Mark Zuckerberg's $71 Billion Wealth Wipeout Puts Focus On Meta's Woes (bloomberg.com) 83
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Mark Zuckerberg's pivot into the metaverse has cost him dearly in the real world. Even in a rough year for just about every US tech titan, the wealth erased from the chief executive officer of Meta stands out. His fortune has been cut in half and then some, dropping by $71 billion so far this year, the most among the ultra-rich tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At $55.9 billion, his net worth ranks 20th among global billionaires, his lowest spot since 2014 and behind three Waltons and two members of the Koch family.
It was less than two years ago when Zuckerberg, 38, was worth $106 billion and among an elite group of global billionaires, with only Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates commanding bigger fortunes. His wealth swelled to a peak of $142 billion in September 2021, when the company's shares reached as high as $382. The following month, Zuckerberg introduced Meta and changed the company's name from Facebook And it's been largely downhill from there as it struggles to find its footing in the tech universe.
Its recent earnings reports have been dismal. It started in February, when the company revealed no growth in monthly Facebook users, triggering a historic collapse in its stock price and slashing Zuckerberg's fortune by $31 billion, among the biggest one-day declines in wealth ever. Other issues include Instagram's bet on Reels -- its answer to TikTok's short-form video platform -- even though it's worth less in advertising revenue, while the industry overall has been affected by lower marketing spending due to concerns over an economic slowdown. The stock is also being dragged down by the company's investments in the metaverse, said Laura Martin, senior internet analyst at Needham & Co. Zuckerberg has said he expects the project will lose "significant" amounts of money in the next three to five years. In the meantime, Meta "has to get these users back from TikTok," said Martin. It's also hampered by "excessive regulatory scrutiny and intervention," she said. Meta is "down about 57% this year, far more than the declines of 14% for Apple, 26% for Amazon and 29% for Google parent Alphabet," adds Bloomberg. "Meta is even narrowing the gap in 2022 losses with Netflix, which is down about 60%."
It was less than two years ago when Zuckerberg, 38, was worth $106 billion and among an elite group of global billionaires, with only Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates commanding bigger fortunes. His wealth swelled to a peak of $142 billion in September 2021, when the company's shares reached as high as $382. The following month, Zuckerberg introduced Meta and changed the company's name from Facebook And it's been largely downhill from there as it struggles to find its footing in the tech universe.
Its recent earnings reports have been dismal. It started in February, when the company revealed no growth in monthly Facebook users, triggering a historic collapse in its stock price and slashing Zuckerberg's fortune by $31 billion, among the biggest one-day declines in wealth ever. Other issues include Instagram's bet on Reels -- its answer to TikTok's short-form video platform -- even though it's worth less in advertising revenue, while the industry overall has been affected by lower marketing spending due to concerns over an economic slowdown. The stock is also being dragged down by the company's investments in the metaverse, said Laura Martin, senior internet analyst at Needham & Co. Zuckerberg has said he expects the project will lose "significant" amounts of money in the next three to five years. In the meantime, Meta "has to get these users back from TikTok," said Martin. It's also hampered by "excessive regulatory scrutiny and intervention," she said. Meta is "down about 57% this year, far more than the declines of 14% for Apple, 26% for Amazon and 29% for Google parent Alphabet," adds Bloomberg. "Meta is even narrowing the gap in 2022 losses with Netflix, which is down about 60%."
How can we help? (Score:5, Funny)
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r/nd/ck/
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Can we start a GoFundMe for him?
I’m waiting to donate to Musk’s after he is hit hard for trying to back out of this Twitter insanity.
Re: How can we help? (Score:1)
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#deletefacebook
I kept trying but was unable to gain root access to their servers. Ideas?
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They changed it recently to "SignupRequired" to make it more complex.
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Oh how we can relate... (Score:2)
...to the horrific financial woes of the 0.000001%, who remain the 0.000001%.
Hey I know! When the recession hits hard, let's post more stories like this. I'm certain it'll make people feel better.
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When the recession hits, I'm gonna use this article as body copy in a sales brochure for torches and pitchforks.
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0.000001%
I know you just hammered the zero key a bunch for hyperbole, but you actually undershot somewhat.
He's in the 0.000000001%
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no, crap, I miscounted. FFS should never post before coffee.
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"Will the children please think of the billionaires! "
He zucked himself.
He didn't really have any wealth wiped out (Score:5, Insightful)
All this means is that some of the vast Fortune he has that he keeps stored in stocks is temporarily worth a bit less.
