Letter to Zuck: Meta, metaverse dreams must come down to earth

Meta Platforms Inc. shareholder Altimeter Capital chair and chief executive officer Brad Gerstner wrote an open letter to Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, saying that Meta needs to “get fit and focused,” suggesting a cut in headcount and in metaverse investments.

Fast facts

• “Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency. This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes,” Gerstner wrote in his letter.

• The Altimeter chair suggested in his letter that Meta reduce headcount expenses by 20% and cut back its metaverse and virtual reality (VR) investments down to no more than US$5 billion per year.

• Gerstner also recommended that Meta reduce its annual capital expenditure, which are long-term investments a company makes to upgrade fixed or non-consumable assets, by at least US$5 billion.

• At the end of Q2 2022, Altimeter Capital owned over 2.4 million shares of Meta, which fell around 60% in the past year.

• Recent Meta internal documents revealed that its flagship metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, is underperforming in attracting users — compared to an initial goal of gathering 500,000 monthly active users (MAU), its current MAU lingers below 200,000, the Wall Street Journal reported.

• Meta, formerly Facebook, rebranded itself to focus on metaverse developments last year.

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