Where Have All the Chief Metaverse Officers Gone? (wired.com) 26
Wired: Last spring, At an event in New York City, Robert Triefus, then Gucci's CEO of Vault -- the brand's virtual marketplace -- argued the recent deflation in hype around the metaverse was just a brief hiccup. "I see it more as a correction," he told the crowd. "We're now at a much more sensible place, where you've got individuals [and] companies ... who are very serious about what they're doing." When asked how buying real estate in The Sandbox aligned with Gucci's broader goals as a brand, he responded with quasi-mystical language: "The metaverse is an opportunity to embrace the digital self."
The following month, Triefus left Gucci "abruptly," according to Vogue Business. He was off "to pursue other opportunities," the brand said at the time. A month later, Vogue Business revealed that Triefus was to be the new Stone Island CEO. Immediately there was speculation on whether Stone Island would enter the metaverse. So far it has not. Triefus' public zeal for all things virtual and his short-lived tenure as the head of Gucci's metaverse strategy are both part of a broader trend that briefly convulsed the private sector starting in late 2021: the hastily recruited "chief metaverse officer."
Following a wave of excitement around the metaverse as a golden new opportunity for commerce, a legion of brands rushed to launch their own virtual storefronts. Three quarters of CEOs surveyed by Russell Reynolds in 2022 said they were hiring dedicated talent to lead in the space, or expanding current roles to cover it. While the actual titles varied, their main role seemed to involve helping their respective brands devise new strategies with then-buzzy technologies such as NFTs and crypto. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has quietly shifted focus from virtual reality to augmented reality, signaling a retreat from the company's ambitious metaverse plans. At Meta's recent developer conference, Zuckerberg mentioned "metaverse" only three times in his hour-long keynote, instead highlighting AR innovations like smart glasses.
The move follows a broader cooling of corporate enthusiasm for the metaverse. Luxury brands that once rushed to establish virtual presences have scaled back efforts, with some chief metaverse officers pivoting to AI-focused roles. "Many brands were quick to experiment -- there was a sense of a land grab," said Matthew Ball, tech investor and author. "They didn't want to be last, and they were excited to try and be first." Wired notes that the shift reflects disappointing user engagement with existing metaverse platforms and growing interest in more accessible AR technologies.
The following month, Triefus left Gucci "abruptly," according to Vogue Business. He was off "to pursue other opportunities," the brand said at the time. A month later, Vogue Business revealed that Triefus was to be the new Stone Island CEO. Immediately there was speculation on whether Stone Island would enter the metaverse. So far it has not. Triefus' public zeal for all things virtual and his short-lived tenure as the head of Gucci's metaverse strategy are both part of a broader trend that briefly convulsed the private sector starting in late 2021: the hastily recruited "chief metaverse officer."
Following a wave of excitement around the metaverse as a golden new opportunity for commerce, a legion of brands rushed to launch their own virtual storefronts. Three quarters of CEOs surveyed by Russell Reynolds in 2022 said they were hiring dedicated talent to lead in the space, or expanding current roles to cover it. While the actual titles varied, their main role seemed to involve helping their respective brands devise new strategies with then-buzzy technologies such as NFTs and crypto. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has quietly shifted focus from virtual reality to augmented reality, signaling a retreat from the company's ambitious metaverse plans. At Meta's recent developer conference, Zuckerberg mentioned "metaverse" only three times in his hour-long keynote, instead highlighting AR innovations like smart glasses.
The move follows a broader cooling of corporate enthusiasm for the metaverse. Luxury brands that once rushed to establish virtual presences have scaled back efforts, with some chief metaverse officers pivoting to AI-focused roles. "Many brands were quick to experiment -- there was a sense of a land grab," said Matthew Ball, tech investor and author. "They didn't want to be last, and they were excited to try and be first." Wired notes that the shift reflects disappointing user engagement with existing metaverse platforms and growing interest in more accessible AR technologies.
They're ghosts (Score:1)
Ghosts you can only see when interest rates are below 1 percent and companies need somewhere to throw all the free money to attract investor attention.
Re: (Score:2)
Ghosts you can only see when interest rates are below 1 percent and companies need somewhere to throw all the free money to attract investor attention.
No, the former Metaverse Officers have transitioned to DEI Officers. Same job really, creating a facade.
Channeling Peter, Paul, and Mary (Score:2)
Am I the only one that got "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" vibes reading the headline?
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one that got "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" vibes reading the headline?
I got that as well - but only in the sense that the flowers in the song and the CMOs are both history.
