Nicholas joins Meta as an executive mixed reality producer for entertainment experiences.
Former Yuga Labs creative director for Bored Apes Yacht Club Jeff Nicholas will be joining Meta’s Reality Labs as an executive producer for mixed reality entertainment experiences.
Nicholas announced the move on X and LinkedIn, stating that he’ll begin his new position in September.
He also added that he’d be working specifically on virtual reality products:
Meta shares dipped after a disappointing Q2 revenue outlook and plans to spend nearly $100 billion this year as it aims to “invest aggressively” in its AI products.
Meta (META) shares dropped 15% in after-hours trading after the firm said it will “aggressively” ramp up spending in artificial intelligence while its metaverse division will continue to run at a loss — amid a weak revenue outlook.
The giant said in its April 24 first quarter 2024 results it expected expenses to rise to a range between $96 billion to $99 billion — up from $94 billion to $99 billion due to “higher infrastructure and legal costs.”
It also bumped full-year 2024 capital expenditures to a top end of $40 billion from its prior $37 billion as it would “invest aggressively to support our ambitious AI research and product development.”
Meanwhile, Meta's metaverse-building business has racked up around $21 billion in losses since the start of 2022.
Meta's metaverse-related losses topped $3.74 billion over the second quarter with the Big Tech player spending $7.7 billion on its virtual reality business so far in 2023.
Its second-quarter 2023 results released on July 26 saw Meta report an 11% revenue gain compared to the same quarter last year, totaling $31.9 billion.
Its metaverse-focused Reality Labs revenue topped $276 million, its lowest in two years and a nearly 40% drop compared to Q2 2022.
On an earnings call, Meta's financial chief Susan Li said Reality Labs' revenue drop was due to lower sales of its Quest 2 virtual reality (VR) headset. The department's expenses were up 23% to $4.0 billion partly caused by a growth in staffing costs.
Reality Labs' operating losses are set to increase through 2023, Meta said. It cited VR-related product development efforts and further investments in its metaverse as the reason for the losses extending.
On the call, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said the firm is focusing on artificial intelligence "in the near term and the metaverse over the longer term."
He reiterated Meta is "fully committed" to its metaverse alongside its AI investments and said the two areas are "overlapping and complementary."
He added its AI model Llama is being used to build a number of products that will help users "create worlds and the avatars and objects that inhabit them as well" and said he would share more later in the year.
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Meta's stock price jumped on the earnings and is up over 7% in after-hours trading to around $320 according to Google Finance data. Meta shares have gained nearly 140% year-to-date but are still off from their September 2021 all-time high of over $378.
Zuckerberg mentioned its July 6 launched platform Threads was “seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected” and said Meta was focused firstly on Threads user retention, then growth and would later focus on monetizing the platform.
The comments come the same day as a July 26 report from data analytics firm Similarweb that claimed Threads users have declined 60% from launch.
Threads peaked at 49 million daily active users on July 7 but fell to 12.6 million daily active users by July 23 with users spending less than five minutes a day on the app over the past week.
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Zuckerberg expects Reality Labs operating losses to increase year-over-year in 2023.
Meta suffered a nearly $4 billion loss from its metaverse unit with Reality Labs in what was otherwise a solid first quarter for the Mark Zuckerberg-led social media empire which posted a final profit of $5.7 billion.
While the $4 billion loss follows a $14 billion loss in 2022, Zuckerberg explained in the earnings report that Reality Labs will likely suffer more losses in the remainder of 2023.
“We continue to expect Reality Labs operating losses to increase year-over-year in 2023,” predicted Zuckerberg.
The losses suffered by Reality Labs were however negated by the firm’s developments in its artificial intelligence (AI) segment, the firm’s chief executive explained.
"Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business. We're also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long-term vision.”
While Zuckerberg recently labeled AI as the firm’s “single largest investment,” he said Meta’s metaverse ambitions remain a top priority for the firm.
“A narrative has developed that we're somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say up front that that's not accurate." he said before adding, "we've been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now and we will continue to focus on both.”
In addition, Zuckerberg explained that metaverse tech will help its AI visions and vice versa.
“Metaverse technology will also help deliver AI as well. For example, embodying AI agents will take advantage of the deep investment that we’ve made in Avatars over the last several years.”
Related: Zuckerberg’s $100B metaverse gamble is ‘super-sized and terrifying’ — Shareholder
Zuckerberg explained in a Feb. 28 Facebook post that the firm is building a suite of creative and expressive tools that can help “turbocharge” the efficiencies of some of its existing products:
“Over the longer term, we'll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways. We're exploring experiences with text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences.”
Though Zuckerberg stated the firm has “a lot of foundational work to do” before it can provide “really futuristic experiences” for its audience.
Meta stock bounced 11.7% after hours following the news of its better-than-expected first quarter, according to Google Finance:
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Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, has shared its fourth quarter results, reporting better numbers than expected. While the company beat revenue estimates, CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 a “Year of Efficiency,” hinting at a further restructuration of the company to focus on its AI (artificial intelligence) and metaverse projects in the […]
During a Q4 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said he saw no reason to deviate from the company’s long-term metaverse strategy.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company has no plans to change its long-term strategy for the metaverse, despite operating losses for its Reality Labs business peaking in 2022.
Meta on Feb. 1 released earnings showing that Reality Labs lost $13.7 billion in 2022 — the largest ever yearly losses recorded for its metaverse-building division.
The fourth quarter was particularly costly, with the division losing nearly $4.3 billion, which was also the largest quarterly loss within the department since financials for the business were first published.
On a Feb. 1 earnings call, Zuckerberg was steadfast in the company’s metaverse strategy. Answering a question about how the firm’s efficiency applies to Reality Labs, he answered:
“None of the signals that I've seen so far suggest that we should shift the Reality Labs strategy long term.”
