In the end the goal of a company (whether you agree with it our not) is not to get as big as possible but to generate as much cash for its shareholders as possible.
Facebook's goal is to do whatever Zuckerberg wants, since he still controls a majority of the votes. It's a fascinating test of the value of corporate governance rights.
Facebook's goal is to do whatever Zuckerberg wants, since he still controls a majority of the votes. It's a fascinating test of the value of corporate governance rights.
It is, though the currency he lays his employees with is equity. That’s the challenge that Big Tech has to confront. If the stock value falls too much, Zuck won’t be able to convince engineers to join him for the ride.
The way RSUs are calculated (dollar amount to shares at time of hiring) he'll be able to convince new joiners just fine. Holding onto current employees would be the challenge - assuming he wants to hold onto them in the first place.
The dilution will be much higher if the share price stays lower.
Think about it this way: Giving 20 billion in new equity per year when the market cap is a trillion dilutes everyone 2%. When the market cap is 500 billion you are now diluting everyone 4%.
When the company is growing you don’t see the dilution as the increase in stock price is much higher. When it’s static this drags your shares down over time.
Think about it this way: Giving 20 billion in new equity per year when the market cap is a trillion dilutes everyone 2%. When the market cap is 500 billion you are now diluting everyone 4%.
When the company is growing you don’t see the dilution as the increase in stock price is much higher. When it’s static this drags your shares down over time.
How much were the shares "undiluted" by buybacks? I suspect more is spent on buybacks than on RSUs.
Only if they think the stock won't continue the decline.
Right now, anyone who joined Facebook in the last 5 years is underwater on their options.
Actually, everyone is underwater on RSUs. We do 4 year vesting so even people who started 5 years ago are vesting their stock from 4 years ago.
Technically you can't be "underwater" on RSUs, you just get less dollar value in shares than you were expecting. (Acknowledged that this kind of sucks but when FMV on your options is below your strike price they are literally completely worthless, which is what it means to be underwater, and this is a much worse scenario than taking a haircut on your RSUs!)
You can be underwater on RSUs if you have a lockout or blackout period for when you can sell. Uber had this problem [0] after their IPO.
If you factor in taxes, you could end up owing more in taxes than the shares are worth (ex: vest price is $10/ea, taxes are $3/ea, current price you can sell at is less than $3 == underwater).
I think Aurora employees were locked out for 180 days, but force to exercise options at IPO price.
[0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/nearly-200-uber-employees-su...
[1] - https://www.google.com/finance/quote/AUR:NASDAQ
If you factor in taxes, you could end up owing more in taxes than the shares are worth (ex: vest price is $10/ea, taxes are $3/ea, current price you can sell at is less than $3 == underwater).
I think Aurora employees were locked out for 180 days, but force to exercise options at IPO price.
[0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/nearly-200-uber-employees-su...
[1] - https://www.google.com/finance/quote/AUR:NASDAQ
Underwater is being used in this context to mean that the shares are currently vesting below their grant price.
I doubt they get options, RSUs most likely.
This is pedantically correct, but in practical terms, if you got RSUs at any price in the last five years, they're still worth less than you were offered.
There is a huge difference between stock price being 20% lower than RSU grant price vs. 20% below option strike price. With options. If options are way out of the money, then they're worth a lot less than the RSUs.
Far from being pedantic: having underwater on options is very different from having RSUs worth less than they were in the past. If an individual were to liquidate one of each; the underwater option would have negative monetary value, whereas the RSUs will always have a positive value.
Never mind the convoluted tax implications of exercising options that are nominally not underwater, but whose stock has a lower value that at the time of granting.
Never mind the convoluted tax implications of exercising options that are nominally not underwater, but whose stock has a lower value that at the time of granting.
RSUs, and yes.
Why would new employees (at current quality or better) would join his mission of self-destruction?
I suspect that many, many software developers would happily help Zuckerberg to implode. Getting paid well is just a bonus.
The pay is still good, if not great. My salary is approximately the same as total comp at my previous job. Even with the stock down around $104, my total comp is still some significant chunk better than previous comp (20-30%). (I'm an IC5 SWE.)
It will eventually be a problem (in the sense that switching to GOOG or AMZN will be a much better prospect) if the stock continues to go down, of course. And a new hire evaluating their stock package should probably be a little concerned about the trend.
The infrastructure to support you getting your work done is great. There are reasonably interesting software problems to solve. There are smart people to work with. There are some good benefits.
It will eventually be a problem (in the sense that switching to GOOG or AMZN will be a much better prospect) if the stock continues to go down, of course. And a new hire evaluating their stock package should probably be a little concerned about the trend.
The infrastructure to support you getting your work done is great. There are reasonably interesting software problems to solve. There are smart people to work with. There are some good benefits.
I made it through the on-site only to hit the hiring freeze. It’s a well paying remote job even factoring in stock depreciation, moderately interesting work, and I’d happily spend zuck’s money on VR goggles no one needs until it all implodes.
In what world does meta not have an indefinite line of applicants for every position? Social media being kinda icky is the least of engineers worries. Don't forget some of them are making careers coming up with the next new killing-majig to sell to the public and seem to have no issues sleeping.
It’s all relative though, big tech gets hit all at the same time.
^^^ have to emphasize.
60-80% of the cost base in many F500s is bullshit (exceptions exist. FMCG, any industry where physical products make up their balance sheet. Not salaries). Any excuse to avoid returning money to shareholders.
Everyone quietly acknowledges. If say, Visa, really tried, they could cut the cost base by 50% and achieve the same output.
Carl Icahn style shareholder activists have a point.
Forget tech companies. Most public companies are a conspiracy by VPs/C-suite/board.
The difference with tech companies is Google feather-beds its EMPLOYEES with free food.
From a pure capitalist standpoint. You could run Facebook's business on 20 billion USD in costs. Their cost base is enormous because Z has ZERO interest in cutting costs.
He's in it for the ego/vanity. Same as every other F500 CEO/Chairman.
Ego is the driver, not the balance sheet.
60-80% of the cost base in many F500s is bullshit (exceptions exist. FMCG, any industry where physical products make up their balance sheet. Not salaries). Any excuse to avoid returning money to shareholders.
Everyone quietly acknowledges. If say, Visa, really tried, they could cut the cost base by 50% and achieve the same output.
Carl Icahn style shareholder activists have a point.
Forget tech companies. Most public companies are a conspiracy by VPs/C-suite/board.
The difference with tech companies is Google feather-beds its EMPLOYEES with free food.
From a pure capitalist standpoint. You could run Facebook's business on 20 billion USD in costs. Their cost base is enormous because Z has ZERO interest in cutting costs.
He's in it for the ego/vanity. Same as every other F500 CEO/Chairman.
Ego is the driver, not the balance sheet.
The only reason FMCG is an exception was after 3G. The sector used to be a totally bloated mess, then 3G acquired Heinz, fired whole teams of people, and it made no difference to results at all (obv, it all went a bit wrong after but I don't think anyone believes that was due to cost). After that, almost every FMCG started looking at costs (ofc, it also helped that revenue stopped growing).
Carl Icahn story about cutting costs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSatPoD2W-o - fired a building full of people, never heard about it again.
Most companies are run as bureaucracies, dual share classes haven't helped. There is no difference between your average Google employee and a civil servant.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty raw deal for shareholders. You cash out insiders, the bureaucrats move in, the amount of cost extends to the revenue base, eventually revenue slows down (bureaucrats don't tend to be good stewards of capital), the rats all leave the ship, you find out the cost base could have been 50% smaller all along, and you are left with a stock on its way to bankruptcy.
Carl Icahn story about cutting costs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSatPoD2W-o - fired a building full of people, never heard about it again.
Most companies are run as bureaucracies, dual share classes haven't helped. There is no difference between your average Google employee and a civil servant.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty raw deal for shareholders. You cash out insiders, the bureaucrats move in, the amount of cost extends to the revenue base, eventually revenue slows down (bureaucrats don't tend to be good stewards of capital), the rats all leave the ship, you find out the cost base could have been 50% smaller all along, and you are left with a stock on its way to bankruptcy.
[deleted]
there's one quote in Ben Thompson's recent Meta article that I really buy. If you look from this angle many Meta's moves make sense
> What is clear is that Zuckerberg in particular seems more committed to VR than ever. It may be the case that he is seen as the founding father of the Metaverse, even as Meta is a potential casualty.
https://stratechery.com/2022/meta-meets-microsoft/
> What is clear is that Zuckerberg in particular seems more committed to VR than ever. It may be the case that he is seen as the founding father of the Metaverse, even as Meta is a potential casualty.
https://stratechery.com/2022/meta-meets-microsoft/
So Zuck is bought into metaverse, but can they transition?
My guess is this is going to be a really rough winter / several quarters for Facebook until they reconsider.
My guess is this is going to be a really rough winter / several quarters for Facebook until they reconsider.
They're throwing loads of technical resources at that - so they should be able to build it - but the problem is the "and they will come part". VR Gaming is awesome, BeatSaber is a wonderful game to engage in... for about an hour or so max - you'll want to shift gears and get your head out of the headset just to relax your eyes.
Zuckerberg seems to envision matrix-style VR where it's 24/7 immersive and nobody outside a very small fringe group is at all interested in that proposition. I just fail to see the value proposition of VR socialization over video and even voice calls. If you'll recall even video calls have only really caught on since the pandemic - skype did business pre-pandemic, but it was still a fringe tool for social purposes and much more likely to see use in a work setting. It might be that VR can break into the workplace - but I have my skepticism.
Zuckerberg seems to envision matrix-style VR where it's 24/7 immersive and nobody outside a very small fringe group is at all interested in that proposition. I just fail to see the value proposition of VR socialization over video and even voice calls. If you'll recall even video calls have only really caught on since the pandemic - skype did business pre-pandemic, but it was still a fringe tool for social purposes and much more likely to see use in a work setting. It might be that VR can break into the workplace - but I have my skepticism.
I don’t fully understand what the metaverse plans are, but if you look at the design of the quest pro that just released then what you say is not true. It’s an AR first device that doesn’t even come with full light blockers that make it usable as a fully immersed VR device.
I agree with you VR is not the future but AR definitely is, and even Apple has been making silent but consistent investments in AR for more than the past 5 years.
I agree with you VR is not the future but AR definitely is, and even Apple has been making silent but consistent investments in AR for more than the past 5 years.
> I agree with you VR is not the future but AR definitely is.
It's interesting to see the differences of opinions on this subject. I believe this will pan out in the opposite direction.
As a consumer, AR seems so weird to me. I don't want to put on glasses or goggles to see overlays of the world around me. I want interfaces to be simpler, not more complicated and crowded.
While AR hardware has improved, the software remains reminiscent of Nintendo DS Face Raiders [1]. I'm just not being sold on a day to day use case for the tech. Maybe Apple or Meta will teach us otherwise, but I can't even imagine it at this point.
I do see AR being useful for a limited number of industrial applications. You already see quasi-AR virtual film cameras working well (cameras without a lens that capture xyz-orientation in virtual space for the purpose of pointing a virtual camera). But these don't even use optical overlays.
On the other hand, VR enables infinite workspaces, telepresence, new kinds of 3D creative tools that place you inside the thing you're building, world isolation, closer to full sensory immersion, etc. Rather than a tool that serves as an overlay of the existing world, it puts you into a new type of cognitive body altogether. Metaphors of movement combined with spatial reasoning can unlock new abilities for the human brain. Like gestures, but full body and mind.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh-YrWvdUCs
It's interesting to see the differences of opinions on this subject. I believe this will pan out in the opposite direction.
As a consumer, AR seems so weird to me. I don't want to put on glasses or goggles to see overlays of the world around me. I want interfaces to be simpler, not more complicated and crowded.
While AR hardware has improved, the software remains reminiscent of Nintendo DS Face Raiders [1]. I'm just not being sold on a day to day use case for the tech. Maybe Apple or Meta will teach us otherwise, but I can't even imagine it at this point.
I do see AR being useful for a limited number of industrial applications. You already see quasi-AR virtual film cameras working well (cameras without a lens that capture xyz-orientation in virtual space for the purpose of pointing a virtual camera). But these don't even use optical overlays.
On the other hand, VR enables infinite workspaces, telepresence, new kinds of 3D creative tools that place you inside the thing you're building, world isolation, closer to full sensory immersion, etc. Rather than a tool that serves as an overlay of the existing world, it puts you into a new type of cognitive body altogether. Metaphors of movement combined with spatial reasoning can unlock new abilities for the human brain. Like gestures, but full body and mind.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh-YrWvdUCs
> As a consumer, AR seems so weird to me. I don't want to put on glasses or goggles to see overlays of the world around me. I want interfaces to be simpler, not more complicated and crowded.
As a counter anecdote, I fully support AR - the idea of Google glass would have been very appealing for me if they could actually use the lens as the screen and it was less bulky.
Perhaps it's just years of seeing heads-up displays in anime and sci-fi movies (e.g. Terminator) that's pushing my desire.
If they can eventually solve the bulk and creep issue (ie, always-on camera that can surreptitiously record at will) it will become a useful addition to the phone/watch personal nimbus of data.
As a counter anecdote, I fully support AR - the idea of Google glass would have been very appealing for me if they could actually use the lens as the screen and it was less bulky.
Perhaps it's just years of seeing heads-up displays in anime and sci-fi movies (e.g. Terminator) that's pushing my desire.
If they can eventually solve the bulk and creep issue (ie, always-on camera that can surreptitiously record at will) it will become a useful addition to the phone/watch personal nimbus of data.
Your frame of reference is based on existing implementations, but existing implementations are by definition ones which have not solved your concerns. You are looking at AR from the lens of today's optics, rather than looking at where technology is going to lead us. Will you use AR if it's light and comfortable enough? I mean, even the giant bricks of laptops and cell phones initially had users, and eventually as they got smaller they gained even more users.
You can already see the advancement of AR software by holding up your iphone and trying out the various AR features that overlay things in the real world and can even use the depth sensor to occlude your hand. Or try out Google maps AR view which literally does a video game style overlay of the path you need to take over the actual world. Maybe you don't like these things, but I think they are objectively cool, and right now only held back by a lack of hardware to make it convenient to do AR in every day scenearios (lightweight glasses or goggles). But, Apple is working on that, and so is Meta, and since technology advances by Moore's law it's only a matter of time before the glasses get light enough and comfortable enough that we don't have to hold up our phones awkwardly in front of our faces to do AR.
Things that AR can accomplish:
1) Overlaying peoples' names so I don't have to remember so many names. Not a problem for many people but some people have a hard time remembering names. 2) Always there real world overlay of directions so you don't have to keep pulling out your phone. 3) AR games and entertainment 4) No need for giant physical 2 dimensional information displays in the real world. Once AR gets sufficiently clear and high enough resolution there is literally no need for physical displays... only virtual ones. The whole point of physical displays since inception is to show information, sometimes 3D information, on a 2D surface. We've been trying to make them smaller and smaller ever since... what better size than no size at all. 4) The whole point of any digital display is to augment our eyes with information. The ultimate display is one that is right in front of your eyes. AR is the next logical step for digital displays.
You can already see the advancement of AR software by holding up your iphone and trying out the various AR features that overlay things in the real world and can even use the depth sensor to occlude your hand. Or try out Google maps AR view which literally does a video game style overlay of the path you need to take over the actual world. Maybe you don't like these things, but I think they are objectively cool, and right now only held back by a lack of hardware to make it convenient to do AR in every day scenearios (lightweight glasses or goggles). But, Apple is working on that, and so is Meta, and since technology advances by Moore's law it's only a matter of time before the glasses get light enough and comfortable enough that we don't have to hold up our phones awkwardly in front of our faces to do AR.