Re: Full VR (Score:2)
Uh huh. Some guy predicted that we'd already have 100 million headsets by ... 2019 or he'd eat his shorts...
Meta Hype cycle down, AI hype cycle ramping up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
But, in the metaverse, you can now have legs. LEGS!!
Doesn't that simply blow your mind?
Re: (Score:2)
> Facebook ... had pretty grand plans for meta verse that were likely more inspirational than practical.
You mean the complete lack of legs and it looking like garbage [medium.com] wasn't the first clue? /s
How many BILLIONS did they waste on this? LOL.
Re: (Score:1)
> similar to how the transistor changed the world in ways we didn't comprehend at the time.
Was there a transistor investment rush? It may feel like it, but I wasn't around back then.
I agree AI will change a lot of things, but it'll probably take time to figure out how and where to use it. It's hardware intensive, and when the market-share-or-bust funds run out, early apps might not support their weight, requiring ancillary aspects to catch up first.
AR is not smartphones (Score:4, Insightful)
Smartphones (when the iPhone was released I think) took of like crazy, and people who got in early made a lot of money. I think this is because a majority of the US, and significant portion of the world, population had cellphones. So going to smartphones was a simple evolution of something everyone already had. AR requires people walking around with goggles that are nothing like anything we already have. AR may grow into a major thing in the future, but it does not look like something that will jump into the mass consciousness like smartphones did.
Amazing (Score:2)
You can still find idiots who pay to "own" one or several of a million pixels. Why do people work at all?
Solution Looking For a Problem (Score:2)
Metaverse combines the disadvantages of physical stores with the disadvantages of online shopping. It is like an online store with stare cases: absolutely pointless.
I really don't get why everything thinks it is a "great opportunity". It does not solve a problem that people have.
Replaced (Score:2)
by chief automation officers. Whose job is to periodically assess the automateability of various tasks within the company.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd imagine that they were mostly replaced by "Chief AI Officers" in early 2024.
I'm not sure what the next IT hype train will be, but I'm sure that it will spawn the next wave of meaningless management job titles in 2025.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what the next IT hype train will be, but I'm sure that it will spawn the next wave of meaningless management job titles in 2025.
Depending on the economy it might be Chief Efficiency/Redundancy Officer.
Metaverse is dead till walled gardens are open (Score:2)
The story so far (Score:3)
The invention of the personal computer and internet created vast amounts of wealth and profoundly changed society, both for good and bad.
Investors got addicted to the search for "the next big thing".
Pundits, futurists and hypemongers played their part, sometimes honestly believing their predictions, sometimes just stoking the fires of the hype train.
VR has been a fertile ground for speculation.
I remember a time, years ago, when I worked on a well funded VR project for a major corporation.
Our initial attempts were mediocre. I remember the president of the company saying this after one of our demos, "don't show this to anybody else, it makes us look bad". We persisted, and after millions of dollars and many, many hours, released a small, mediocre result.
VR is hard, really hard, even if you believe it's hard, you still haven't uncovered the deeper layers of difficulty, and the layers below that.
I suspect that someday, VR might work and be useful, but the metaverse is yet another expensive, laughably absurd failure
CompuServe VR (Score:1)
Even to me as a VR enthusiast, the Metaverse is completely unappealing. And VR/AR itself has very little to do with it.
The internet would not be where it is today if it was managed by a single company that dictates everything that happens in it. It took millions of independent people and entities decades of work to develop personal computers and the way they connect to each other into a form where the value of an expensive box of computer chips becomes undeniable and even your grandparents can't live withou
"Metaverse" is garden variety corporate arrogance. (Score:3)
Second Life 2.0 (Score:2)
This is the same thing that happened with Second Life. Big companies got suckered into believing that there was a future for digital versions of their products. Almost nobody cared and everybody lost money. Itâ(TM) happening again with The Metaverse. Even kids who are used to spending their allowance on digital clothes for video game characters donâ(TM)t care about The Metaverse. How is there nobody at Meta who watched this happen the first time trying to keep it from happening again?
Re: (Score:2)
They've gone where they belong (Score:2)
To greener pastures. These people deliberately capitalized on a hype train that they should have known was a flash in the pan. If your company is looking for a new executive, and they have CMO on their resume, you might want to steer clear. If they're willing to risk tons of money and energy on such crazy side shows, they'll do it again, to your company.
Re: (Score:2)
Hell?
They're moving into CAIO roles (Score:2)
These people clearly have a vivid imagination. Surely, they now believe that AI will take over the world, becoming the next Metaverse. It only makes sense that they would gravitate to such positions.
Where have they gone? (Score:2)