He added that later in 2023 the company would launch another “next generation consumer headset” following the October launch of its Quest Pro Virtual Reality (VR) headset.
Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, similarly doubled down on the Reality Labs business, echoing Zuckerberg’s statement from a Q3 earnings call that losses in the business would increase in 2023.
“We still expect our full-year Reality Labs losses to increase in 2023, and we're gonna continue to invest meaningfully in this area given the significant long-term opportunities that we see.”
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Meta’s overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $32.1 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.
The better-than-expected revenue figures caused Meta’s stock price to jump after the bell, gaining nearly 19.5% in after-hours trading at the time of writing, according to Yahoo Finance.
Meta will continue to invest in VR (virtual reality) tech in 2023, according to statements made by Andrew Bosworth, head of Reality Labs, the metaverse division of the company. While Meta has made some changes and adapted to the current shaky economic atmosphere, Bosworth states that the company is still committed to its metaverse pivot. […]
Billions of dollars have been poured into Meta’s virtual world with little return on investment, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he is holding fast.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still hopeful about the company’s Metaverse plans regardless of the billions of dollars it’s sucking up from the company, claiming “someone has to build that.”
Appearing remotely for an interview at the Nov. 30 DealBook Summit in New York, Zuckerberg was asked his thoughts on whether the tech giants’ Metaverse play was still viable given its cost and the doubts cast over the platform, answering:
“I think things look very different on a ten-year time horizon than the zone that we're in for the next few years [...] I'm still completely optimistic about all the things that we've been optimistic about.”
He added part of “seeing things through” in the longer term was “powering through” the doubts held about its ambitions.
Meta's latest earnings, released on Oct. 26, revealed the largest-ever quarterly loss in its metaverse-building arm Reality Labs dating back to the fourth quarter of 2020. Zuckerberg’s virtual reality has cost $9.44 billion in 2022, closing in on the over $10 billion in losses recorded for 2021.
On the earnings call at the time Zuckerberg was unfazed by the cost, calling its metaverse the “next computing platform.” He doubled down on this claim at DealBook:
“We're not going to be here in the 2030s communicating and using computing devices that are exactly the same as what we have today, and someone has to build that and invest in it and believe in it.”
However, Zuckerberg admitted that the plans have come at a cost, Meta had to lay off 11,000 employees on Nov. 9 and the CEO said it had “planned out massive investments,” including into hardware to support its metaverse.
He said the company “thought that the economy and the business were going to go in in a certain direction” based on positive indicators relating to e-commerce businesses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. “Obviously it hasn't turned out that way,” Zuckerberg added.
“Our kind of operational focus over the next few years is going to be on efficiency and discipline and rigor and kind of just operating in a much tighter environment.”
Despite the apparent focus from Meta to build its metaverse, Zuckerberg claimed 80% of company investments are funneled into its flagship social media platforms and will continue that way “for quite some time.”
Investments in Reality Labs are “less than 20%” at least “until the Metaverse becomes a larger thing” he said.
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Of the 20% invested in Reality Labs, Zuckerberg said 40% of it goes toward its Virtual Reality (VR) headsets with the other “half or more” building what he considers “the long-term most important form factor [...] Normal-looking glasses that can put holograms in the world.”
Zuckerberg also took a few jabs at its peer tech company Apple regarding its restrictive App Store policies, the likes of which have placed restrictions on crypto exchanges and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces, saying:
“I do think Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control unilaterally what apps get on a device and I don't think that's a sustainable or good place to be.”
He pointed to other computing platforms such as Windows and Android which are not as restrictive and even allow other app markets and sideloading — the use of third-party software or apps.
He added its been Meta’s commitment to allow sideloading with its existing VR units and upcoming Augmented Reality (AR) units and hoped the future Metaverse platforms were also open in such a manner.
“I do think it is it is problematic for one company to be able to control what kind of app experiences get on the device.”
Meta, the social network company, has announced that it will cut 11,000 jobs, letting go of 13% of the employees in its workforce amidst a “cultural shift” in the company. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the company, explained this decision was made due to a need to become more “capital efficient,” and described the next steps […]
As of the end of September, Meta had more than 87,000 employees — a large proportion of which is said to work in the Reality Labs division.
Social media and tech giant Meta is reportedly gearing up for “large-scale layoffs” this week amid rising costs and a recent collapse of its share price.
According to Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on Nov. 6 citing people familiar with the matter, the planned layoffs could impact thousands of employees in a broad range of divisions across Meta’s 87,000-strong workforce.
It is not currently understood whether the firm's Reality Labs division, which registered a $3.7 billion loss in the third quarter, would see staff cuts.
Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company would be focusing its investment on “a small number of high-priority growth areas," including its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Discovery Engine and its advertisement and business messaging platforms in addition to the Metaverse, stating:
“So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year [...] In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
During the earnings call, the billionaire entrepreneur appeared to double down on the firm’s investments in these areas, saying he believes they’re “on the right track with these investments” and should “keep investing heavily in these areas.”
Related: Zuckerberg’s $100B metaverse gamble is ‘super-sized and terrifying’ — Shareholder
The report comes only a week after Meta reported its third-quarter earnings, which missed revenue expectations and saw a rise in its operating costs. Its stock price also took a battering, with shares in Meta currently priced at $90.79 — down 7.56% over the last five days and 73.19% year-on-year, according to Yahoo Finance.
The company appears to still be actively hiring into its metaverse division regardless, with its list of job openings revealing 38 of its 413 listings are related to Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Meta for clarification and whether there would be any changes to its metaverse division but did not receive an immediate response.