Things that AR can accomplish:
1) Overlaying peoples' names so I don't have to remember so many names. Not a problem for many people but some people have a hard time remembering names. 2) Always there real world overlay of directions so you don't have to keep pulling out your phone. 3) AR games and entertainment 4) No need for giant physical 2 dimensional information displays in the real world. Once AR gets sufficiently clear and high enough resolution there is literally no need for physical displays... only virtual ones. The whole point of physical displays since inception is to show information, sometimes 3D information, on a 2D surface. We've been trying to make them smaller and smaller ever since... what better size than no size at all. 4) The whole point of any digital display is to augment our eyes with information. The ultimate display is one that is right in front of your eyes. AR is the next logical step for digital displays.
I'm still skeptical.
I will give you one case where I would give in, though: automatically translating and overlaying foreign text. I'd wear a set of AR goggles if it improved the experience of visiting countries that don't predominantly speak English.
I will give you one case where I would give in, though: automatically translating and overlaying foreign text. I'd wear a set of AR goggles if it improved the experience of visiting countries that don't predominantly speak English.
[deleted]
The problem to me is that Meta is not pursuing the "Web 2.0 concept."
Anyone who knows the digital gaming industry understands. Content is hard.
The Metaverse seems like it has Zuc supplying a vast amount of first party content, instead of integrating with third parties better to supply skins and content.
Anyone who knows the digital gaming industry understands. Content is hard.
The Metaverse seems like it has Zuc supplying a vast amount of first party content, instead of integrating with third parties better to supply skins and content.
The thing with the transition to Meta is the ability to marry hardware and software together which super critical for VR to click.
There’s really only one company in the world that’s able to do that better than anyone else. You guys know which company that is.
So it’s very very hard for them to be as successful in that space
There’s really only one company in the world that’s able to do that better than anyone else. You guys know which company that is.
So it’s very very hard for them to be as successful in that space
It's not an impossible playbook to follow. Tesla and Square are doing a pretty good job of it.
Tesla’s not near the level of Apple.
The physical product creaks and groans, and the software UI is android level.
Tesla just has the convenience of competing with luddites
The physical product creaks and groans, and the software UI is android level.
Tesla just has the convenience of competing with luddites
I think you are wrong. The software is miles ahead of competition in polish. And the cars that coming from Giga Shanghai are just as good as any other manufacturer - just read reviews in New Zealand.
2nd best of two giants still a decent place to be. See iOS vs Android.
> The difference with tech companies is Google feather-beds its EMPLOYEES with free food.
as part of an already very good compensation package.
as part of an already very good compensation package.
I don't necessarily disagree with this. However wouldn't this imply a couple of world changing things:
- We should go for something akin to universal basic income? Given we could produce a bunch of output with very few people (I guess at that point it's more and ideological question of if these few people that get to stay + shareholders are going to get all that value rather than someone else) - People that are talking about "productivity growth" has declined the past 20 - 40 years, are probably wrong and we have seen productivity growth, we've just filled it up with useless stuff and made up jobs? - It also sort of implies that some of the projects that Google and Meta has taken on even though not financially sound right now haven't produced any value for humanity (and I fully understand that in a capitalist society; profits are the way we value things). I think they have and a lot do (like long tail stuff like producing knowledge, producing open source tech, driving tech that while not mature now, will explode in the future, VR + self driving comes to mind)
Another thing that comes to mind when it comes to founder driven companies doing whatever they want is all the Elon Musk companies. He has also made a bunch of crazy bets that "value"-companies would def not have made.
- We should go for something akin to universal basic income? Given we could produce a bunch of output with very few people (I guess at that point it's more and ideological question of if these few people that get to stay + shareholders are going to get all that value rather than someone else) - People that are talking about "productivity growth" has declined the past 20 - 40 years, are probably wrong and we have seen productivity growth, we've just filled it up with useless stuff and made up jobs? - It also sort of implies that some of the projects that Google and Meta has taken on even though not financially sound right now haven't produced any value for humanity (and I fully understand that in a capitalist society; profits are the way we value things). I think they have and a lot do (like long tail stuff like producing knowledge, producing open source tech, driving tech that while not mature now, will explode in the future, VR + self driving comes to mind)
Another thing that comes to mind when it comes to founder driven companies doing whatever they want is all the Elon Musk companies. He has also made a bunch of crazy bets that "value"-companies would def not have made.
Also would like to add that once you go this route(being a value company) rightly or wrongly you just died a little(many perceive this) and recruiting and talent retention becomes alot harder as who wants to work for the tech equivalent of a proctor and gamble or coca cola. Apple did do the dividend a few years back, so maybe a slow pivot could work. But a growth company can only grow so far as all the people who want to use FB's services have used them so its a natural progression for any company like FB.
>> "who wants to work for the tech equivalent of a proctor and gamble or coca cola"
People who value stability and work-life balance. It's great for people who see a job as a way to fund life and put something away for security later in life, not as a calling they're willing to sacrifice everything for.
People who value stability and work-life balance. It's great for people who see a job as a way to fund life and put something away for security later in life, not as a calling they're willing to sacrifice everything for.
That isn't really something a publicly traded company can do without putting even more pressure on it's share price. Mark's also still very young, if he wanted to ride off into the sunset he could have done that a long time ago. I give him a lot of credit for staying in the drivers seat given the political pressure they've been under since 2016 and now this period. It would have been a lot easier for him to just checkout and hang out on a mega yacht all day.
Mark doesn’t give a shit about share price, otherwise there would be buybacks right now. Meta still has a donkey which shits gold: even facebook still had 4% DAU growth yoy, while people make fun about fb using users to tiktok.
No, Mark wants a war chest and will increase investments for his meta verse.
But I would never bet against Mark.
No, Mark wants a war chest and will increase investments for his meta verse.
But I would never bet against Mark.
The only people I've met who care at all about the metaverse are terrified of it (giving an advertiser live access to metrics like pupil dilation is creepy), or appreciate the opportunities that it creates to make fun of Zuckerberg. Are there people out there who intend to use it?
I remember when Facebook was invite-only. It was cool. Everybody wanted in. This... I think this is grounds to bet against Mark.
I remember when Facebook was invite-only. It was cool. Everybody wanted in. This... I think this is grounds to bet against Mark.
I'm not sure how much it matters that people aren't interested in the metaverse now. The question is whether it will be adopted once it is ready.
[deleted]
Aren't Apple and Microsoft making AR/VR stuff, too?
AR/VR is cool. I untangle DAGs in 2D sometimes and I'd love a third dimension to work in. I just don't need to decorate it like a cubicle and do it where others can notice that I have a zit on my nose.
meta has bought back 5% of its shares this year. Not sure where you got the idea that buybacks aren't happening. They even took long term debt for what I understand to be the first time in order to facilitate more buybacks.
[deleted]
> Mark doesn’t give a shit about share price, otherwise there would be buybacks right now.
You didn't read TFA, the earnings report explicitly saying the significant amount of buybacks they did.
You didn't read TFA, the earnings report explicitly saying the significant amount of buybacks they did.
> Share repurchases – We repurchased $6.55 billion of our Class A common stock in the third quarter of 2022. As of September 30, 2022, we had $17.78 billion available and authorized for repurchases
No buybacks, like this?
No buybacks, like this?
>But I would never bet against Mark.
I think that's part of the problem to be honest. People who have a reputation for never making mistakes tend to double down rather than acknowledge the mistake and back off.
Imagine going straight from your early 20s into a position where you're hailed as never making a mistake. IG, whatapp, etc all panned out. What happens when you finally do spend $2billion on a failure such as oculus? Do you note the failure and back off or do you start spending $20billion a year, change the company name and double down (to the power of 8)?
Anyway at least this instance of it is more harmless than Putin's example in global terms. It's still reasonably clear to me what's happening though.
I think that's part of the problem to be honest. People who have a reputation for never making mistakes tend to double down rather than acknowledge the mistake and back off.
Imagine going straight from your early 20s into a position where you're hailed as never making a mistake. IG, whatapp, etc all panned out. What happens when you finally do spend $2billion on a failure such as oculus? Do you note the failure and back off or do you start spending $20billion a year, change the company name and double down (to the power of 8)?
Anyway at least this instance of it is more harmless than Putin's example in global terms. It's still reasonably clear to me what's happening though.
You can see how much Google spends and makes on everything outside ads and cloud. They report it as "Other bets" on their financial reports.
Last Q they made 209m in revenue on other bets, and lost 1.6b on those bets.
The only profitable business for Google is Ads.
Cloud, and other bets burn about 3b dollars every Q.
Last Q they made 209m in revenue on other bets, and lost 1.6b on those bets.
The only profitable business for Google is Ads.
Cloud, and other bets burn about 3b dollars every Q.
Incorrect. Google has a line item called "Google other" that is $7B in the most recent quarter. It accounts for things like Google Play revenue, YouTube and YT TV subscriptions, hardware revenue from Pixel, nest, etc. They don't report profitability from this line item. But obviously something like Google Play margins will be very high. And they're probably losing money on the hardware.
Thank you for explaining "Google other" on the financial statement.
META share buybacks last four quarters
June 30, 2022: $5.233B
March 31, 2022: $9.506B
December 31, 2021: $20.06B
September 30, 2021: $13.46B
June 30, 2022: $5.233B
March 31, 2022: $9.506B
December 31, 2021: $20.06B
September 30, 2021: $13.46B
> In the end the goal of a company (whether you agree with it our not) is not to get as big as possible but to generate as much cash for its shareholders as possible
Man, why does everyone have the same values nowadays as Milton Friedman and The Warthog?
Relevant video clip: (NSFW, very offensive language) https://youtu.be/7j1850-qlm8?t=19
Facebook's (stated) mission isn't to make money or get big, it's to bring people together. If they can make VR user-friendly and ubiquitous, I think that will serve their stated goal.
If Facebook just decided to hunker down and count their money, they'd be doomed to eventually fade away just like so many tech juggernauts have in the past.
Man, why does everyone have the same values nowadays as Milton Friedman and The Warthog?
Relevant video clip: (NSFW, very offensive language) https://youtu.be/7j1850-qlm8?t=19
Facebook's (stated) mission isn't to make money or get big, it's to bring people together. If they can make VR user-friendly and ubiquitous, I think that will serve their stated goal.
If Facebook just decided to hunker down and count their money, they'd be doomed to eventually fade away just like so many tech juggernauts have in the past.
> Facebook's (stated) mission isn't to make money or get big, it's to bring people together.
The business plan so far seems to be:
1. Make VR work
2. ???
3. People come together!
Smallprint: make lots of money along the way...
I am interested as to whether there exists a concrete plan for step 2 but I am dubious of this direction.
The business plan so far seems to be:
1. Make VR work
2. ???
3. People come together!
Smallprint: make lots of money along the way...
I am interested as to whether there exists a concrete plan for step 2 but I am dubious of this direction.
> 3. People come together!
Difficult to make them come together without throwing up, literally. I almost got to the point where only thinking about the abstract concept of VR makes me a little dizzy.
But the logic goes something like this: Zuckerberg has built a $1 trillion company already => he knows what he's doing => we should trust him with the tens of billions of dollars he's throwing at this, trust him that is compared to the schmucks that say that this won't go anywhere, they haven't built $1 trillion companies themselves.
I predict that around the mark of $100-150 billion thrown down the VR drain some share-holders will actually start to throw some hard questions at Zuckerberg, and in another one or two years after this the project will have the fate of Google+.
Difficult to make them come together without throwing up, literally. I almost got to the point where only thinking about the abstract concept of VR makes me a little dizzy.
But the logic goes something like this: Zuckerberg has built a $1 trillion company already => he knows what he's doing => we should trust him with the tens of billions of dollars he's throwing at this, trust him that is compared to the schmucks that say that this won't go anywhere, they haven't built $1 trillion companies themselves.
I predict that around the mark of $100-150 billion thrown down the VR drain some share-holders will actually start to throw some hard questions at Zuckerberg, and in another one or two years after this the project will have the fate of Google+.
I dunno if Facebook is going to make it there, but I think their goal for VR is feasible and achievable. All the functionality is there on their platform and others right now, but it's too slow to boot up and not polished enough yet. Unfortunately, tiny performance hiccups in VR will immediately nauseate most people, not to mention the friction of having to put on the headset, boot it up, navigate through slow menus, launch an app, log into a room...
If you could toss on your VR helmet for 2 minutes to pop into VR and chat with someone the way you can open a Zoom call today, it'd be a huge quality of life improvement for remote work. Or like Carmack was saying recently, you could get to a point where it's cheaper to mail out a thousand headsets than to host a conference in person
Tangential edit: Man, how nuts is it that Facebook is throwing billions of dollars a year into this? Palmer Luckey invented modern VR in his spare time as a kid living in a trailer next to his parents' house. You've got VR startups out there making interesting devices, amazing multi-user worlds, and all sorts of other things for a few million bucks per company. It makes sense that if they have the money they should try to do something useful with it, and silicon valley engineers/hardware development don't come cheap, but that's just such an incredible amount of money.
If you could toss on your VR helmet for 2 minutes to pop into VR and chat with someone the way you can open a Zoom call today, it'd be a huge quality of life improvement for remote work. Or like Carmack was saying recently, you could get to a point where it's cheaper to mail out a thousand headsets than to host a conference in person
Tangential edit: Man, how nuts is it that Facebook is throwing billions of dollars a year into this? Palmer Luckey invented modern VR in his spare time as a kid living in a trailer next to his parents' house. You've got VR startups out there making interesting devices, amazing multi-user worlds, and all sorts of other things for a few million bucks per company. It makes sense that if they have the money they should try to do something useful with it, and silicon valley engineers/hardware development don't come cheap, but that's just such an incredible amount of money.
> After almost 20 years of doing business isn’t it about time that Facebook starts to position itself as a value company rather than a growth company?
and
> the journey ends and you have to reorient the business (imo)
Isn't that the point of reorienting themselves to the meta verse. It is a new, unconquered land with virtually unlimited space and possibility?
Arguing against myself now: while this might be true from a product standpoint, their business is advertising, so unless they find other ways to monetize, the growth rate is limited by advertising dollars / share.
and
> the journey ends and you have to reorient the business (imo)
Isn't that the point of reorienting themselves to the meta verse. It is a new, unconquered land with virtually unlimited space and possibility?
Arguing against myself now: while this might be true from a product standpoint, their business is advertising, so unless they find other ways to monetize, the growth rate is limited by advertising dollars / share.
Both Apple and Microsoft are 45+ year old tech companies.
Look where they were in the mid 90s when they were already 20 years old compared to where they are now.
Look where they were in the mid 90s when they were already 20 years old compared to where they are now.
I am not saying Facebook should stop growing. It should just not keep dumping money in these unproven projects, and they should get some people on board to fix their cost structure.
Apple and Microsoft are much more mature companies than Facebook is. Microsoft had major restructuring a couple of years ago. And I think Apple also had some major reforms internally around 2015-16 to make its operations more efficient. Apple accumulated a massive amount of cash over that period.
I am not as much into it anymore as I sold most of my holdings near the end of the pandemic. So maybe things have changed since then.
