CEO Resignation: The Only Way Mark Zuckerberg Can Save The Meta Empire

*The article is the opinion of Linette Lopez – a writer of Business Insider.

Mark Zuckerberg should step down as CEO of Meta and let someone else manage Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Then, he should use his vast wealth and venture capital connections to build a startup that can realize his vision of the metaverse.

In my opinion, this is the only way Zuckerberg can save his empire from… himself. Not to mention, it will also be in the best interest of society.

Theoretically, Meta held a conference called Meta Connect to showcase the cool things their developers can create in the metaverse. These demos are supposed to convince people that the metaverse is where they want to be while also convincing investors that Zuckerberg’s massive investment in this new technology is worth it.

So what has Meta announced to convince us that the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro virtual reality device with Zuckerberg’s ability to connect users to the metaverse is worth it? FOOT! Avatars with legs! The user now has legs instead of the upper half as before!

Zuckerberg seemed excited about this, but apparently the rest of the world wasn’t. Last year, Meta spent $10 billion developing the metaverse. However, so far, the results obtained are not really significant. In February, the company said it now has 300,000 users logging into the Horizon Worlds platform every month – a tiny number compared to Facebook’s 2.9 billion people “population”.

It is clear that the above information has more or less affected Meta. The company’s stock is down about 60% so far.

Zuckerberg already has two very profitable platforms, Facebook and Instagram. However, their popularity is decreasing. At the end of last year, Facebook’s user base shrank for the first time. Both platforms are losing young users to TikTok and also older users due to increased mental health awareness.

Fixing this problem requires attention, innovation, and hard work. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to care much. So, he should give that job to someone who is capable while also bringing his metaverse project to the startup world.

Meta is facing the biggest business difficulties at the moment. The economy is likely to enter its first global recession since Facebook’s 2012 IPO. Higher interest rates and a strong dollar are crushing tech companies’ profits.

Apple’s privacy policies have restricted Facebook and Instagram’s ability to collect information about users – a change that Meta estimates will cost $10 billion in ad revenue this year. These things sent Meta’s business into a state of panic. The company is said to be preparing to quietly fire and cancel some internship offers.

In addition to current economic conditions, Meta faces existential threats to the company’s core platforms. Connecting with the world, or simply making old friends, doesn’t seem like such a fun idea anymore. Even Meta’s platforms have helped facilitate a lot of malicious content on the Internet.

All of the existing problems require intense focus on improving the company’s key products, improving its public image, showing investors that the company’s business is profitable. may survive the coming economic turmoil. But Zuckerberg’s focus isn’t there. Instead, the 38-year-old CEO is caught up in what he sees as the future of Meta.

A visionary leader is great in times of great growth, but Meta needs a leader who can have a clear view of the company during tough times. If Bill Gates can leave Microsoft, Larry Page and Sergey Brin realize it’s time to hand Google over to someone else, so can Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg has always focused on “dominating” absolutely whatever field he is in. This is why he is completely obsessed with manipulating the metaverse and every detail of it.

A New York Times article reported that after someone mocked an old doll-like metaverse avatar, Zuckerberg became so obsessed with creating new avatars that a graphic artist was forced to draw 40 versions. Zuckerberg’s face for more than a month until the final version was approved. Internally, Meta employees refer to metaverse projects as MMH or “Make Mark Happy”.

This type of management might serve a founder running a small startup from a dorm room, but it probably won’t work for a CEO running a tech giant worth more than $340 billion.

If he wants to maintain that kind of management, Zuckerberg should start a new metaverse startup. Many other famous tech founders like Google’s Page and Brin, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Uber’s Travis Kalanick started their startups outside of the companies they founded. In addition, a startup will also give Zuckerberg more freedom to build his vision through acquisitions of other companies.

Implicit in all of Zuckerberg’s talk about the metaverse is the possibility that he believes Facebook and Instagram are irretrievable. Maybe Zuckerberg doesn’t want to save Facebook and Instagram anymore, that’s not what he likes to do. If that’s the case, Zuckerberg should step down as CEO of Meta.

Source: BI, NYT