2022 could be a difficult year for Meter, formerly known as Facebook. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox posted a memo to employees this past week outlining the challenges the company is facing, and describing the weak times ahead. In the memo, Cox mentions “We’re here at a critical time and the headwinds are deadly.” He added that the company has to perform flawlessly despite lagging behind in new appointments and reigning in the budget. Memoti is part of the company’s bi-annual examination where its resources must be invested Thus, the memo describes what the meta will focus on in the second half of 2022. It was distributed as part of the company’s weekly Q&A session with CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
At the meeting, Zuckerberg predicted a tough rest of the year for the Mets. “If I had to bet, I’d say it could be one of the worst recessions we’ve seen in recent history,” he said, according to audio obtained by Reuters. The company is facing both macroeconomic forces that affect everyone, as well as privacy-related shocks. For example, its CFO previously predicted that the company would lose about 10 10 billion in 2022 due to Apple’s new privacy policy. These policies require iOS users to be notified when an app wants to track them and allow them to opt-out of the process. Still, plenty of other technology companies are predicting an impending recession in the economy after year-on-year record-breaking revenues. Therefore, Meta is not alone in maintaining a cautious outlook for the rest of the year.
It was previously reported that the company has already started reducing its recruitment. At the same time, the company faced massive departures of employees. As we reported then, Zuckerberg was good with it because he didn’t want any strugglers to hang around. The CEO has doubled down on that position in the latest Q&A. He added that the company would start pushing employees harder to weed out people who are performing. “Part of my hope is to raise hopes and more aggressive goals, and just a little bit of warmth, I think some of you may decide that this place is not for you and that self-selection is okay with me,” he said. In fact, the company probably has a bunch of people who shouldn’t be here, “he concluded.
As far as the future goes, the memo posted by The Verge includes six areas focusing on it for 2022. The most obvious is its TikTok competitor whose name is Reels. One of its top priorities is to monetize the short-form video platform as soon as possible. It is also investing in its new “discovery engine”. This is called trying to keep content in your feed from people you don’t follow. Although it needs better AI to fine-tune its algorithm, it is investing heavily in AI. Cox says it needs to increase the number of GPUs in its data centers by 5X compared to the rest of this year to achieve this. Additionally it will focus on its metavers plans. Part of that includes the launch of its high-wealth project Cambria headset later this year. Cox says Cambria will launch its “Prosumer / Industrial-Grade Mixed Reality Product Line”. He said the company was “laser-centric” in bringing Cambria to market in the near future.
The Starburst prototype is the only HDR VR headset in the world. (Photo: Meta)
Other areas of focus will be community and business messaging. This includes WhatsApp and Messenger platforms. It will also work on privacy-related issues. We have taken it to mean how to deal with the new privacy laws that have been passed around the world. The company obviously doesn’t want to close its eyes again because of Apple’s anti-tracking update.
Meta is also making big bets on Metaverse, but it will take some time for it to be fruitful. It has already said that it expects one billion people to use it by 2030 It is expected that Metavers users will eventually spend hundreds of dollars each year on bubble and avatar costumes. One of its priorities is to get the e-commerce part of its current metavers, Horizon Worlds.
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