Netflix is another company I have serious questions about. Not sure about their current situation but around 2017 when I looked into them, they were essentially a company that sells you a dollar for 99c. Their ratio internal content/external content was not high enough which meant they had massive recurring licensing costs which they funded by a mix of subscriptions revenue and debt (a lot of debt). The story was that that would be ok once they reached ‘scale’ as costs would be the same but they would have more subs. In my opinion that logic is flawed since presumably the cost of the licensing deals will also rise as more players entered the market and content holders got less money from traditional sources (because everyone uses those subscriptions services now). Netflix made sense when they were able to buy the content for cheap because they were niche.
My opinion of course. Im just a random dude on the internet.
Apple and Microsoft are much more mature companies than Facebook is. Microsoft had major restructuring a couple of years ago. And I think Apple also had some major reforms internally around 2015-16 to make its operations more efficient. Apple accumulated a massive amount of cash over that period.
I am not as much into it anymore as I sold most of my holdings near the end of the pandemic. So maybe things have changed since then.
Netflix is another company I have serious questions about. Not sure about their current situation but around 2017 when I looked into them, they were essentially a company that sells you a dollar for 99c. Their ratio internal content/external content was not high enough which meant they had massive recurring licensing costs which they funded by a mix of subscriptions revenue and debt (a lot of debt). The story was that that would be ok once they reached ‘scale’ as costs would be the same but they would have more subs. In my opinion that logic is flawed since presumably the cost of the licensing deals will also rise as more players entered the market and content holders got less money from traditional sources (because everyone uses those subscriptions services now). Netflix made sense when they were able to buy the content for cheap because they were niche.
My opinion of course. Im just a random dude on the internet.
> I am not saying Facebook should stop growing. It should just not keep dumping money in these unproven projects,
On the Apple side, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and the watch were all unproven projects.
On the Microsoft side, giving up immediate revenue from selling Office for $600 - seat into a subscription service for $69-$99 a year had to be a short term revenue hit. Not to mention XBox which loss billions before becoming successful and Azure.
Meta doesn’t have a choice. I really hate the Facebook product. Not because of the privacy angle, it commits the worse sin of any product - it just sucks now. Most of the post I see aren’t even from people let alone brands and websites I chose to follow.
On the Apple side, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and the watch were all unproven projects.
On the Microsoft side, giving up immediate revenue from selling Office for $600 - seat into a subscription service for $69-$99 a year had to be a short term revenue hit. Not to mention XBox which loss billions before becoming successful and Azure.
Meta doesn’t have a choice. I really hate the Facebook product. Not because of the privacy angle, it commits the worse sin of any product - it just sucks now. Most of the post I see aren’t even from people let alone brands and websites I chose to follow.
> I feel the same about Google. I wonder how much money their non-ad, non-cloud stuff made of its life time and if it has been profitable.
That's like asking Apple how much money it made from sources other than hardware sales and online service sales.
That's like asking Apple how much money it made from sources other than hardware sales and online service sales.
A company needs to be valuable today with growth investments that can make it more valuable over time. That is what a stock valuation is. If Zuck had raised bonds or sold his stocks & funded his Meta madness, then he could have used the current cash flow into improving the operations of the current business, improve the margin & manage business threats to maintain the market position. He is definitely a kid without any adult supervision at this point.
They did buy back stock in the past few years
Ok, I didn’t know. I sold most of my facebook stock late 2019. And haven’t really looked at the company since.
Being one of the largest companies in the world, they are definitely treated as value stock by investors already.
I don't think there's a time limit on growth. Growth is also market perception based on what P/E multiple the market pays for your share. Value stocks are usually utilities, both actually and figuratively. We all know that Facebook is not a utility nor a necessity. They need growth.
I disagree. Growth is an attitude. I worked at startups and at mature companies. In a growth company you usually do not have to justify work in term of profitability but in terms of growth. Then when the company is sufficiently large different management is brought in and the company is made profitable. Budgets are put in place. If you want to get something done, you have to ask for budget, and justify the cost yearly.
At least from my experience.
At least from my experience.
The distinction between "value" and "growth" isn't clear. You can be both a growing company and trading at a value-like multiple.
META more than other big tech companies has been scaling back significantly this year and were one of the first to do so.
They're also buying back a ton of stock and with operating margins in excess of 80% it's almost insane how conservative they've been with spending money over the years. This is hardly a "growth at all costs" company. This is one of the most profitable companies ever.
META also isn't going "all in" on the Metaverse. They're investing a portion of their cashflows on AR/VR technology. The media is so focused on the headset that I think people are missing the fact that in a lot of ways META is inventing the wheel that will support the AR/VR products of the future. Even if they don't make a success of their Metaverse, their technology will still have real value to the ever increasing number of companies operating in this space.
TL;DR: META is trading as a value stock, they are cutting back, they are returning a ton of profits to shareholders, and they're not going all in on growth or the Metaverse.
META more than other big tech companies has been scaling back significantly this year and were one of the first to do so.
They're also buying back a ton of stock and with operating margins in excess of 80% it's almost insane how conservative they've been with spending money over the years. This is hardly a "growth at all costs" company. This is one of the most profitable companies ever.
META also isn't going "all in" on the Metaverse. They're investing a portion of their cashflows on AR/VR technology. The media is so focused on the headset that I think people are missing the fact that in a lot of ways META is inventing the wheel that will support the AR/VR products of the future. Even if they don't make a success of their Metaverse, their technology will still have real value to the ever increasing number of companies operating in this space.
TL;DR: META is trading as a value stock, they are cutting back, they are returning a ton of profits to shareholders, and they're not going all in on growth or the Metaverse.
Their expenses are up significantly, there is no cutting back up to this point. A few FAANGs gave lip service to being more frugal, but their earnings releases and operating costs show they were anything but.
Part of the reason Meta is crashing is because they are being even more aggressive/spending more on metaverse next year than they previously stated.
19% growth in costs while having -4% revenue over the year ago quarter.
https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
Part of the reason Meta is crashing is because they are being even more aggressive/spending more on metaverse next year than they previously stated.
19% growth in costs while having -4% revenue over the year ago quarter.
https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
A little late here, but want to say you're correct. I thought they were cutting back on Metaverse R&D a bit, but clearly not.
My Quest Pro arrived yesterday. It’s the coolest new computer I’ve used since the iPad. They’re getting close to nailing the mixed reality form factor.
At the same time it feels like the Apple Lisa. Expensive hardware that’s clearly still not quite the end state, shipping with first-party software that’s barely past demo quality. There’s simply not very much to do on the Quest Pro so far, and the HoloLens trajectory suggests that real apps will be slow to arrive.
Still, it’s an entirely new style of computing and Meta has subsidized it by tens of billions of dollars already. I’ll try to enjoy it while it lasts.
At the same time it feels like the Apple Lisa. Expensive hardware that’s clearly still not quite the end state, shipping with first-party software that’s barely past demo quality. There’s simply not very much to do on the Quest Pro so far, and the HoloLens trajectory suggests that real apps will be slow to arrive.
Still, it’s an entirely new style of computing and Meta has subsidized it by tens of billions of dollars already. I’ll try to enjoy it while it lasts.
> It’s the coolest new computer I’ve used since the iPad.
It doesn't inspire much confidence in me to compare it to the product that everyone thought was cool when it came out but over a decade later, even the company making it still doesn't know exactly what it's for outside of a few niche use-cases.
It doesn't inspire much confidence in me to compare it to the product that everyone thought was cool when it came out but over a decade later, even the company making it still doesn't know exactly what it's for outside of a few niche use-cases.
> still doesn't know exactly what it's for
It's a $30 billion a year business.
Maybe they know a little more than you think.
It's a $30 billion a year business.
Maybe they know a little more than you think.
I understand the hardware manufacturer's business.
I just don't understand why humans buy them. Sure, they're neat, but there are a lot of neat things at that price point.
I just don't understand why humans buy them. Sure, they're neat, but there are a lot of neat things at that price point.
I don't know about other people, but it's the 2nd most useful device I own (after my laptop), and it is the device I use the most by far (if you look at the time I'm using it).
To me, an iPad is a notebook that's always with me, where I write down all my thoughts in my journal, practice writing and screenwriting, do task management and planning (most of that in Obsidian). I also watch video courses, listen to music, browse the internet, all the stuff everyone uses their mobile devices for.
Smartphone is too small for typing, and not as convenient, no other tablet is anywhere near as convenient to use. iPad mini is the perfect form factor for me.
To me, an iPad is a notebook that's always with me, where I write down all my thoughts in my journal, practice writing and screenwriting, do task management and planning (most of that in Obsidian). I also watch video courses, listen to music, browse the internet, all the stuff everyone uses their mobile devices for.
Smartphone is too small for typing, and not as convenient, no other tablet is anywhere near as convenient to use. iPad mini is the perfect form factor for me.
I think they are probably very popular with old people, due to them being way easier to use and closer to a smartphone which they are probably most use too.
My parents have completely given up on laptop and own three iPads because they are easier to use and maintain. They don't break or have bugs are often which required them call me and having me come over to fix lol.
My parents have completely given up on laptop and own three iPads because they are easier to use and maintain. They don't break or have bugs are often which required them call me and having me come over to fix lol.
I gave my cousin who is in college my android tablet. She only uses a computer for typing documents. Everything else is done on the tablet. From research to communication and watching movies. It can do anything she wants to do. Most of my GUI apps have an iPad version, which works well when I'm far from home and I would rather not bring a laptop.
Because they serve the role of what used to often times filled by PCs. Turns out not everyone needs a PC and they also don’t want have to do everything on a tiny touchscreen. If they didn’t exist I think the alternative for many would be the Air.
This shouldn’t be hard to understand.
This shouldn’t be hard to understand.
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Anecdotally, my whole family has them for digital reading/browsing without the clunkiness of a laptop or the small screen of a phone. Mind you, iPad power users in my family are children or elderly folks who otherwise wouldn't be using a computer.
When I’m not at work, I don’t want to touch a computer. My iPad is just there to let me watch videos, shitpost on Reddit, watch TikTok, send emails, etc.
Because combined with the apple pencil it's one of the best drawing / note taking / reading device ever made.
I use one exclusively for sitting on the toilet reading hn. Not joking.
What? iPads have literally replaced computers and laptops for a huge segment of people.
Every boomer in my life has an iPad. They don’t own computers anymore.
Every boomer in my life has an iPad. They don’t own computers anymore.
I was speaking to a high school teacher who said students come through her computer classes now having no idea how to type or use desktop operating systems because they're the first generation who have largely, and almost exclusively, been on iPad's and phones.
Apple sold more than 500 million iPads over the product's first decade.
I never said it was a failure. But it's certainly a supplementary device for most people.
If all iPads disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal compared to if that happened with smartphones or laptops or PCs, etc.
Meta has a big hurdle to overcome to make success out of a device with no real practical use so far, and one that you have to strap to your face.
If all iPads disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal compared to if that happened with smartphones or laptops or PCs, etc.
Meta has a big hurdle to overcome to make success out of a device with no real practical use so far, and one that you have to strap to your face.
For many people, and maybe most younger people, PCs are a supplemental device. I know a few folks who have an iPad and a smartphone but no personal laptop. To your point, though, I think more do get by with just the phone.
For most of my family the iPad replaced their computer. Thankfully I no longer have to do tech support.
I second this. The ipad has become the computer for several in my family as well.
You’re living in a tech bubble my friend.
Many people have replaced their laptops and computers with an iPad because they only check email/Facebook/watch youtube/surf the web.
Many people have replaced their laptops and computers with an iPad because they only check email/Facebook/watch youtube/surf the web.
The watch and AirPods are also “accessory devices”. Most other companies would kill to have any of Apple’s divisions.
I use an iPad as my main personal computer. It’s like what Google wants you to use a Chromebook for, but without the janky framerates. It’s the most pleasant web browsing device I’ve come across.
Did Apple and Microsoft know exactly what the PC was for in its early days? They certainly had their own ideas for it, but it was down to the rest of the world to decide that, ultimately.
Pretty sure the killer app was spreadsheets. IBM was international business machines after all, and PC were IBM clones.
Also word processing/publishing. Very clear applications with an existing market.
Also word processing/publishing. Very clear applications with an existing market.
Spare me, what a pathetic insipid comment about something in every household, used by every age group and sells 7 of them every second. It’s such a silly comment I almost want to flag it.
Low effort comments like the one above have been getting more and more popular lately. The mindless bashing of technologies and products that generate billions of dollars yearly really distracts from otherwise highly informed discussions I enjoy on HN.
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> Expensive hardware that’s clearly still not quite the end state, shipping with first-party software that’s barely past demo quality.
"Built for a Future That Still Isn't Here" is a headline I saw somewhere that resonates well with your comment.
"Built for a Future That Still Isn't Here" is a headline I saw somewhere that resonates well with your comment.
"Built for a future that no one even wants or asked for"
Speak for yourself. I want solid VR and AR and everything past that. Why wouldn’t you?
You are going to have engineers using ten orders of magnitude more computational resources to open a text editor like they've been doing for 50 years. It's tech for the sake of tech until someone can come up with an actually novel use case that isn't just window dressing on stuff I can already do.
It also has a physical barrier that seems insurmountable - motion sickness-induced nausea. If even a small % of your users get nauseated when using it, the network effects fall apart completely. Zuck wants to use VR headsets for meetings, but what happens if one person can't use VR because it makes them nauseated? Do you continue the meeting without them, get them to switch to some hybrid Zoom/VR model, or drop the VR altogether? What if that person is a client, a senior exec, or a decision maker?
Not the OP, but I personally find it a little creepy and more than dystopic.
Also, I can pet my dog and even throw him a ball while writing comments on HN, but the VR thing will totally isolate me from him (and the AR thing won't bring anything new to the table, I already know my dog's name, don't need to see it labeled via AR). And even so, I try to limit the time I spent in front of my computer, glueing even more immersive computers to our faces won't do us any good.
Also, I can pet my dog and even throw him a ball while writing comments on HN, but the VR thing will totally isolate me from him (and the AR thing won't bring anything new to the table, I already know my dog's name, don't need to see it labeled via AR). And even so, I try to limit the time I spent in front of my computer, glueing even more immersive computers to our faces won't do us any good.
If that VR and AR is from Facebook, then nah. The last thing I want is living inside Zuck's abominations.
I want metaverse content. Still waiting for the matrix.
Agreed - I actually did some real work in Horizon Workrooms today with a pass through keyboard and three large monitors streaming from my MacBook. Feels like they are getting really close. Those pancake lenses are truly a next-gen improvement.
I actually did the same with my Quest Pro that I got recently, pretty cool.
I've not seen many people comment on text legibility. How's reading compare to your normal monitor?
It's definitely a subpar experience, but for the first time it feels usable. Each screen is about the equivalent of a 55" 1080p monitor 5ft from your face.
Appreciate the description. Hopefully the next generation will be on par with modern monitors for text. I'm starting to come around to the idea that VR could be a great monitor setup at the right resolution.
> There’s simply not very much to do on the Quest Pro so far, and the HoloLens trajectory suggests that real apps will be slow to arrive.
Can't you play Quest 2 games on it?
Can't you play Quest 2 games on it?
It's at least backwards compatible with existing Quest 2 apps, and I've already started seeing "Quest Pro Update" on a few Quest Store apps, so hopefully you'll start seeing some software that targets it better soon.