If it ever gets to the point where those stocks might become worthless they'll do the same thing everyone at his level of wealth and influence does and dump them on a public pension walking away with hundreds of millions if not billions and leaving the taxpayer the foot the bill.
But thanks to our complete lack of antitrust law enforcement it's unlikely to ever come to that because he'll be able to continue to buy out his competitors or use illegal tactics to run them out of business. And will continue to look the other way because a handful of culture War issues that we've been distracted by since the '80s with crap like Bill Maher's politically incorrect Will keep Us occupied.
You would think after 40-plus years of this song and dance plus the internet to make us all aware of it we'd have learned.
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> If it ever gets to the point where those stocks might become worthless they'll do the same thing everyone at his level of wealth and influence does and dump them on a public pension walking away with hundreds of millions if not billions and leaving the taxpayer the foot the bill.
That's... not how it works.
You can't just go, oh my stocks are worthless and force someone to buy them at an unfair rate where the tax payer foots the bill. The situation you describe requires that:
- The pension fund is retarde
I don't think you understood what I wrote (Score:2)
The reason it works is guys like Zuck noticed that public pensions were run by people appointed by elected officials. Meaning they were vulnerable to regulatory capture. Which is exactly what they did. That's how this works. It's not incompetence, it's corruption. In American we mercilessly prosecute minor corruption (e.g. a postman stealing mail) but ignore major corruption like this or the Jacksonville & Flint water crisis (or civil asset forfeiture
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Can't buy out the competition when the competition is the CCP (read TikTok)
Sure you can (Score:2)
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You guys should burn it all down and start again.
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You would think after 40-plus years of this song and dance plus the internet to make us all aware of it we'd have learned.
And your bloviated comments are here to save the day?
There's only one question (Score:2)
How can we keep this going another year?
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Can we accelerate that to something far less than a year?
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In theory yes, but I think that's not legal.
Metaverse or Facebook's model sucks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure it has much to do with meta anything (though that made me hate facebook more than before), but how facebook makes all its money off of personal information, not producing an actual product. When people finally started to turn on companies selling private information for a profit, there are few companies hurt more than facebook.
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When people finally started to turn on companies selling private information for a profit, there are few companies hurt more than facebook.
This isn't what happened though. Largely people still don't give a shit to this day about companies selling private information for a profit. Google is still insanely valuable, TikTok (ByteDance) is posting record evaluations pre IPO, and largely common users continue to not really care about trading private information for something in return. Remember the issue here isn't that Facebook users are leaving, it's that they posted no growth.
The something in return is the issue. Facebook is stale and they reach
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Please come back to reality. We haven't reached any kind of utopia where people have started to give a shit about internet privacy.
My take on this is that most people view social media simply as the modern equivalent, at worst, of the stranger in the bar. Even as there are narcissistic types that like to show off their whole life to the whole world, most would be happy just to click on some privacy options that would hide their photos and posts from ordinary users (e.g. their spouses or boss).
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If facebook had not bothered with 'meta' it would just have crashed similarly to Peleton. They stuck with their core business even though it's in steep decline relative to its peak
Re:Metaverse or Facebook's model sucks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, the article is confusing cause and effect. The reason Facebook took a flying leap on 'the metaverse' is because their fortunes were dimming, so they had to do something. The amount of money they have directly spent/wasted on developing the metaverse is very small compared to the loss of value in the social media website.
If facebook had not bothered with 'meta' it would just have crashed similarly to Peleton. They stuck with their core business even though it's in steep decline relative to its peak during Covid.
Kinda, if you just look at their revenue [statista.com] then thinks seem pretty rosy.
But stock price is based on future expectations, and not many people expect the world to revolve around FB in 5 years the way it does now.
So what's their future? If it's facebook.com and the accompanying slice of the ad market things are decent, but slowly diminishing, so they need the next thing.
Zuckerberg is betting the metaverse will be to Facebook what the Internet should have been to the Microsoft of the 90s, but investors at least don't seem to agree.
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Zuckerberg is betting the metaverse will be to Facebook what the Internet should have been to the Microsoft of the 90s, but investors at least don't seem to agree.
The metaverse is more like the Internet + XBox for Meta. There's some fuzziness to Zuckerberg's vision that it's hard to tell how significant the hardware component might be to his master plan. Would he at some point exit the VR hardware business altogether? Or would he seek to maintain it as the gateway to the kingdowm, similar to the way Microsoft still develops new versions of the XBox than sell off the division to a third party?
