Job cuts at Facebook? Meta shareholder writes an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg

Altimeter said annual free cash flow can be doubled to $40 billion if it cut headcount by at least 20%, trimmed capital expenditure by at least $5 billion to $25 billion a year and capped annual investment in the metaverse to $5 billion instead of the current $10 billion.

The social media giant has lost investor confidence as it ramped up spending and pivoted to the metaverse, the technology-focused hedge fund with a 0.1% stake said and suggested a three-step plan.

Meta has reportedly spent billions of dollars and hired thousands of employees around the world to build metaverse. Altimeter said such huge investment “in an unknown future is super-sized and terrifying, even by Silicon Valley standards”. For the unversed, Metaverse refers to a shared digital environment that uses augmented or virtual reality technology to stay connected.

Reality Labs unit, which works on augmented and virtual reality, has continuously reported staggering losses. It registered a loss of $5.8 billion in the first six months of the year.

Earlier this month, Meta unveiled a high-end virtual reality headset with the hope that people will soon be using it to work and play in the still-elusive place called the “metaverse.” Priced at $1,500 (approximately ₹1,23,286), the headset was dubbed Project Cambria before the launch. It is equipped with an inward-facing sensor which allows users to experience virtual and augmented reality in different colour. There is an eye and face tracking feature which is said to offer a more customized and natural-looking avatars in the metaverse. The company said that the metaverse avatars will have legs for a more life-like appearance. These avatars will be able to video chat from Facebook Messenger and instant messaging app WhatsApp.