I felt the same way when I tried it out today! It was kinda buggy, but once I was able to get it working and clear (adjusting the lens/depth) it was actually pretty cool. Overall I didn’t think it was really ready for market from what I was seeing, but it was a really rad experience.
moneycantbuy(1)
Take a look at the net losses for Meta’s Reality Labs for the full years 2019 through 2022:
2019: Net loss of $4.5 billion on $501 million in revenue
2020: Net loss of $6.62 billion on $1.14 billion in revenue
2021: Net loss of $10.19 billion on $2.27 billion in revenue
2022: Net loss of $13.21 billion on $1.72 billion in revenueCan't quite wrap my mind around this kind of spending. I mean AMD came up with Ryzen and RDNA with much smaller R&D budget, and sillicon was hard af to do. What were they doing with this amount of money?
And Rivian's market cap is $30B. Meta could easily bought another EV company to diversify.
With the amount of R&D that was spent on Metaverse, it better shit gold for Meta for decades to come.
With the amount of R&D that was spent on Metaverse, it better shit gold for Meta for decades to come.
They can't even buy a useless gif company anymore.
Amd has been making cpus for 50 years. Ryzen was just another one.
So, 34.5 Billions!?
I was still on the 10B figure. At this rate they are going to reach 50B pretty soon.
What is the limit? 100B?
I understand why this is taking time, R&D and stuff, but I have some difficulties to understand how they manage to burn that much money.
I was still on the 10B figure. At this rate they are going to reach 50B pretty soon.
What is the limit? 100B?
I understand why this is taking time, R&D and stuff, but I have some difficulties to understand how they manage to burn that much money.
The only limit is Mark. And he's not showing any signs of slowing down, the earnings report even said they're going to lose even more money on reality labs next year than they did this year.
Cost controls at Meta are atleast 2 orders of magnitude less than any similar company. I've worked at a few FAANGS now and the controls are really low in every dimension.
I fear that when the finally start acting it will be a lot more severe due to the need to catch up.
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When you have too much money, you start forgetting how to optimise and control its use.
I wouldn't imagine they even have the capacity to do so.
An ecomm company in the UK went bust today, Made.com. They had a decent business, they sold furniture online, but their main issue was cost. All obvious, they had hundreds of people working in single divisions, it made no sense at all.
But they never attempted to cut cost until it was too late. I have seen this before, and it isn't "forgetting"...it is a physical capacity. You hired the 32-year old guy, he has only ever hired people, and you tell him he needs to fire 10% next week...he will start ducking you, what do you do? You can't fire him now, you need him to fire everyone else...most companies can't turn it around in time (Made was also run by people like the 32-year old, "entrepreneurs", everything will turn around soon).
An ecomm company in the UK went bust today, Made.com. They had a decent business, they sold furniture online, but their main issue was cost. All obvious, they had hundreds of people working in single divisions, it made no sense at all.
But they never attempted to cut cost until it was too late. I have seen this before, and it isn't "forgetting"...it is a physical capacity. You hired the 32-year old guy, he has only ever hired people, and you tell him he needs to fire 10% next week...he will start ducking you, what do you do? You can't fire him now, you need him to fire everyone else...most companies can't turn it around in time (Made was also run by people like the 32-year old, "entrepreneurs", everything will turn around soon).
I am pretty sure that many employees and contractors are getting rich in the process. Good for them, I guess.
I hope people don't confuse the English billion (10^9) with the billion in some other countries (10^12) where they use "milliard" or similar for 10^9.
I think everyone with English as Second Language got used to that difference. Especially in startup world, or country economics billion is an often mentioned quantity of money
I often wonder why people don't use SI prefixes for money.
We could say that they've spent on the order of 10 gigadollars.
We could say that they've spent on the order of 10 gigadollars.
I really like the idea of using gigadollars in daily conversations.
I've never seen anything but 10^9 used for billions in the modern era, although it is in some >100 y.o. text books. Have you seen 10^12 in the wild lately?
There’s R&D on a whole host of things - ranging from optics to battery life to designing silicon. There’s also all the software/gaming studio acquisitions made over the past few years. And, I suspect, they were bleeding cash like crazy on the Quest 2 subsidy and not recouping nearly enough via Oculus Store purchases.
What’s more baffling to me is that we’re now several years into this “bet the company” XR pivot and nothing really seems to be coming to fruition. Yes they sold a TON of Quest 2s - via a financially ruinous subsidy and then everyone tossed the device in the back of their closet.
They’ve spent a ton of money buying every successful VR game studio they could get their hands on for three years - and still have NOTHING but a handful of BeatSaber music packs to show for it.
The Quest Pro was supposed to be positioned as a less expensive HoloLens for businesses while also getting Meta some real world experience with eye/face tracking. Thing is: the original device was supposed to have a depth sensor and it got removed at the 11th hour. Which, imo, completely ruined the HoloLens-lite positioning since the only AR differentiators over the Quest 2 ended up being slightly upgraded SLAM cameras and a janky color overlay. All the meatspace positioning had to be offloaded to an already over-worked Qualcomm SoC. And without those advanced AR capabilities, the Quest Pro is essentially an upmarket blend of the Quest 2 and the Pico 4.
Which leaves the Quest 3. And we’ve seen enough of it from leaks to know it’s actually a compelling upgrade to the 2 - but it’s not expected to launch until 12 months from now. And it’s certainly not representative of what you’d expect from xxx billion dollars worth of hardware R&D.
This comment is already too long so I’m not getting into the Metaverse thing, but it’s probably the biggest failure of them all.
Tl;Dr: Imagine if Google launched Stadia along with an announcement that they were pivoting to the console market. Meta’s VR pivot is ALMOST at that same level of a self-inflicted mismanaged disaster.
What’s more baffling to me is that we’re now several years into this “bet the company” XR pivot and nothing really seems to be coming to fruition. Yes they sold a TON of Quest 2s - via a financially ruinous subsidy and then everyone tossed the device in the back of their closet.
They’ve spent a ton of money buying every successful VR game studio they could get their hands on for three years - and still have NOTHING but a handful of BeatSaber music packs to show for it.
The Quest Pro was supposed to be positioned as a less expensive HoloLens for businesses while also getting Meta some real world experience with eye/face tracking. Thing is: the original device was supposed to have a depth sensor and it got removed at the 11th hour. Which, imo, completely ruined the HoloLens-lite positioning since the only AR differentiators over the Quest 2 ended up being slightly upgraded SLAM cameras and a janky color overlay. All the meatspace positioning had to be offloaded to an already over-worked Qualcomm SoC. And without those advanced AR capabilities, the Quest Pro is essentially an upmarket blend of the Quest 2 and the Pico 4.
Which leaves the Quest 3. And we’ve seen enough of it from leaks to know it’s actually a compelling upgrade to the 2 - but it’s not expected to launch until 12 months from now. And it’s certainly not representative of what you’d expect from xxx billion dollars worth of hardware R&D.
This comment is already too long so I’m not getting into the Metaverse thing, but it’s probably the biggest failure of them all.
Tl;Dr: Imagine if Google launched Stadia along with an announcement that they were pivoting to the console market. Meta’s VR pivot is ALMOST at that same level of a self-inflicted mismanaged disaster.
Two things strike me with this.
These expenses for R&D for just this field are HUGE.
In my opinion with very little to show for it until now.
Second, how are they generating $1,7 billion dollars in revenue from the Metaverse?
Second, how are they generating $1,7 billion dollars in revenue from the Metaverse?
they’re making 1.72bn revenue on the metaverse? amazing
I’m shocked meta didn’t pivot more into “lifestyle”. I mean something like meetup, a superior marketplace for selling (no, not Facebook marketplace).
There are a lot of cool things you could build on top of a verified identity.
Even if VR and AR pan out I doubt apple would lose. They just have too much control over the entire stack.
How Microsoft and Google, and Meta allowed Apple to slowly build over independent control of their entire ecosystem, from supply chain to software is baffling. They’re gonna get wrecked.
There are a lot of cool things you could build on top of a verified identity.
Even if VR and AR pan out I doubt apple would lose. They just have too much control over the entire stack.
How Microsoft and Google, and Meta allowed Apple to slowly build over independent control of their entire ecosystem, from supply chain to software is baffling. They’re gonna get wrecked.
I'm also surprised that they haven't focused more on giving businesses tools to communicate and sell to customers better through WhatsApp and Instagram. Whatsapp is the de-facto communication tool in India and LatAm from experience. Instagram is the de-facto discovery and social tool in India.
Yet from a business' perspective, the experience is really poor. Most have to rely on third party tools to sell and chat with customers.
Yet from a business' perspective, the experience is really poor. Most have to rely on third party tools to sell and chat with customers.
Whatsapp partnered with JioMart to place orders through the app in India: https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/shop-on-whatsapp-with-jiom...
Progress is being made on this front, albeit slowly.
Progress is being made on this front, albeit slowly.
FB messenger too.
They did seem to make a push for more business API and more marketing messaging permissions. I invested some time in developing it for political campaigns.
Only for them to yank the more open permissions away.
They did seem to make a push for more business API and more marketing messaging permissions. I invested some time in developing it for political campaigns.
Only for them to yank the more open permissions away.
I agree with all the above. Nothing to do with the username, either.
> Whatsapp is the de-facto communication tool in India and LatAm from experience
And much of Europe.
And much of Europe.
isn't that a casualty of the US-centric/SF-centric view of the world?
Meta thinks about foreign market share constantly, it’s a primary reason why they purchased WhatsApp in the first place.
The failure to capitalize on their userbase with accessory businesses probably has more to do with the VC/Silicon Valley obsession with the hot new thing and what they hope will be the next new hot thing. Commerce is boring, TikTok and VR platforms are much more exciting.
The failure to capitalize on their userbase with accessory businesses probably has more to do with the VC/Silicon Valley obsession with the hot new thing and what they hope will be the next new hot thing. Commerce is boring, TikTok and VR platforms are much more exciting.
> mean something like meetup, a superior marketplace for selling
They've tried these things - you mentioned an example of one yourself.
They've tried these things - you mentioned an example of one yourself.
Very poor execution, and from what I hear it’s a glorified side project internally. Not a serious initiative.
> a superior marketplace for selling
They're trying this in India through WhatsApp by patterning with Reliance.
https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/shop-on-whatsapp-with-jiom...
They're trying this in India through WhatsApp by patterning with Reliance.
https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/shop-on-whatsapp-with-jiom...
> Even if VR and AR pan out I doubt apple would lose
Apple won't lose but equally they won't dominate.
There will be a space for an open, collaborative market leader exactly what Meta is positioning for with their recent partnerships e.g. Microsoft.
And if you ignore the metaverse nonsense and extrapolate hardware advances over the next few decades AR/VR could be compelling. It could replace laptops. It could change what travel, concerts, arts events looks like. It could democratise education.
I understand Meta is trying to generate hype and attract talent but I also hope that we do get far more serious at what AR/VR could mean.
Apple won't lose but equally they won't dominate.
There will be a space for an open, collaborative market leader exactly what Meta is positioning for with their recent partnerships e.g. Microsoft.
And if you ignore the metaverse nonsense and extrapolate hardware advances over the next few decades AR/VR could be compelling. It could replace laptops. It could change what travel, concerts, arts events looks like. It could democratise education.
I understand Meta is trying to generate hype and attract talent but I also hope that we do get far more serious at what AR/VR could mean.
Who’s going to create the hardware at scale that is good enough? Microsoft’s ARM laptops are so bad that it’s faster to run Windows for ARM on Mx based Macs in a VM than on an MS laptop
> How Microsoft and Google, and Meta allowed Apple to slowly build over independent control of their entire ecosystem, from supply chain to software is baffling.
Google didn't. They built Android and Chrome and ChromeOS to counter that issue and frankly it's been widely successful.
Microsoft tried (but failed) with Windows Phone.
Google didn't. They built Android and Chrome and ChromeOS to counter that issue and frankly it's been widely successful.
Microsoft tried (but failed) with Windows Phone.
Google doesn’t have their own supply chain and only relatively recently begin making their own phones. And due to their licensing model the hardware and software are not nearly as optimized for one another as iOS and iPhones
Stock is down 12% after hours. If it sticks in the morning (and isn't just after hours being low-information) this is dramatic, given that the market had already priced in lower expectations after similar disappointing results from other companies.
Damn, so many stocks recently on discount!
Semicos, Google, Facebook, MSFT
Semicos, Google, Facebook, MSFT
buy the dip doesn't work if you are jumping from a plane
Never try to catch a falling knife
Yeah, they took a beating this afternoon.
Can someone make an argument against buying at this price point? It was what, 378 a year ago? It’s even cheaper than the crash in 2020.
Zuckerberg runs it.
In no other company would a CEO be allowed to essentially go rogue like this. All companies with dual-class shares will eventually trade at a discount, this is FB's time.
I don't even think the Metaverse is a bad idea, but applying the SV mentality of: we just need to lose more money than anyone else won't work, that isn't how the real world works unless you have someone even dumber to pay you off (i.e. stupider VC fund, IPO)...FB is top of the food chain, no-one else is coming in on this.
They either need to slow the cash burn (the numbers are just ludicrous) or spin the company (not possible).
This kind of thing happens and the discount can last literally decades. With dual-class share, there is no way to close it and most investors know this so they are just selling.
I will say it again: dual-share class isn't smart, the market isn't dumb, investors aren't stupid, it will go wrong eventually and everyone else is paying the price for Zuckerberg's own desire for self-aggrandizement.
In no other company would a CEO be allowed to essentially go rogue like this. All companies with dual-class shares will eventually trade at a discount, this is FB's time.
I don't even think the Metaverse is a bad idea, but applying the SV mentality of: we just need to lose more money than anyone else won't work, that isn't how the real world works unless you have someone even dumber to pay you off (i.e. stupider VC fund, IPO)...FB is top of the food chain, no-one else is coming in on this.
They either need to slow the cash burn (the numbers are just ludicrous) or spin the company (not possible).
This kind of thing happens and the discount can last literally decades. With dual-class share, there is no way to close it and most investors know this so they are just selling.
I will say it again: dual-share class isn't smart, the market isn't dumb, investors aren't stupid, it will go wrong eventually and everyone else is paying the price for Zuckerberg's own desire for self-aggrandizement.
Mark is facing innovator dilemma. Should he pivot the company to a new field while he still has funds or just wait until the zombification finishes his baby off? Maybe the way he chose is not optimal, maybe Reality Labs should be completely ambidextrous without any link to FB outside funding?
Right, but the problem would still be that Zuckerberg controls both so would still overfund VR. You could spin off, but it is losing too much. Zuckerberg could buy out, but then you have a CEO splitting his time with his side piece...and if that takes off, then you look like a complete asshole for stiffing public shareholders.
To be clear though: he has created this situation. If he lost a reasonable amount of money, none of these questions would be asked. Anything north of $10bn is just madness, $5bn is bad, $2-3 is probably about right. It is all sustainable within the current situation, he just has no-one telling him how bad this all looks (what it looks like now is the opposite of the final scenario: man who is worth hundreds of billions rinses public shareholders for his fever dream VR fantasy).
Innovator's dilemma is all operational, so it should be separate from FB. Capital allocation choices are distinct from all this (the innovator's dilemma exists because CEOs are usually terrible investors/capital allocators, there are maybe 20 CEOs who have ever run a public company who can allocate capital well, Zuck actually had a decent rep before this because of his acquisitions but he is torching it with VR, which is clearly very far from commercial revenue).
To be clear though: he has created this situation. If he lost a reasonable amount of money, none of these questions would be asked. Anything north of $10bn is just madness, $5bn is bad, $2-3 is probably about right. It is all sustainable within the current situation, he just has no-one telling him how bad this all looks (what it looks like now is the opposite of the final scenario: man who is worth hundreds of billions rinses public shareholders for his fever dream VR fantasy).
