Last year has been tough for tech companies. We’ve seen some unpredictable market situations where giant companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have faced losses. But it was the worst for Meta when it hit $88.91 in the stock market on November 2022. It was the lowest market price of Meta since 2016. It was not until this February that Meta managed to get back into a good position in the market.
While they were struggling with the stock market, the company was having a tough time in the offices as well. At the end of 2022, the company fired 11,000 employees. Meta wasn’t the only one who fired such a huge number of employees at once in 2022; Amazon laid off 18,000 employees, Alphabet 12,000, and Microsoft 10,000.
At the moment, Meta is currently at its peak in the stock market in February as compared to the last seven months. Their stock price has gone up over 30% until the middle of February. Despite that, a rumor is going around that they plan to fire employees again.
“Flattening” structures
Even with the rise of their stocks, Mark Zuckerberg is focused on cost-cutting even further by “flattening” internally. A recent report from the Financial Times points that Zuckerberg is delaying the team budget and speculate that this round of job cuts might come in March. The lack of clarity around the team budget and headcount is causing Meta’s performance and productivity to suffer.
Mark Zuckerberg has always been enthusiastic about Metaverse and sees it as the future of the company. But it is easy to see that the current market situation of Meta is partly because of the huge budget and resources for Metaverse projects. One example here is the $13.7 billion loss of Reality Labs in 2022.
How will it affect Metaverse?
Still, Meta shows no signs of giving up on their Metaverse dreams, even with the possibility of more layoffs. Their upcoming VR headset, Meta Quest 3, is already getting hyped and showing promising features. With the expected price tag of $500, they are going to use the same marketing strategy of selling Quest 3 at a bare minimum price as it did with Quest 2.
Zuckerberg’s dream still has a long way to go. Now that Meta is somewhat back on track on the stock market and Quest 3 is around the corner, will they focus on building the Metaverse again? Or will it focus on restructuring with its next round of layoffs first? Only time can tell.
Photo credits: The images used are owned by Meta and have been provided for press usage.
Sources: Google Finance / Daniella Genovese (Fox Business) / Jeffrey Dastin (Reuters) / Jeffrey Dastin and Yuvraj Malik (Reuters) / Hannah Murphy and Cristina Criddle (Financial Times) / Jonathan Vanian and Ari Levy (CNBC) / Malcolm McMillan (Tom’s Guide)