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Zuckerberg is betting the metaverse will be to Facebook what the Internet should have been to the Microsoft of the 90s, but investors at least don't seem to agree.
The metaverse is more like the Internet + XBox for Meta. There's some fuzziness to Zuckerberg's vision that it's hard to tell how significant the hardware component might be to his master plan. Would he at some point exit the VR hardware business altogether? Or would he seek to maintain it as the gateway to the kingdowm, similar to the way Microsoft still develops new versions of the XBox than sell off the division to a third party?
I suspect the vision is literally "VR will be the thing in 10 years so lets get as deep into VR in as many places as we can so when it takes off we come along for the ride".
That's honestly not a bad idea... but it's more a "heavily funded VR division/subsidiary" idea than a "lets rename the company" idea. I suspect Zuckerberg is spending too much time bouncing ideas off of people who really like Zuckerberg.
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Zuckerberg is betting the metaverse will be to Facebook what the Internet should have been to the Microsoft of the 90s, but investors at least don't seem to agree.
The metaverse is more like the Internet + XBox for Meta. There's some fuzziness to Zuckerberg's vision that it's hard to tell how significant the hardware component might be to his master plan. Would he at some point exit the VR hardware business altogether? Or would he seek to maintain it as the gateway to the kingdowm, similar to the way Microsoft still develops new versions of the XBox than sell off the division to a third party?
I suspect the vision is literally "VR will be the thing in 10 years so lets get as deep into VR in as many places as we can so when it takes off we come along for the ride".
That's honestly not a bad idea... but it's more a "heavily funded VR division/subsidiary" idea than a "lets rename the company" idea. I suspect Zuckerberg is spending too much time bouncing ideas off of people who really like Zuckerberg.
The problem I see with this is the IBM vs Microsoft thing. IBM made the computers and Microsoft made them usable to normal people (maybe not the best OS but the one with the best market penetration). IBM barely limped along while Microsoft exploded into a massively profitable company. Facebook can go nuts subsidizing VR, and could end up being the next generation IBM.
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Zuckerberg is betting the metaverse will be to Facebook what the Internet should have been to the Microsoft of the 90s, but investors at least don't seem to agree.
The metaverse is more like the Internet + XBox for Meta. There's some fuzziness to Zuckerberg's vision that it's hard to tell how significant the hardware component might be to his master plan. Would he at some point exit the VR hardware business altogether? Or would he seek to maintain it as the gateway to the kingdowm, similar to the way Microsoft still develops new versions of the XBox than sell off the division to a third party?
I suspect the vision is literally "VR will be the thing in 10 years so lets get as deep into VR in as many places as we can so when it takes off we come along for the ride".
That's honestly not a bad idea... but it's more a "heavily funded VR division/subsidiary" idea than a "lets rename the company" idea. I suspect Zuckerberg is spending too much time bouncing ideas off of people who really like Zuckerberg.
The problem I see with this is the IBM vs Microsoft thing. IBM made the computers and Microsoft made them usable to normal people (maybe not the best OS but the one with the best market penetration). IBM barely limped along while Microsoft exploded into a massively profitable company. Facebook can go nuts subsidizing VR, and could end up being the next generation IBM.
So who'll be Facebook's Microsoft? Apple will still be a hardware company, so it's got to be some startup, like Microsoft once was, before the word became fashionable.
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It's okay, (Score:2)
inside his VR metaverse he's still worth $106b.
Told you already, Zuck (Score:2)
Keep trying to make facebook and the metaverse places to sell shit to people - and you won't.
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normally spying on people is hugely profitable, so I don't see how your advice to stop doing it is helpful. He just needs to do better job of it to make more money, e.g. Apple, Google, click-tracking companies, adware and spyware makers, etc.
Remember, in the real world nice and right doesn't win and isn't profitable.
Re: Told you already, Zuck (Score:1)
And which might make him (a lot of) money later, through being so popular.
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A good honest social media product? ahahaha, impossible.
In this world you can't even make a forum like Slashdot without embracing multiple evils and deep throating the shitty goat balls
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Meta's VR bet failed (Score:2)
They wasted billions bet on useless software BS instead of making the hardware badass. If they made decent hardware, the software will come. The skimped on resolution, which is the most important thing in a VR headset. The picture quality in a VR headset is not cinematic .. it is low resolution and screen-door. Now look there will inevitably be blind morons replying this claiming that the Quest 2's resolution is just fine. That is because they don't give a shit about picture quality. In the 1990s and early
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They wasted billions bet on useless software BS instead of making the hardware badass. If they made decent hardware, the software will come.