Innovator's dilemma is all operational, so it should be separate from FB. Capital allocation choices are distinct from all this (the innovator's dilemma exists because CEOs are usually terrible investors/capital allocators, there are maybe 20 CEOs who have ever run a public company who can allocate capital well, Zuck actually had a decent rep before this because of his acquisitions but he is torching it with VR, which is clearly very far from commercial revenue).
WRT Zuckerberg looking like an asshole: I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
> In no other company would a CEO be allowed to essentially go rogue like this.
I wonder if Meta would be going all-in on a VR system that nobody seems to want if Sheryl Sandberg were still around. She seemed like the only one who could say no to MZ. Granted, there are lots of other factors (TikTok, recession, Apple's privacy changes), but it is an interesting coincidence.
I wonder if Meta would be going all-in on a VR system that nobody seems to want if Sheryl Sandberg were still around. She seemed like the only one who could say no to MZ. Granted, there are lots of other factors (TikTok, recession, Apple's privacy changes), but it is an interesting coincidence.
My guess is that this is basically why she left.
Agree. I am not going to invest into dual-class share companies anymore. Learnt hard lesson with FB
In no other company would a CEO be allowed to essentially go rogue like this
Actually, it happens all the time. The business press had been full of these sorts of characters for centuries.
Currently, even within the HN bubble, there's Mr. Musk, and several others.
Actually, it happens all the time. The business press had been full of these sorts of characters for centuries.
Currently, even within the HN bubble, there's Mr. Musk, and several others.
No, it doesn't happen often. Because, by definition, it can only happen with dual share class. If a CEO goes rogue then they lose their job. Unless Zuckerberg fires himself, the only way to get off the train is by selling the shares.
Uh, the federal government is always at the top of the food chain in all R&D tech. They pioneered VR before Meta. They continue to fund VR. Zuckerberg is just acting like a government research investor. Which is, spend money on an idea that doesn't seem like it will immediately bear fruit.
This is how literally ALL the technology you use was developed. Huge, multi-decade spending on R&D until it works. Literally any technology you can think of.
This is how literally ALL the technology you use was developed. Huge, multi-decade spending on R&D until it works. Literally any technology you can think of.
Two mistakes: one, survivorship bias, lots of people spent money on tech that didn't work. And two, the problem isn't that he is spending money, it is that he is spending money on something that continues to show no revenue. The point of spending money is not the technology, it is to get a return of more money later.
I can't think of any technology that required multi-decade spending on this scale before revenue, fusion? If something needs multi-decade spending, it is either a scam or uninvestable.
I can't think of any technology that required multi-decade spending on this scale before revenue, fusion? If something needs multi-decade spending, it is either a scam or uninvestable.
VR had 50 years of R&D before they hit markets. Computers had 50 years of R&D before they hit markets. What exactly are you talking about? You are discounting the largest buyer in the economy, the federal government. By the way, the federal government spends more on R&D than all VC combined.
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There's an old adage for your line of thought:
What do you call a stock that's down 90%? A stock that was down 80% and cut in half again.
What do you call a stock that's down 90%? A stock that was down 80% and cut in half again.
Yes.
VR strategy fails, acquisitions stop due to regulatory issues, loses ad marketshare to Apple, TikTok continue to eat its lunch. As a result, stock gets even lower.
There you have it. Is this a very strong argument? Probably not, no, but it's a possibility.
VR strategy fails, acquisitions stop due to regulatory issues, loses ad marketshare to Apple, TikTok continue to eat its lunch. As a result, stock gets even lower.
There you have it. Is this a very strong argument? Probably not, no, but it's a possibility.
+ Recession causes Facebook's primary ad customers to slash advertising spending to save money.
Facebook's revenue could cut in half and they could easily make more profit than they did this quarter just by getting rid of reality labs. The only thing holding the stock back at this point is Mark and I guess the fear that no one will use facebook 20 years from now.
How do you reckon that? Back of the envelope, their profit in your scenario should be about (revenue - COGS) / 2 - (fixed costs - fixed cost of reality labs)
Their revenue was $27.5B with COGS $5.7B vs. fixed costs of $16.3B. The cost of reality labs was $3.8B, let's assume for simplicity that it was all fixed costs. Plug those numbers into the formula, and it'd be a $2.5B loss. If their revenue was cut in half, they'd need to slim down massively in the non-RL segments to even break even, let alone be more profitable than now.
Their revenue was $27.5B with COGS $5.7B vs. fixed costs of $16.3B. The cost of reality labs was $3.8B, let's assume for simplicity that it was all fixed costs. Plug those numbers into the formula, and it'd be a $2.5B loss. If their revenue was cut in half, they'd need to slim down massively in the non-RL segments to even break even, let alone be more profitable than now.
Getting rid of reality labs, then what? Be a sitting duck and getting attacked by Tiktok/Apple left and right? They have basically no moat now.
VR is prob. the only thing that remotely looks promising for META now.
VR is prob. the only thing that remotely looks promising for META now.
Facebook still has 3 billion daily users. For all the doom and gloom it’s doing fine. Yes it’ll probably slowly fade into history but that will take decades.
That doesn’t make for a compelling buy signal. In principle, you should buy a stock because you believe you will be repaid in dividends over time. If the ship is sinking, even slowly, those dividends are not terribly appealing.
By the end of the decade people will feel about Facebook the way they feel about Game of Thrones.
Vaguely remember when it was a big deal, but not why.
Vaguely remember when it was a big deal, but not why.
This undervalues Facebook's social network moat, which is honestly what they should be leaning into: a more interactive Yellow Pages / local groups directory.
That's much harder for competitors to disrupt, especially when you give people tools to amass and customize content on their pages. E.g. wiki's, info, etc.
That's much harder for competitors to disrupt, especially when you give people tools to amass and customize content on their pages. E.g. wiki's, info, etc.
There's no moat.
Inertia isn't a moat.
Source: I've re-spanned my social graph several times since Usenet.
It's fine. People aren't corporations.
Inertia isn't a moat.
Source: I've re-spanned my social graph several times since Usenet.
It's fine. People aren't corporations.
By that logic, Google has even less of a moat? I mean, anyone with money can just make a decent search engine.
To be honest, I agreed with everything you said except it not being a strong argument.
> TikTok continue to eat its lunch
Is it though because the data doesn't suggest that.
It suggests that TikTok is dominating amongst younger audiences and that short form video content is a specific segment.
Is it though because the data doesn't suggest that.
It suggests that TikTok is dominating amongst younger audiences and that short form video content is a specific segment.
Facebook seems to be 90% ads for me nowadays. There's only a few groups/people whose updates I'd like to see and the constant irrelevant click bait ads aren't worth the effort.
Just from seeing what people watch while on the train these days I'd say it is, I get that it's not the best indicator
For the past 7+ years Facebook has continually made its product worse for its users. They are making the same type of product decisions today, so they will continue to bleed users.
The stock's price in the past is irrelevant.
The question you should be asking is what are the company's earnings growth prospects going forwards, and how does that compare to the stock's current valuation.
The question you should be asking is what are the company's earnings growth prospects going forwards, and how does that compare to the stock's current valuation.
The argument is all stocks were at all time highs last year other than physical Covid related stocks (hotels, etc).
Everything was taken back to pre Covid levels. So if you can imagine we are back in 2019, whatever Facebooks price was, plus declining user base, and the Apple fuck you, it has room to drop.
Everything was taken back to pre Covid levels. So if you can imagine we are back in 2019, whatever Facebooks price was, plus declining user base, and the Apple fuck you, it has room to drop.
Market prices are a reflection of the economy, they are not themselves the economy. Trying to use the reflection to predict the reflection is self referential- even though lots of people do it, which is why the market often behaves like it's huffing paint. I think it's better to base assessments on base reality.
Example: the share price of K-Mart was 134 dollars in 2007. Now it's 15 cents. And people were buying the dip all the way down. Think it will come back?
After all, no company lasts forever. Eventually they all go to zero and are replaced by some other company. That's why buying the dip just because it's a dip is a fool's game.
Example: the share price of K-Mart was 134 dollars in 2007. Now it's 15 cents. And people were buying the dip all the way down. Think it will come back?
After all, no company lasts forever. Eventually they all go to zero and are replaced by some other company. That's why buying the dip just because it's a dip is a fool's game.
Counterpoint: It was $0.01 a year ago, and now it's $0.15. How's 1400%?
You would need volume to discern that, right?
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SHLDQ/
Does not seem that great of a gamble for a few thousand dollar gain at most. Las Vegas seems like it would be more fun.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SHLDQ/
Does not seem that great of a gamble for a few thousand dollar gain at most. Las Vegas seems like it would be more fun.
2000, CSCO was $69. Still hasn’t reached those levels since. Good enough argument?
it has paid a lot of dividends though
How is this an argument? Price is taking into consideration the dividends. Also Cisco didn’t start paying dividend until 2011, when CSCO was trading at $20 or so.
If you think that $69 is a good price to pay for CSCO I’m happy to sell you as many stocks as you want.
If you think that $69 is a good price to pay for CSCO I’m happy to sell you as many stocks as you want.
Point is, you as an investor need to add the total of dividends over time to the current price and only then compare against your buy price to see if you're ahead or not.
Argument: The price is low because it's not expected to go back up (soon).
Why do you believe it'll go back up from this price point instead of dropping another 50%+?
Why do you believe it'll go back up from this price point instead of dropping another 50%+?
[1] Due to macroeconomic condition marketing spend by companies is decreasing -> Lower revenue
[2] New entrants in the social ad-tech market (Apple, Uber, Netflix, Youtube, etc) take a slice of a shrinking market
[3] Privacy regulations shrink market further
So while they are still insanely profitable for their core business the growth story is over.
So while they are still insanely profitable for their core business the growth story is over.
>Can someone make an argument against buying at this price point?
The only way I see them recovering is regulatory action, either:
1. The White House bans tiktok, (hopefully, in FB's case) shifting TikTok's eyeballs to Instagram.
2. The White House forces Apple to undo informed tracking consent.
Personally, I believe Facebook was digging their own grave in 2010 and handled the privacy problem incredibly poorly. While consumers were unlikely to stop using Facebook, it left them wide open for Apple to kneecap them and now Zuckerberg's, likely correct, concerns that Apple doesn't really care about privacy falls completely on deaf ears.
The only way I see them recovering is regulatory action, either:
1. The White House bans tiktok, (hopefully, in FB's case) shifting TikTok's eyeballs to Instagram.
2. The White House forces Apple to undo informed tracking consent.
Personally, I believe Facebook was digging their own grave in 2010 and handled the privacy problem incredibly poorly. While consumers were unlikely to stop using Facebook, it left them wide open for Apple to kneecap them and now Zuckerberg's, likely correct, concerns that Apple doesn't really care about privacy falls completely on deaf ears.
You understand both Tiktok and Facebook operate in the global market, right? Only about 10% of Facebook's DAUs are in the USA.
Neither of the things you mentioned have any impact on 90% of Facebook's users.
Neither of the things you mentioned have any impact on 90% of Facebook's users.
There has been a lot of discussion and bipartisan political will to force Bytedance to sell TikTok to a US company.
Zuck needs to push his lobbying minions to make that the full-court press on Capitol Hill.
Zuck needs to push his lobbying minions to make that the full-court press on Capitol Hill.
Wasn’t that just some random Trump brainfart that went nowhere and was officially taken off the table?
Just like when Trump brainfart'ed and told Germany that Russia was going to wield its energy dependency as a realpolitik ploy, and was called a idiotic shill for it?
And that's exactly what happened...?
The president, orange or grey, is privy to information we are not.
Tiktok is a national security threat; orange-man-bad isn't a staple in any useful political discourse.
And that's exactly what happened...?
The president, orange or grey, is privy to information we are not.
Tiktok is a national security threat; orange-man-bad isn't a staple in any useful political discourse.
You seem to have replied to an argument nobody was making.
Well, if your judgment of fair value is driven by relative price alone, and not fundamentals, you can believe whatever you want about what’s cheap or expensive.
If you look at history, everything converges back to fundamentals in the long run; as many tech investors are starting to find out.
But to answer more directly, the current price is only good value if Facebook can grow its earnings over time. Right now they’re shrinking.
Companies with shrinking earnings tend to get single digit multiples
If you look at history, everything converges back to fundamentals in the long run; as many tech investors are starting to find out.
But to answer more directly, the current price is only good value if Facebook can grow its earnings over time. Right now they’re shrinking.
Companies with shrinking earnings tend to get single digit multiples
> argument against buying at this price point?
Do you know anyone who uses Facebook any more? How many Instagram users you know look at the ads?
Do you know anyone who uses Facebook any more? How many Instagram users you know look at the ads?
With 2 billion DAY, odds are yes, you do. If you don't, you're likely the outlier here.
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or it wasn't priced in at all and nobody can quantify the “priced in” concept to begin with.
the concept relies on an idea of aggregate information converging to an average best price in advance of the information being available to all. it relies on someone smarter than everyone else recreating all financial inputs to the company and having enough capital, risk profile and time horizons to exercise that opinion. When even that stretch of the imagination can be undermined by someone richer just wanting to get out.
the concept relies on an idea of aggregate information converging to an average best price in advance of the information being available to all. it relies on someone smarter than everyone else recreating all financial inputs to the company and having enough capital, risk profile and time horizons to exercise that opinion. When even that stretch of the imagination can be undermined by someone richer just wanting to get out.
It's not that much of a stretch.
Price people will buy/sell = function(their predictions of the companies future)
Price people will buy/sell = function(their predictions of the companies future)
Note almost the entirety of the lost revenue is from Europe, quarter on quarter year on year.
Considering Meta's business is advertising.
The fact advertising revenue is flat in the Americas & Asia is a strong signal companies are not cutting advertising. Ergo, no massive collapse in consumer confidence is predicted.
It's just Europe that looks dire.
Or at least that's what Meta wants you to think.
Considering Meta's business is advertising.
The fact advertising revenue is flat in the Americas & Asia is a strong signal companies are not cutting advertising. Ergo, no massive collapse in consumer confidence is predicted.
It's just Europe that looks dire.
Or at least that's what Meta wants you to think.
What most people don't realize is that revenue in Europe is down not because spending is down, but because dollar is stronger. They don't explain this here, but they did in Tesla earnings. Expect multinational companies to have a lower European business this quarter.
>They don't explain this here, but they did in Tesla earnings
It's in the first bullet point on page 2:
Revenue was $27.71 billion, a decrease of 4% year-over-year, and an increase of 2% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant with the third quarter of 2021, revenue would have been $1.79 billion higher.
EDIT: who thinks there would still be explanatory wording added here if forex rates had moved the other way and revenues had gone up ... ?
It's in the first bullet point on page 2:
Revenue was $27.71 billion, a decrease of 4% year-over-year, and an increase of 2% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant with the third quarter of 2021, revenue would have been $1.79 billion higher.
EDIT: who thinks there would still be explanatory wording added here if forex rates had moved the other way and revenues had gone up ... ?
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Revenue is flat in the US - yet dollars are down ~8% - so adjusted for inflation - revenue is down considerably.
That's not how anyone reports on this; you don't deflate your revenues for changes in the value of money.
Don't they report earnings in constant dollars?
Not sure what "constant dollars" are, but I did Board Reporting for a Fortune 25 company and we used a 3 month average to limit the impact of sudden fluctuations.
