Mark Zuckerberg wants his employees to be known as ‘Metamates’

In a staffwide note shared online Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offered his vision for corporate culture at Meta Platforms Inc., his recently rebranded company that he says will “build awesome things,” “live in the future” and be run by employees whom he called metamates.

“Meta, Metamates, Me is about being good stewards of our company and mission,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in his staff memo, which he posted on his Facebook page. “It’s about the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates. It’s about taking care of our company and each other.”

Andrew Bosworth, an executive at Meta who will soon take over as its chief technology officer, said the nickname plays off a refrain already used at Instagram, also owned by Meta, which is itself a remake of a Naval slogan. “Also the saying is a reference to a Naval phrase which Instagram has used for a while ‘Ship, Shipmates, Self,’” he said in a tweet.

Facebook also said Tuesday that it was changing the name of its “News Feed” feature to “Feed.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said in October that Facebook was rebranding as Meta, and that the company was pouring billions of dollars into developing the online world known as the metaverse. Mr. Zuckerberg said Tuesday that Meta would build off the core values that Facebook established in 2007, but adapt them for the future.

“A lot has changed during this time,” he said. “We are now a distributed company. We have a global community and wide reaching impact. And we’re now a metaverse company, building the future of social connection.”

The metaverse is loosely defined as an online world where individuals can participate in immersive experiences such as attend concerts, purchase digital goods and hang out with each other as avatars, in some cases using virtual and augmented-reality headsets.

The move from online social media to a virtual world is key to capturing younger audiences, Mr. Zuckerberg said when he announced the rebrand in October.

The company’s social-media platforms have faced scrutiny for being riddled with flaws that cause harm, according to The Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files” series, which was based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.

In the reshaping of its corporate culture, Mr. Zuckerberg said that in addition to building products that billions of people use, the company will also focus more on inspiring people.

“This quality bar should apply to everything we do,” he said.