False. Hardware needs to be bootstrapped by a use case. You're begging the question anyway. Facebook's hardware is pretty damn decent and well priced in the market. Better hardware is largely unaffordable for the mass market, and at no point did Facebook stop investing in hardware (which is highly anticipated to be announced on October 11th).
Their problem is their software was shit. It wouldn't be a waste if it was compelling. Look to Valve when every man+dog laughed at them for taking a part of the Half-Li
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According to leaks, the Meta Quest Pro will have an incrementally higher resolution than the Quest 2. So basically there will be no real difference.
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Yeah and? You missed my point. Meta's fail here is not that the hardware is crap, it's that consumers have no compelling reason to buy any VR system at all.
But anyway your post is off point regardless.
- Incrementally better resolution: Just scroll up and down the threads on this story to see how people are complaining the resolution of existing hardware isn't high enough.
Then actually look at the leaks:
- Better resolution
- Significantly better processor (something holding back the Quest 2)
- Slimmer design (
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Anything K that looks crisp and detailed. That is 75 pixels or more per degree of field of view. Foveated rendering would need to be enabled for GPUs to handle that.
It's a thing of the past (Score:1)
A 5 year old (Score:2)
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Could have told you that VR wouldn't become mainstream
A 5 year old would tell you 3D accelerators would not become mainstream, and a computer in your pocket isn't mainstream. But I have a better question for you: VR is still on an exponential growth cycle so my question is, are you this pre-mature with your wife in the bedroom as well, or is it just VR?
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Look, VR hasn't had the same uptake as PC's and cellphones.
Of course it has (cellphones). You just don't recall a time when cellphones were a rarity owned by the rich. Hell they didn't even own them half the time, but had them in their cars. They followed a slow exponential rise long before they became mainstream enough for you to reconigse them out of anything other than a sci-fi movie.
Computers in general were a standout though, they followed a far faster than exponential growth which puts them at odds with other emerging tech in general.
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OK Ill bite, how much more mature does VR need to be to become mainstream, cause the shit has been around since the late 70's. Last headset I had was smaller and lighter than what's curranty available with comparable screen resolution with the desktop displays of the day and that was in 1998.
People tell me "oh you gotta try the new stuff its so much better", but reality is that it requires me to strap a uncomfortable hardly balanced thing to my fuckin face, yea wireless is nice , high resolution is nice, wh
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But without compelling content l
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VR is not a cyclical fad. The issue is that the hardware doesn't exist yet which will push it into the mainstream (75+ ppd display, microLED, and pancake lens). Smartphones have existed since the late 90s and sucked ... that is until the iPhone. Heck, before the iPhone, many slashdotters were anti-smartphone as seen in this +5 rated comment from 2005: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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I have a hard time disagreeing with the person in the link. Smart phones suck. They sucked before the iphone because they were trying to be desktop computers and failing due to bad hardware, bad interfaces and bad software. They sucked after the iphone because they became dumbed down content consumption devices where they performed tasks as poor imitations of the devices they rolled up. They suck today because apple seems to be the only company able to move the boat anchor of smartphone technology and they
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I had an Atari palmtop in the mid 90s. Cool, but pretty impractical. How are you supposed to type on that tiny keyboard anyway?
A few years later Palm Pilots became a thing. Then smart phones. Then smart phones with touch screens.
VR will find more and more niches as the technology improves. When micro LED contacts and glasses cost a few hundred bucks a pair then we'll all have it.
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VR will be mature when the following criteria is met (in order of criticality):
1. 75+ pixels per degree (ppd) resolution (the current Quest 2 is only 20 ppd).
2. microLED, or something equivalently high contrast instead of LCD, which cant achieve deep black.
3. No weird issues like God rays or moire.
4. Headset weight under 150 grams. (Quest 2 weighs 500g today, sunglasses weigh 30g)
Got it?
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We got it. You have a list of desires for perfection completely devoid of reality and likely driven by a childhood watching too many scifi films.
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What's devoid of reality? Displays of adequate resolution are already shown to work in the lab, therefore it's not implausible they can't manufacture them in the near future. The only part that is sci-fi'ish is the weight being under 150 grams. That's the spec needed for it to go mainstream .. maybe 300 grams. If they can't do it, then it's impossible. I mentioned the criteria needed for wide success.