The real story is how much expenses rose. As a percentage of revenue, expenses went from 70% last quarter, to 80% this quarter. Even if their revenue was flat (it wasn't), that alone would represent a third of their net income disappearing.
It was a bad quarter, but the real kicker is the cautious guidance Meta issued for the current quarter. They signaled to wall street that their problems are only getting worse.
number of ads shown up 17%, price per ad down 18%. Seems to me that advertising is being cut and meta is making up for it by showing more ads per user per time.
I wonder how much of this is the "spite spending" effect. We've barely had 6 months of normalcy. People are sitting on some savings. Many haven't left the house or traveled freely for 2 years. Maybe that's why they're okay spending more than they usually would - just a "f*ck it" after 2 years of isolation.
Certainly was the case for me. I certainly overpaid for a lot of things recently. But we had our big festival here this week and now I'm tapped out. Next year will be a year of sobriety - at least for me.
Certainly was the case for me. I certainly overpaid for a lot of things recently. But we had our big festival here this week and now I'm tapped out. Next year will be a year of sobriety - at least for me.
I think for every spite spender there is at least one other person who is habitually cautious now. I have found it harder to get some people to go out and do things.
Happening more and more with me. Food prices are legitimately too high. I could justify it earlier in my head because I'd been saving for two years. But now...I'm tapped out.
Apart from $/€ being down, could this also have something to do with the GDPR starting to get enforced, biting into Facebook's ability to make targeted advertisements? In the past 6 months or so I've noticed cookie permission popups mostly no longer have all their tracking options enabled by default.
That video of the life of a 23 year old Meta PM was really bad timing. Looks like they need some screws to tighten.
I’ve seen Twitter uproars against Google and LinkedIn employees who have uploaded similar content:
https://twitter.com/coldhealing/status/1561022408206729216
A lot of the lavish perks they’ve showed have been part of these companies since these two young women were toddlers. It’s privilege discourse meeting the cringey nature of TikTok.
https://twitter.com/coldhealing/status/1561022408206729216
A lot of the lavish perks they’ve showed have been part of these companies since these two young women were toddlers. It’s privilege discourse meeting the cringey nature of TikTok.
You should have shorted Meta the day this video dropped. Not because it showed lazy workers, but because the worker shared it on TikTok, not a Meta-owned property.
Went viral on Twitter though, so maybe Musk will be having the last laugh after all
Yes, and once we answer the question "How come Twitter is the centre of culture for monetizable users yet appears to be unmonetizable" we'll have the answer to why twitter's stock price has been stagnant for years.
Personally, I think the answer is "twitter is popular because it isn't monetized, when it gets monetized it won't be popular".
Personally, I think the answer is "twitter is popular because it isn't monetized, when it gets monetized it won't be popular".
I work from home, my in my day also consists of working out at the [home] gym, making coffee [in the kitchen], sometimes getting a view from my deck while working, walking the dog to the park, dinner and a movie with my wife and dog.
These things are just recruitment videos. They're made to get lots of views by being a little controversial. Their HR departments want people to see the free coffee, fancy office, etc.
These videos are more a tiktok trend for flexing than an HR thing. They attract a lot of negative attention, most unjustified IMO. I don't think ideal candidates for big tech would find these videos that appealing anyway.
Seriously? Do these companies really need to market their cozy do-nothing earn-lot middle management positions?
I can assure you the people making these videos are not in middle management.
The video said she was a PM at Meta, no?
I saw the video - didn’t see any problem. What did you think the problem was?
Metas real problem is TikTok, Apple and the cultural zeitgeist
Metas real problem is TikTok, Apple and the cultural zeitgeist
Yah, she even mentioned working during appropriate times; the video just showed the morning, lunch, and evening highlights.
I can't help but conclude that the problem is that it's presented by a young woman.
I can't help but conclude that the problem is that it's presented by a young woman.
I am just giving my opinion as someone who has worked as an investor and now works in tech: almost none of these people will be working in tech in five years, and most companies won't have PMs.
You saw this kind of thing at investment banks pre-08, people who did literally nothing, created no revenue, they were just a $200k/year plant pot, left the industry in 08 and never came back.
From what I have seen, the situation in tech is worse...I am not even in the US, and have interviewed at places where cost is obviously out of control but they hired this guy with a CS degree who has literally no idea how to run a business (one place I interviewed at, the unit built the front-end for a savings product, iirc they had five sprint teams, each team had 3 business analysts, 1 PM, 1 test dev, 2 devs...it was madness, and the guy interviewing me was maybe 30, no business experience, had worked as a "senior dev" at Wipro or some other consultancy place, this guy couldn't even get people back into the office, no-one would go).
I think people have been in the machine so long they forget what reality is. Reality is here now, everyone is getting fired, the free money machine has been turned off.
You saw this kind of thing at investment banks pre-08, people who did literally nothing, created no revenue, they were just a $200k/year plant pot, left the industry in 08 and never came back.
From what I have seen, the situation in tech is worse...I am not even in the US, and have interviewed at places where cost is obviously out of control but they hired this guy with a CS degree who has literally no idea how to run a business (one place I interviewed at, the unit built the front-end for a savings product, iirc they had five sprint teams, each team had 3 business analysts, 1 PM, 1 test dev, 2 devs...it was madness, and the guy interviewing me was maybe 30, no business experience, had worked as a "senior dev" at Wipro or some other consultancy place, this guy couldn't even get people back into the office, no-one would go).
I think people have been in the machine so long they forget what reality is. Reality is here now, everyone is getting fired, the free money machine has been turned off.
> this guy couldn't even get people back into the office, no-one would go
What does this have to do with anything else you brought up?
Most programmers I know would sooner quit than return to the office; that doesn't mean they aren't productive.
What does this have to do with anything else you brought up?
Most programmers I know would sooner quit than return to the office; that doesn't mean they aren't productive.
What does that have to do with anything else you brought up?
My point is: the guy has no management experience, and is unable to lead his team. That is why he is running a bloated mess that will get everyone fired.
My point is: the guy has no management experience, and is unable to lead his team. That is why he is running a bloated mess that will get everyone fired.
There is no amount of management experience that will get us back into the office, we will quit first
Good for you, but you appear to have missed the point entirely. The GP isn't arguing people should go back, just picking from the air an example (likely amongst many) why the person is a poor people manager.
Surely it's not giving impression that employees don't actually work at the company, but sexism, right?
She mentions the times she works, but didn't show it; I don't see how one could have that impression unless they didn't pay attention to what she says. Which wouldn't be surprising.
More like the complete lack of anything resembling work.
She says repeatedly that she was working between the things she showed. What do you want? Her literally staring at some code for four hours between breakfast and lunch?
She said it was a day in the life of a Meta PM, and I take it at face value. Looks like a day in the life is pretty cushy.
> Looks like a day in the life is pretty cushy.
Because she's allowed to take a break for lunch and she can work from an outside space? Your standards are too low.
Because she's allowed to take a break for lunch and she can work from an outside space? Your standards are too low.
She claims to be a PM, not a coder.
Strictly speaking, she says she did some work "on the roof in the morning" and then doesn't mention work again at any point. In particular the video gives the strong impression that she might have simply gone home soon after lunch. Maybe not in reality, but it strongly looks and sounds that way from the vid. She says explicitly "I got lunch, I got a snack always, I then shuttled home" i.e. the phrasing means going home immediately followed lunch. You also have to wonder how hard she can be working and how well supervised she is, if she's posting videos to their primary competitor of herself dancing on the roof.
There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention. At 23 how much product management knowledge or skill can you really have, or heck any form of management skill? Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. Firms like FB used to have very strict hiring standards, but look at the employee growth in the past few years and tell us that this can still be true. Someone like that would simply never have made it through the interviews 10 years ago. They are clearly a bullshitter, look at this:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6968330...
"Prior to working at Meta (priorly Facebook), I built 3 startups and I put 2 out of the 3 startups through the UCLA Summer Accelerator program. This accelerator is founded by my good friend and mentor, Robert Jadon and accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur and woman in tech."
And:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6988514...
"During her senior year at UCLA, Riley Rojas decided to pursue a career in Big Tech — and she wanted to work for the best ... This week in #KeepingtheBalance, Rojas shares how she landed her job at Meta with a political science background. Spoiler: It took a whole lot of studying and manifestation."
So of course that will lead to resentment. She studied political science yet claims to have made three startups before she even graduated? The pay for these jobs is famously good. What possible value can this person be delivering to meta?
Strictly speaking, she says she did some work "on the roof in the morning" and then doesn't mention work again at any point. In particular the video gives the strong impression that she might have simply gone home soon after lunch. Maybe not in reality, but it strongly looks and sounds that way from the vid. She says explicitly "I got lunch, I got a snack always, I then shuttled home" i.e. the phrasing means going home immediately followed lunch. You also have to wonder how hard she can be working and how well supervised she is, if she's posting videos to their primary competitor of herself dancing on the roof.
There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention. At 23 how much product management knowledge or skill can you really have, or heck any form of management skill? Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. Firms like FB used to have very strict hiring standards, but look at the employee growth in the past few years and tell us that this can still be true. Someone like that would simply never have made it through the interviews 10 years ago. They are clearly a bullshitter, look at this:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6968330...
"Prior to working at Meta (priorly Facebook), I built 3 startups and I put 2 out of the 3 startups through the UCLA Summer Accelerator program. This accelerator is founded by my good friend and mentor, Robert Jadon and accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur and woman in tech."
And:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6988514...
"During her senior year at UCLA, Riley Rojas decided to pursue a career in Big Tech — and she wanted to work for the best ... This week in #KeepingtheBalance, Rojas shares how she landed her job at Meta with a political science background. Spoiler: It took a whole lot of studying and manifestation."
So of course that will lead to resentment. She studied political science yet claims to have made three startups before she even graduated? The pay for these jobs is famously good. What possible value can this person be delivering to meta?
I think all that evidence you gave of her being a bullshitter is actually relevant work experience and a top-tier education.
I could never pass a FAANG interview, or get into UCLA, or run a startup. She’s clearly extremely talented.
Let's be honest - all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are. Good for her - I hope she keeps making them angry.
I could never pass a FAANG interview, or get into UCLA, or run a startup. She’s clearly extremely talented.
Let's be honest - all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are. Good for her - I hope she keeps making them angry.
With the work you've done on TruffleRuby? You should absolutely be able to pass a FAANG interview, you'd be more like the kind of person they were hiring 10 years tbh. I did a lot of interviewing candidates when I worked at a FAANG company and if you didn't pass then you'd be a false negative, simple as that.
It's amazing anyone is taking her LinkedIn postings seriously. Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once. She's claiming she did that three times whilst studying nothing more specific than political science, and then decided none of them were worth pursuing, but instead the pinnacle of ambition was low level PM at Meta? She's using the word "startup" here to trigger progressive ideologies in recruiters, not to indicate an actual serious effort to build a firm.
I suspect you and dleslie are very lucky to not have encountered these sorts of #womenintech before (the hashtag is important here). The sort of people who describe themselves that way invariably have absolutely no interest in tech, let alone in founding companies - unless they get to be a #femalecofounder, which helps unlock more VC money for the male actual founder. These people get jobs by loudly deploying feminist ideology at any possible opportunity and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech. They certainly will not be found enthusing about a new product idea they had or banging out code at 3am.
"all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are."
Lol, no. This is HN, a lot of us here have worked for big tech firms in much better paid roles, including me. Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special. The reason we criticize her video is exactly because of that experience - because we know that such firms increasingly bloated up over time with people who were there for ideological reasons and not because they contributed anything to the team. Another poster called them "plant pots" which sounds about right. They contribute either nothing (best case) or strongly negative value (worst case) and for those of us who have had to deal with them it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. If you never did, be glad!
It's amazing anyone is taking her LinkedIn postings seriously. Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once. She's claiming she did that three times whilst studying nothing more specific than political science, and then decided none of them were worth pursuing, but instead the pinnacle of ambition was low level PM at Meta? She's using the word "startup" here to trigger progressive ideologies in recruiters, not to indicate an actual serious effort to build a firm.
I suspect you and dleslie are very lucky to not have encountered these sorts of #womenintech before (the hashtag is important here). The sort of people who describe themselves that way invariably have absolutely no interest in tech, let alone in founding companies - unless they get to be a #femalecofounder, which helps unlock more VC money for the male actual founder. These people get jobs by loudly deploying feminist ideology at any possible opportunity and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech. They certainly will not be found enthusing about a new product idea they had or banging out code at 3am.
"all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are."
Lol, no. This is HN, a lot of us here have worked for big tech firms in much better paid roles, including me. Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special. The reason we criticize her video is exactly because of that experience - because we know that such firms increasingly bloated up over time with people who were there for ideological reasons and not because they contributed anything to the team. Another poster called them "plant pots" which sounds about right. They contribute either nothing (best case) or strongly negative value (worst case) and for those of us who have had to deal with them it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. If you never did, be glad!
> Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once.
That really depends on many factors, like whether you've taken on VC funding.
Several of the student business ventures that I'm aware of among my own peers had founders that continued to finish their undergraduate. Some took funding, others did not; all had employees and clients, so they weren't paper tigers.
You really haven't shown a good reason why she shouldn't be believed.
> and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech.
I suspect the irony is lost on you that you are stating this while arguing that she should not be taken seriously.
> Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special.
In which case, her stated experience is more than adequate.
That really depends on many factors, like whether you've taken on VC funding.
Several of the student business ventures that I'm aware of among my own peers had founders that continued to finish their undergraduate. Some took funding, others did not; all had employees and clients, so they weren't paper tigers.
You really haven't shown a good reason why she shouldn't be believed.
> and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech.
I suspect the irony is lost on you that you are stating this while arguing that she should not be taken seriously.
> Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special.
In which case, her stated experience is more than adequate.
No irony is lost. She displays no interest in anything actually technical, neither in her choice of subject to study nor anything in her video or LinkedIn posts. That's exactly the point being made here: why should such a person be taken seriously? If we lived in a world without diversity hiring, Meta's generic credibility would help, but we don't so it doesn't.
Fundamentally, neither of us know her and we're coming from very different places so there's no way to resolve the disagreement. You're taking everything she says at face value with the maximally generous interpretation possible. The video went viral because most people aren't willing to do that. Instead they're applying their priors based on experience with similar people. 23 year old TikTok influencer types who like to post clips of their easy life have a very high correlation with people who aren't entirely honest, and the #womenintech hashtag combined with humanities backgrounds has a very high correlation with women who don't care about tech at all beyond it being a gateway to an easy life. The video does nothing to dispel that impression and absolutely everything to reinforce it. It doesn't help that the PM title can mean anything from a Steve Jobs to a glorified meeting note taker.
But sure, if you want to believe that there's nothing wrong with that video and it says nothing about decadence at Meta then by all means, go ahead. Makes no difference either way. Others will draw their own conclusions.
Fundamentally, neither of us know her and we're coming from very different places so there's no way to resolve the disagreement. You're taking everything she says at face value with the maximally generous interpretation possible. The video went viral because most people aren't willing to do that. Instead they're applying their priors based on experience with similar people. 23 year old TikTok influencer types who like to post clips of their easy life have a very high correlation with people who aren't entirely honest, and the #womenintech hashtag combined with humanities backgrounds has a very high correlation with women who don't care about tech at all beyond it being a gateway to an easy life. The video does nothing to dispel that impression and absolutely everything to reinforce it. It doesn't help that the PM title can mean anything from a Steve Jobs to a glorified meeting note taker.
