2022 could be a tough year for Meta, 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 lean times ahead. In the memo, Cox noted “We are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce.” He goes on to say the company will have to execute flawlessly despite the company pulling back on new hiring and reigning in budgets. The memo is part of the company’s bi-annual examination of where it needs to invest its resources. As such, the memo lays out what Meta will be focusing on for the second half of 2022. It was delivered as part of the company’s weekly Q&A with CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In the meeting, Zuckerberg predicted a difficult rest of the year for Meta. “If I had to bet, I’d say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,” he said, according to audio obtained by Reuters. The company is facing both macroeconomic forces impacting everyone, as well as privacy-related setbacks. As an example, its CFO previously predicted the company would lose around $10 billion in 2022 just due to Apple’s new privacy policies. These policies require iOS users to be notified when an app wants to track them, and be allowed to opt-out of that process. Still, plenty of other tech companies are also predicting an impending slowdown in the economy after years of record-breaking revenues. Therefore, Meta is not alone in holding a cautious outlook for the rest of the year.
It was previously reported the company was already beginning to reduce its hiring. At the same time, the company was also experiencing a mass exodus of employees. As we reported back then, Zuckerberg was fine with it since he didn’t want any stragglers hanging around. The CEO has doubled down on that stance in the latest Q&A. He also said the company will begin to push employees even harder to weed out people who are under performing. “Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is OK with me,” he said. “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” he concluded.
As far as the future goes, the memo posted by The Verge includes six areas it will focus on for 2022. The most obvious is its TikTok competitor named Reels. One of its highest priorities is monetizing that short-form video platform as soon as possible. It’s also investing in its new “discovery engine.” This is what it calls its effort to put content in your feed from people you don’t follow. It will need better AI to fine-tune its algorithm though, so it’s investing heavily in AI. Cox said it needs to increase the number of GPUs in its data centers by 5X over the rest of this year to achieve that. Additionally it will be focusing on its metaverse plans. Part of that includes the launch of its high-end Project Cambria headset later this year. Cox says Cambria will mark the beginning of its “prosumer / industrial-grade mixed reality product line.” He said the company is “laser-focused” on bringing Cambria to market in the near future.
The Starburst prototype is the world’s only HDR VR headset. (Image: Meta)
The other areas of its focus will be community and business messaging. This includes its WhatsApp and Messenger platforms. It’ll also be working on privacy-related matters. We take that to mean figuring out how to deal with new privacy laws being passed around the globe. The company obviously doesn’t want to get blindsided again like it seemed to be by Apple’s anti-tracking update.
Meta is also betting big on the metaverse, but that will take some time to come to fruition. It has already stated it anticipates there will be a billion people using it by 2030. It expects metaverse users will eventually be spending hundreds of dollars per year on bobbles and avatar clothes. Getting the e-commerce part of its current metaverse, Horizon Worlds, is also one of its priorities.
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