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No, we do not have what you want in the lab. We have higher resolution displays. That is all. The rest of your desires are at odds with each other. e.g. size and weight are directly related to why existing display have godrays. Deep black is some desire you want, not at all a criteria for any mass market success.
And despite what you think you want, the mass market also needs something cheap. So you sit there and wait for the thing you may get when your vision from scifi movies become a reality.
In the meanti
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OK Ill bite, how much more mature does VR need to be to become mainstream, cause the shit has been around since the late 70's.
No it hasn't. VR hasn't "been around" at all in any form of a continued way. You may as well talk about the ENIAC when discussing the adoption of general purpose PCs if you're going to compare VR now to the 70s.
VR had a few odd tech demos, all of which were woefully held back by the technology of the day, and funded as little tiny irrelevant experiments. The most mainstream of them was Nintendo's effort which also did not hope to even remotely achieve the same thing as VR does today.
VR "has been around" as
A pity the damage isn't worse (Score:2)
If it's a bad day for Zuckerberg, it's a good day for humanity.
The only thing he's losing is bragging rights (Score:2)
As noted by commenters above, he's only losing paper wealth, and his standing on a magazine's list. He still has way more money than him or his heirs could ever spend, and more than enough to continue to play the part of megalomaniac entrepreneur. I hope he feels depressed, but that's about the worst of what's happening to him.
VR is the modern 3D TV (Score:2)
Besides some edge cases, I can't see a situation where VR really takes off barring a truly revolutionary upgrade in interface hardware.
It's just another excuse to sell people hardware they don't want for a platform they don't need. Maybe history will prove me wrong but attempts at VR have been made for decades (going back to NES times!) and have never gotten significant adoption.
Not cause of the metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Zuckerberg saw the writing on the wall and tried a Hail Mary pass. It’s not like he’s going bankrupt. Facebook is essential for many a suburban woman, and quite a few men as well, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. They will continue to milk the business, much like cable TV, for decades longer than anyone expects. But the stock price is coming down to earth and Zuckerberg’s fortune will follow it.
Cry me a river. (Score:2)
Where's my towel?
First world problems? (Score:2)
Nope. If you decide to take on extended care of 2 elderly relatives even at the top of the food chain (meaning a super good job, benefits & pay) (without tossing them in homes), you get a quick reversal of fortune for anyone under the top 2000 ‘earners’ in the US.
First what-if that came to mind.
Well, at least his girlfriend isn’t complaining about it . . . https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
No, it’s not class warfare, we’re just really REALLY sick of this being called news.
Finally some good Meta news (Score:2)
Second Life didn't work the first time (Score:1)
"Metaverse" is just another attempt at at making a VR enabled Second Life. SL wasn't the "World Wide Web replacement" envisaged by its creators, and neither will MV be.
Perhaps it should just be called Third Life?
Well... (Score:1)
Perhaps - he can organise a go fund me page (Score:2)
Meta fails ‘relevancy’ arbitration (Score:2)
One must submit to the Meta ultimatum. Choose boring RL or the new VR. It’s virtual without adding back value to RL. Meta abandons the core value proposition a Facebook exchange offered.
NOT excessive scrutiny (Score:2)
Mark Zuckerberg faced no real penalties from twisting the 2016 presidential elections and helping Donald Trump get elected. He also paid no penalties for the Cambridge Analytica bullshit. Meta/Facebook doesn't need Scrutiny, they need monetary remedies to their user base. Screw Zuck.
It's an investment (Score:2)
He's investing the money not losing it. Zuckerberg is throwing everything at owning the VR space and developing amazing tech. A huge chunk of that loss is just subsidizing a headset to buy market share like M$ did with the Xbox.
Meta is crumbling under it's own bureaucracy (Score:2)
Meta grew too fast to the point where it was unmanageable. Think Milton from Office Space, a guy that doesn't really do anything but sit at his desk all day coveting his red swingline stapler and collecting a check. I've been working tech a looong time, and have met folks in Milton's situation. Heck, my wife worked for Nortel in the 90's, watched as she was the last of an entire floor to be laid off. She basically showed up to an empty floor of a large 10 story office building every day because someone
Long-lasting Fads Still Die (Score:1)
Remember when Facebook first started and was focused solely on helping people keep in touch? Yeah, it didn't make any money. Only by turning it into a flash-in-the-pan, flavor-of-the-month titillation did The Zuck manage to amass this "wealth."
When people finally move on to the next flavor-of-the-month, Facebook will linger on but,
You've got it wrong! (Score:1)
Aw that poor billionaire! (Score:1)