But sure, if you want to believe that there's nothing wrong with that video and it says nothing about decadence at Meta then by all means, go ahead. Makes no difference either way. Others will draw their own conclusions.
It's possible to be passionate about technology while being young, female and prosocial. Hell, she's expressing herself using the technology platform most popular with her generation.
She should be taken seriously because many people erroneously believe that can't be true.
I've worked in tech for decades, and this doubt you express about a fairly typical-behaving young woman is not unfamiliar to me; and it's rarely proven valid, among my peers. Rather, it's almost always an expression of the jealous misogyny of the complainant.
_Every_ attractive woman I've known in this industry has had to suffer endless doubt about their abilities, beyond what I consider normal.
She should be taken seriously because many people erroneously believe that can't be true.
I've worked in tech for decades, and this doubt you express about a fairly typical-behaving young woman is not unfamiliar to me; and it's rarely proven valid, among my peers. Rather, it's almost always an expression of the jealous misogyny of the complainant.
_Every_ attractive woman I've known in this industry has had to suffer endless doubt about their abilities, beyond what I consider normal.
Yes I was wondering how long it'd take you to start claiming anyone who doesn't fall over themselves to praise this layabout is "misogynistic". Three posts isn't bad, many would do worse. But it was inevitable.
The widespread scepticism you see isn't woman hating. It's directly created by people like you, who make blind deference of women an ideological imperative. Your defence of this girl is not any evidence of real technical skill or effort but that she's "pro-social". And then you claim - again without evidence - that anyone who points out the obvious (that she doesn't seem to be working very hard) must be motivated by generic sexist hatred. It's an absurd and deeply offensive slur that you can't recognize as such only because the left engages in it so often.
You're also conflating using tiktok with being passionate about tech, another switcheroo.
It's that exact attitude that leads to a decadent culture in which work and skill are devalued, people being hired because of their gender or ideology, and a large population of people who notice that. By the way, I've worked with women who are actually passionate about technology. They hate this stuff too, exactly because it devalues their own work and career. You aren't helping women with this sort of thing, you're hurting them.
The widespread scepticism you see isn't woman hating. It's directly created by people like you, who make blind deference of women an ideological imperative. Your defence of this girl is not any evidence of real technical skill or effort but that she's "pro-social". And then you claim - again without evidence - that anyone who points out the obvious (that she doesn't seem to be working very hard) must be motivated by generic sexist hatred. It's an absurd and deeply offensive slur that you can't recognize as such only because the left engages in it so often.
You're also conflating using tiktok with being passionate about tech, another switcheroo.
It's that exact attitude that leads to a decadent culture in which work and skill are devalued, people being hired because of their gender or ideology, and a large population of people who notice that. By the way, I've worked with women who are actually passionate about technology. They hate this stuff too, exactly because it devalues their own work and career. You aren't helping women with this sort of thing, you're hurting them.
> It's possible to be passionate about technology while being young, female and prosocial.
Absolutely it is. However there's no evidence that she is at all.
> Hell, she's expressing herself using the technology platform most popular with her generation.
That's an interesting take. Most people would say the _social media_ platform most popular. I know a lot of people who use social media extensively, and it doesn't appear to correlate with a passion for tech. Does your experience differ?
Whilst I don't disagree that sometimes this view is a jealous misogynistic one, I disagree with "almost always". I suspect you've seen the behaviour enough though that you're expecting it and looking for it.
This women having no identifiable technical skillset is a fair reason to question her. It would also be in a man. If you can indicate otherwise (rather than just hand wavey "this is misogyny"), I an very open to being proven wrong.
Absolutely it is. However there's no evidence that she is at all.
> Hell, she's expressing herself using the technology platform most popular with her generation.
That's an interesting take. Most people would say the _social media_ platform most popular. I know a lot of people who use social media extensively, and it doesn't appear to correlate with a passion for tech. Does your experience differ?
Whilst I don't disagree that sometimes this view is a jealous misogynistic one, I disagree with "almost always". I suspect you've seen the behaviour enough though that you're expecting it and looking for it.
This women having no identifiable technical skillset is a fair reason to question her. It would also be in a man. If you can indicate otherwise (rather than just hand wavey "this is misogyny"), I an very open to being proven wrong.
> There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention.
I'm not going to read too much into your complaints about her priorities; but suffice to say, perhaps consider that she doesn't mention the details of her work because being a PM is generally breathtakingly dull.
> Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic.
And yet you then sought out her linkedin and found evidence that she has, indeed, quantifiable and valid experience. But of course, you dismiss it out of hand because she's "clearly a bullshitter". But is she, really?
I've been out of school for ~20y, and even back then I knew at least five people who had successful business ventures during their tenure at post-secondary. At least two of those companies exited in rather substantial acquisitions. There was also the people who would go on to speak at TedX, who were featured on magazine covers, who...
Post-secondary is already a sample of the top-tier students that there is available, it shouldn't be surprising that some of them are super achievers.
I'm not going to read too much into your complaints about her priorities; but suffice to say, perhaps consider that she doesn't mention the details of her work because being a PM is generally breathtakingly dull.
> Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic.
And yet you then sought out her linkedin and found evidence that she has, indeed, quantifiable and valid experience. But of course, you dismiss it out of hand because she's "clearly a bullshitter". But is she, really?
I've been out of school for ~20y, and even back then I knew at least five people who had successful business ventures during their tenure at post-secondary. At least two of those companies exited in rather substantial acquisitions. There was also the people who would go on to speak at TedX, who were featured on magazine covers, who...
Post-secondary is already a sample of the top-tier students that there is available, it shouldn't be surprising that some of them are super achievers.
Posting a video that shows your work would get you fired at any big tech company. Even if your work isn't that interesting. You can't risk it.
That's why all of these big tech TikTok videos only show cafes.
That's why all of these big tech TikTok videos only show cafes.
Work is boring bullshit. That’s exactly the correct mindset as an employee. She showed the parts of her day that actually matter. No reason to assume she doesn’t work, it‘s just boring.
She got there well before her 8am meeting and and stayed through to what looks like a happy hour at the end of the day. Meanwhile even working from home I feel good if I start working by 9am.
She should show her confidential requirements docs on screen? Film internal meetings? it's clearly much, much worse to record her actual work. This is such a weird complaint.
> that it's presented by a young woman
With a hint of ignorance and jealousy.
With a hint of ignorance and jealousy.
I’m jealous, I’m grinding away for 8 hours at desk, not chilling on a roof, eating and dancing. I’d take that fake job. Plz…
Maybe you should find another job and grow out of this 1950s mindset.
Because you can be productive working outside, on a roof top, on a beach etc.
And making the time to eat well and look after your mental health has been proven to increase productivity.
Because you can be productive working outside, on a roof top, on a beach etc.
And making the time to eat well and look after your mental health has been proven to increase productivity.
I think you misunderstood his comment. There's no reason to lash out at him for his job situation. Many people don't have that many options of great jobs where you chill all the time.
Most jobs out there are sitting nearly 8h at a desk, with breaks of course, even in Europe. Not everyone has a hot jobs market where you get to set your terms.
Dicking around all day without doing much work is something I've never seen at any tech company I worked here but only in YouTube videos on life at top tech US companies.
Maybe I was born in the wrong county/continent.
Most jobs out there are sitting nearly 8h at a desk, with breaks of course, even in Europe. Not everyone has a hot jobs market where you get to set your terms.
Dicking around all day without doing much work is something I've never seen at any tech company I worked here but only in YouTube videos on life at top tech US companies.
Maybe I was born in the wrong county/continent.
Well why don't you apply then?
If you think you can get through the infamous Meta interview like she has then go for it. I probably couldn't pass that interview myself so she's better than I am.
If you think you can get through the infamous Meta interview like she has then go for it. I probably couldn't pass that interview myself so she's better than I am.
I've often heard about how hard Google's hiring process is. And I like to think I have a really good knack at getting an idea of someone's proficiency.
I have a distant relative who was working in javascript as his main job. But he didn't know what typescript, coffeescript, or web assembly were; even though he was working with javascript as his primary language. Nothing he described or talked to me about gave me the impression that he was able to do any programming whatsoever.
But, he was 100% a "total frat bro". And of course he landed a job at Google. As a programmer. Am I jealous? Sure. Do I think he is capable of creating intricate things? Absolutely not. Do I think he will survive at Google for a long time? Definitely.
I have a distant relative who was working in javascript as his main job. But he didn't know what typescript, coffeescript, or web assembly were; even though he was working with javascript as his primary language. Nothing he described or talked to me about gave me the impression that he was able to do any programming whatsoever.
But, he was 100% a "total frat bro". And of course he landed a job at Google. As a programmer. Am I jealous? Sure. Do I think he is capable of creating intricate things? Absolutely not. Do I think he will survive at Google for a long time? Definitely.
> Nothing he described or talked to me about gave me the impression that he was able to do any programming whatsoever.
Maybe he's just good at the job even if it isn't his whole personality?
Like how do you think someone would get through Google's interview without being able to program? You have to be the very top of your field to pass that interview.
Maybe he's just good at the job even if it isn't his whole personality?
Like how do you think someone would get through Google's interview without being able to program? You have to be the very top of your field to pass that interview.
I have known ex-Googlers who were not very good programmers. You definitely have to be smart to grind the FAANG interview process, but you can still be a bad programmer.
> how do you think someone would get through Google's interview without being able to program?
You really will be surprised if you have a decent standard
You really will be surprised if you have a decent standard
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She will be unemployed within the next 6 months. Same applies to young shopify entrepreneurs (dropshipping)... I don't think it is about gender.
> Metas real problem is TikTok
Yeah it was particularly funny that it was posted on Tiktok not Instagram.
Yeah it was particularly funny that it was posted on Tiktok not Instagram.
I have no idea what she works on ... but surely at least some of Meta's product staff _ought_ to be regularly using TikTok both as consumers and creators, right? How could they attempt to compete without making an effort to understand why TikTok has been eating their lunch?
There has to be a balance though. I remember hearing (probably a HN comment) that all the UI designers in the Windows team at MS use Macs, which blew my mind, but also explained so much.
If you have people working on designing and improving a product who are ultimately not even willing to use it as a their daily driver, you get the kinda of disconnected mess that is that UI in Windows and the sometimes baffling decisions made.
If you have people working on designing and improving a product who are ultimately not even willing to use it as a their daily driver, you get the kinda of disconnected mess that is that UI in Windows and the sometimes baffling decisions made.
Understanding it, doesn't mean obviously trying to become an influencer type on it. Did you really watch the video and see someone doing market research?
Meta's real problem is Zuck.
> What did you think the problem was?
She was sharing it on TikTok, that's the problem. If Meta product people have already stopped eating their own dog-food then something is very amiss.
She was sharing it on TikTok, that's the problem. If Meta product people have already stopped eating their own dog-food then something is very amiss.
It was comedy though, right? Making fun of "Day in the life of..." videos.
She was 100% at the Meta offices on SLU, so she's a Meta employee posting a video about Meta life. Even if it's comedy, it's unlikely the company would agree IMHO.
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Yeah, I perceived it and others as an overdubbed mashup of other short videos.
Nothing new on the internet.
People even take entire movies and mix clips around to change the storyline entirely.
Nothing new on the internet.
People even take entire movies and mix clips around to change the storyline entirely.
Do you have a link?
Having wasted my time watching that I hope this comment can encourage others to not make the same mistake. Urgh.
Idk its a very short video and doesn’t show any part of how to work is. Isn’t a bit like tacking a selfie. You take 10, pick the one that looks best, and you only take them when you are standing in the Grand Canyon.
this seems
fine? I don't get the hubub
fine? I don't get the hubub
I'm just going to guess a lot of people are grumpy that they make less, work harder, and have less perks.
I'm not being sarcastic, that's just my guess on why it bothers people.
I'm not being sarcastic, that's just my guess on why it bothers people.
People are pissed because she’s some quota hire and isn’t there on her own merits.
This started out as hilariously funny...until it faded into jealousy. Times like these, i almost wish society was organized into equal pay and benefits for everyone. Yes, yes, i know i sound like communist/socilaist (n othing wrong with that by the way)...But honestly, i felt like things were not fair *before* seeing that video...But now, i feel worse. /sigh
There will always be people that have a better life than you have in every dimension. Learning to deal with that fact is part of life.
“Equal pay and benefits for everyone” just means shit for everyone. Cutting down people who achieve something great is tall poppy syndrome.
Focus on how to build others up and make that the norm instead.
Focus on how to build others up and make that the norm instead.
Why equal pay? Why not just interview for Meta and pass like she did ?
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There is a general principle that applies to markets and government policy: things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they are never as good as they seem. Fear and greed. It's why markets and governments and even people tend to overreact.
Rewind a few years and people were calling for antitrust actions against Facebook for their market dominance. Some still are. This never concerned me and I needed no better evidence than Instagram. Instagram popped up out of nowhere and was an existential threat to Facebook with 13 employees when Facebook bought them for $1 billion.
If in the space of a few years something can appear and threaten your very existence then you aren't as dominant as people were making out. If it happened once, it will happen again. And it has: a lot of particularly younger people (a key demographic) use Snap. And you can't ignore Tiktok, which is rapidly eating Facebook's attention economy.
The big problem for Facebook (sorry, "Meta") is they have no plan for the future. Oh, sorry, there's the Metaverse. That ain't it. There is absolutely no evidence that VR will ever be anything more than a niche. There's the argument that this will eventually lead to AR but once AR becomes viable (if it ever does) then Meta will be in the same competitive boat as many others because a VR headstart is no headstart at all.
So how long can Meta milk the advertising teat before drastic change is company strategy is called for? I'd say that's coming sooner rather than later.
Rewind a few years and people were calling for antitrust actions against Facebook for their market dominance. Some still are. This never concerned me and I needed no better evidence than Instagram. Instagram popped up out of nowhere and was an existential threat to Facebook with 13 employees when Facebook bought them for $1 billion.
If in the space of a few years something can appear and threaten your very existence then you aren't as dominant as people were making out. If it happened once, it will happen again. And it has: a lot of particularly younger people (a key demographic) use Snap. And you can't ignore Tiktok, which is rapidly eating Facebook's attention economy.
The big problem for Facebook (sorry, "Meta") is they have no plan for the future. Oh, sorry, there's the Metaverse. That ain't it. There is absolutely no evidence that VR will ever be anything more than a niche. There's the argument that this will eventually lead to AR but once AR becomes viable (if it ever does) then Meta will be in the same competitive boat as many others because a VR headstart is no headstart at all.
So how long can Meta milk the advertising teat before drastic change is company strategy is called for? I'd say that's coming sooner rather than later.
Note Reality Labs revenue is down 50% YoY -- not a rosy picture for the Metaverse. $285M revenue on $4B in expenses and:
> We do anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year.
Yikes.
> We do anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year.
Yikes.
It's a multi-decade R&D project that happens to occasionally ship products.
Not sure why anybody is expecting it to be profitable at this stage in its lifecycle.
Not sure why anybody is expecting it to be profitable at this stage in its lifecycle.
I don't think profitability is what matters here.
They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase.
Are they building giant factories or something?
They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase.
Are they building giant factories or something?
They have acquired quite a number of VR studios. And they were pretty far down the road in building their own SOCs before deciding to double down on their partnership with Qualcomm.
I don't think it's fair to compare Meta against companies like Apple when they have up until now been almost entirely a software company.
I don't think it's fair to compare Meta against companies like Apple when they have up until now been almost entirely a software company.
> They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase.
I mean they're still making money. Mark doesn't give a shit about short term stock movement, why would he care about the division that he believes is the future of the company and maybe society losing money?
I mean they're still making money. Mark doesn't give a shit about short term stock movement, why would he care about the division that he believes is the future of the company and maybe society losing money?
You have to agree the tech involved is complex.
Sure.
But to put things in perspective, the entire R&D budget for the first iPhone was $250M, and I don't think it was highly optimized for cost.
10B is 40x higher. And this is an average year, for an unfinished product that did not even start from scratch (they started with the Occulus Rift, a pretty advanced prototype)
But to put things in perspective, the entire R&D budget for the first iPhone was $250M, and I don't think it was highly optimized for cost.
10B is 40x higher. And this is an average year, for an unfinished product that did not even start from scratch (they started with the Occulus Rift, a pretty advanced prototype)
The way I think of this is if Apple had to invent the smartphone when only desktop and laptop computers existed. No dumbphones. No mp3 players. No other second rate smartphones. The budget would far exceed $250M if that was the case, since so many of those things had resulted in supply chains for commodity parts that could, worst case, be modified slightly to fit Apple's needs. (Not that they didn't invent anything in order to produce the iPhone -- IIRC the glass screen in particular was a new feature not seen on any device before. Also they did a lot of legwork themselves e.g. the anodized aluminum device body that came from previous work on ipod / macbook).
in my mind, amazing R&D product is either
= low budget + passionate people + toxic environment to work in longterm
OR
= high budget + leetcoders + cushy working environment
= low budget + passionate people + toxic environment to work in longterm
OR
= high budget + leetcoders + cushy working environment
Exactly.
And I can't help but reflect back to 1987 when AAPL was 27 cents a share and Jobs (at NeXT) was expressing his concern for the massive (a million a month!) cash burn rate at NeXT.
And I can't help but reflect back to 1987 when AAPL was 27 cents a share and Jobs (at NeXT) was expressing his concern for the massive (a million a month!) cash burn rate at NeXT.
The spending is well above a sustainable multi-decade R&D level.
2021 was first full year of Quest 2 sales (released Sept. 2020). No new headset in 2021, so that's probably why revenue slipped.
> we expect headcount at the end of 2023 will be approximately in-line with third quarter 2022 levels.
> We do anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year.
Interesting.
> We do anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year.
Interesting.
Reducing Facebook / Whatsapp headcount to bet bigger on the Metaverse?
Everyone here is upset that Zuckerberg has 'gone rogue' and is spending a ton of money on R&D to a problem that won't bring investors money in the next quarter.
Literally every piece of technology you are using right now followed this model. Spend lots of money over many decades until the technology is developed enough to be valuable. Hell, VR is a technology that the federal government spent lots of money over multiple decades in research labs until they finally turned it over to the private sector.
VR has been in development since the 1960s when Ivan Sutherland put his brilliant hands on it. Look up The Sword of Damocles.
That's right folks, you are playing Beat Saber because the government spend 50 years developing the technology and components that scrapy startups were able to use to develop private VR headsets.
Now Meta has enough cash to act like a small government because it has monopoly status. Kind of like how AT&T was expected to do heavy R&D for the privileged of being a monopoly. Where Bell Labs developed the transistor. Keep in mind, the transistor at the time was so expensive that the only customer was the government.
So as long as Meta keeps being a monopoly, they will be expected to keep doing a lot of R&D.
Literally every piece of technology you are using right now followed this model. Spend lots of money over many decades until the technology is developed enough to be valuable. Hell, VR is a technology that the federal government spent lots of money over multiple decades in research labs until they finally turned it over to the private sector.
VR has been in development since the 1960s when Ivan Sutherland put his brilliant hands on it. Look up The Sword of Damocles.
That's right folks, you are playing Beat Saber because the government spend 50 years developing the technology and components that scrapy startups were able to use to develop private VR headsets.
Now Meta has enough cash to act like a small government because it has monopoly status. Kind of like how AT&T was expected to do heavy R&D for the privileged of being a monopoly. Where Bell Labs developed the transistor. Keep in mind, the transistor at the time was so expensive that the only customer was the government.
So as long as Meta keeps being a monopoly, they will be expected to keep doing a lot of R&D.
Revenue miss, and revised revenue guidance even worse.
Revenues down 4% YoY yet costs up 19% YoY.
Profits down 50% YoY.
Users flat.
Average ad price -18% YoY.
Capex 2x+ YoY.
Added 19k employees (+28% YoY).
Costs expected to grow from ~$85bn '22 to $101bn in '23.
I know there are external macro issues - but fundamentally you have to choose between two interpretations of this data.
1 - They've blown it badly over the last 7 year (strategically, but also at an execution level). And it's all been covered up by a bull market and cheap capital. 2 - But the metaverse!
I know there are external macro issues - but fundamentally you have to choose between two interpretations of this data.
1 - They've blown it badly over the last 7 year (strategically, but also at an execution level). And it's all been covered up by a bull market and cheap capital. 2 - But the metaverse!
Hot diggity, I don't know anything about money, but if you look at "free cash flow" at the end:
> FREE CASH FLOW
>
> 3MO 2022 3MO 2021 9MO 2022 9MO 2021
>
> $ 173 $ 9,547 $ 13,151 $ 25,876
FCF isn't a great metric for tech companies due to how many shares they issue through employee comp. FCF calculation typically doesn't include this cost.
But yeah, it's down bigly. So is their net income.
But yeah, it's down bigly. So is their net income.
Are you sure that's how to interpret it?
The way I see it is:
- From Jul - Sep 2022, the net cash provided by operating activities minus their purchases left them with $173M.
- From Jan - Sep 2022, the net cash provided by operating activities minus their purchases left them with $13,151M.
So yes, this quarter wasn't great as they only had $173M cash leftover. But their previous two quarters were good enough to leave them with $13,151M - $173M = $12,978M free cash flow.
It's just that in Q3 they only produced $173M free cash flow. They still have $13,151M free cash flow produced since Jan 2022.
The way I see it is:
- From Jul - Sep 2022, the net cash provided by operating activities minus their purchases left them with $173M.
- From Jan - Sep 2022, the net cash provided by operating activities minus their purchases left them with $13,151M.
So yes, this quarter wasn't great as they only had $173M cash leftover. But their previous two quarters were good enough to leave them with $13,151M - $173M = $12,978M free cash flow.
It's just that in Q3 they only produced $173M free cash flow. They still have $13,151M free cash flow produced since Jan 2022.
Yep, seems to be driven by 9.3B in purchases of property, plant and equipment in Q3 22 (up +116% from 4.3B in Q3 21). I think it's due to "investments in data centers, servers, and network infrastructure. An increase in AI capacity is driving substantially all of our capital expenditure growth in 2023."
Q2 report... June 30 was 4,450M
Q1 was 8,528
and 9 months ago it was 13,151
Now its 173.
Approximately 4,000 per quarter for the past 3 quarters..... Pretty crazy.
Q1 was 8,528
and 9 months ago it was 13,151
Now its 173.
Approximately 4,000 per quarter for the past 3 quarters..... Pretty crazy.
where did all of their free cash flow go?
How will zuckerberg make his employees work hard when the stock market keeps killing their motivation? Or those 70K+ are mercenaries of his madness? I think he should be replaced by a mature CEO who can balance growth & value (like other tech companies)
Eliminating dual class stock would see Zuck replaced tomorrow.
I wonder this too. Even new hires hired a few months back are getting hit hard.
He’s having his Steve Jobs Mac Lisa moment, but nobody’s going to fire him. I think there’s something to be said about founder-run multinationals.
Bad comparison IMHO. Zuck universally creeps people out and is detested by a large % people, while Jobs was loved and had a huge cult following. Big difference. People trusted Jobs, unlike Zuck.
You know, I'm starting to look at him in a different light. He takes a hell of a lot of flak and keeps focusing on his vision
Not at the time he was doing the Lisa they didn't. Remember that Jobs got fired and it was because he came across as a manipulative asshole - crying in meetings at odd times, things like that. Even towards the end of his life, Jobs was detested by a lot of people. Yes he had some loyal people who worked for him but even they tended to say they were loyal to him because he made them successful, not because they loved him as a person.
Revenue down 4%, costs up 19%.
Yikes!
Yikes!
Legs will surely fix this situation.
Legs are old news, certainly there must be other body parts that can generate revenue…?!
Meta announces tails!
There are... might make the board room a bit awkward though.
Free cashflow at zero, down from $9.5B in the year-ago quarter. They can would’ve-could’ve all they want about currency exchange rates but there’s no escaping cashflow.
Stock is getting hammered after-hours. Down 11% currently.
Honestly I would be pretty unsurprised if Mark is fine with the stock getting hammered since it makes buybacks cheaper, he's certainly taken advantage of the discount this year. Tell everyone you're going to lose money for the next decade, wait for your stock to get hammered, buy it back for 50 cents on the dollar, and start making money again. Works for mark since he can't be fired.
Not a good sign, even they live on a mountain of cash the trend is no good.
Zuck mentioned gaining share on time spent vs tictok and nobody in the financial press, twitter, or HN is talking about it. This is huge if true.
Zuck and FB have a huge credibility issue. Numerous times they've had to apologize to customers about misreporting all sorts of critical business and ad metrics. There's not a lot of trust.
How does Zuck even know how much time users spend on TikTok? It's probably some biased internal market research.
There's a whole industry around tracking these things. I don't know what the methodology is.
Doesn't mean it's accurate.
Also doesn't mean that it's not. We're both making assumptions
Well sure, but without any proof or data there's no reason to put any weight behind it. Execs and companies say lots of bs.
I doubt treating that as a non-statement will be the most profitable interpretation. Time spent is one of the most important variables in the value of an ad business.
Someone on cnbc made an interesting comment today. Not explicitly saying it but suggesting it might make a convenient situation whereby a company formerly villaified as being anticompetitive and dangerous now looks meek and on the verge of death so that they can again make acquisitions.
I’ve thought for a couple years now Zoom would make an interesting target for them- a huge built-in enterprise audience, one of the last remaining independent video conferencing companies with (imo) best of breed engineering and product and now beaten down valuation and meetings are the main focus area for VR right now.
I’ve thought for a couple years now Zoom would make an interesting target for them- a huge built-in enterprise audience, one of the last remaining independent video conferencing companies with (imo) best of breed engineering and product and now beaten down valuation and meetings are the main focus area for VR right now.
It's an interesting thought, but that seems like a huge gamble just to provide an opening to make moves that may or may not pay off. I would think things would have to be pretty bleak for a risk like that to make sense.
Does anyone aside from Meta even want a “Metaverse”?
Metaverse just feels like it’s trying to be a “premium” version of reality, that comes at a premium. Seems like such a small target audience to spend so much money on, when across the spectrum of people I know, would rather meet up IRL, or go disconnect from technology..
Some of the tech is neat, and probably innovative, but think no one is as hyped about this as zuck. Also no one likes zuck.
Metaverse just feels like it’s trying to be a “premium” version of reality, that comes at a premium. Seems like such a small target audience to spend so much money on, when across the spectrum of people I know, would rather meet up IRL, or go disconnect from technology..
Some of the tech is neat, and probably innovative, but think no one is as hyped about this as zuck. Also no one likes zuck.
> Headcount was 87,314 as of September 30, 2022, an increase of 28% year-over-year
Oh wow, that was misguided. Other companies have been slowing down hiring significantly (especially after the war started in February). I don't see how they'd get out of this without layoffs (which is generally bad for the whole industry).
Oh wow, that was misguided. Other companies have been slowing down hiring significantly (especially after the war started in February). I don't see how they'd get out of this without layoffs (which is generally bad for the whole industry).
Remember that this is a year on year change. Most of that growth happened in Q4 2021 - Q2 2022. The change to Q2 was about 4.5%, so they already slowed down massively compared to the previous.
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I a fan of virtual reality, just not in the hands of Corporations and the Chinese Communist Party, whose interests seemed very aligned in regards to controlling and policing people. Both have thought police in HR departments and bureau of Party Functionaries.
Mark Zuckerberg has a $10 billion plan to make it impossible for remote workers to hide from their bosses [1]
China believes mass surveillance will help it engineer the perfect society [2]
There's no sex in the Metaverse champagne room
[1] https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-meta-avatars-...
(https://archive.ph/i5yJO)
[2] https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/china-surveilla...
Mark Zuckerberg has a $10 billion plan to make it impossible for remote workers to hide from their bosses [1]
China believes mass surveillance will help it engineer the perfect society [2]
There's no sex in the Metaverse champagne room
[1] https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-meta-avatars-...
(https://archive.ph/i5yJO)
[2] https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/china-surveilla...
> There's no sex in the Metaverse champagne room
LOL - love it ;)
Sex sells but it doesn't pay the bills. i.e. you can't be coding Zuck's metaverse while having sex.
I'm a fan of VR too. But the metaverse is either going to be the most amazing thing or the most dystopian thing that humankind has ever created.
LOL - love it ;)
Sex sells but it doesn't pay the bills. i.e. you can't be coding Zuck's metaverse while having sex.
I'm a fan of VR too. But the metaverse is either going to be the most amazing thing or the most dystopian thing that humankind has ever created.
Facebook got caught doing A/B psychological manipulation and allowed Cambridge Analytical manipulate the 2016 election, so I'm leaning towards dystopian.
Some other process will create the amazing virtual universe. I'm hoping for a grassroots open source virtual universe will arise in much the same process as the early internet.
Some other process will create the amazing virtual universe. I'm hoping for a grassroots open source virtual universe will arise in much the same process as the early internet.
Given its output, at this point I'm beginning to assume Meta Reality Labs is some weird form of tax evasion masquerading as a company producing niche hardware products.
Who are the independent thinkers at Meta that might be able to convince Mark Zuckerberg to change course in case he is wrong about the size or timing of the Metaverse?
> in case he is wrong about the size or timing of the Metaverse?
I imagine there are an equal number of people that could convince him to continue, in case he is right. This appears to include Apple: https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/25/kuo-apple-plans-to-replace-th...
I think the negative feelings towards all of this will flip, if Apple decides to release something.
I imagine there are an equal number of people that could convince him to continue, in case he is right. This appears to include Apple: https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/25/kuo-apple-plans-to-replace-th...
I think the negative feelings towards all of this will flip, if Apple decides to release something.
He doesn't need convincing to continue. But yes Apple stepping in might help the PE ratio for the space
Meta stock after-hours is absolute madness: https://ibb.co/M7PtCYX
Nice.
15 years ago when someone introduced me to FB I called it FarceBook.
15 years ago when someone introduced me to FB I called it FarceBook.
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Mark is doing worse than Ye, it looks like.
Realistically they had one big growth avenue and that was acquisitions but the regulatory (or rather political) environment doesn’t allow for it.
I get that it is hard to let go of that growth mindset after 20 years of crazy growth but at some point the journey ends and you have to reorient the business (imo). I am not saying stop investing but scale it down a notch, set realistic budgets, pay a dividend or buyback stock. Maybe if they had shifted their mindset away from growth at all cost earlier they wouldn’t have gotten such a bad rep.
I feel the same about Google. I wonder how much money their non-ad, non-cloud stuff made of its life time and if it has been profitable.
In the end the goal of a company (whether you agree with it our not) is not to get as big as possible but to generate as much cash for its shareholders as possible. And I think Facebook over extended with going all in on Meta.
But perhaps I am looking at this with too much hindsight.