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Comment by urthor | Hacker News Reader

^^^ have to emphasize.

60-80% of the cost base in many F500s is bullshit (exceptions exist. FMCG, any industry where physical products make up their balance sheet. Not salaries). Any excuse to avoid returning money to shareholders.

Everyone quietly acknowledges. If say, Visa, really tried, they could cut the cost base by 50% and achieve the same output.

Carl Icahn style shareholder activists have a point.

Forget tech companies. Most public companies are a conspiracy by VPs/C-suite/board.

The difference with tech companies is Google feather-beds its EMPLOYEES with free food.

From a pure capitalist standpoint. You could run Facebook's business on 20 billion USD in costs. Their cost base is enormous because Z has ZERO interest in cutting costs.

He's in it for the ego/vanity. Same as every other F500 CEO/Chairman.

Ego is the driver, not the balance sheet.

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The only reason FMCG is an exception was after 3G. The sector used to be a totally bloated mess, then 3G acquired Heinz, fired whole teams of people, and it made no difference to results at all (obv, it all went a bit wrong after but I don't think anyone believes that was due to cost). After that, almost every FMCG started looking at costs (ofc, it also helped that revenue stopped growing).

Carl Icahn story about cutting costs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSatPoD2W-o - fired a building full of people, never heard about it again.

Most companies are run as bureaucracies, dual share classes haven't helped. There is no difference between your average Google employee and a civil servant.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty raw deal for shareholders. You cash out insiders, the bureaucrats move in, the amount of cost extends to the revenue base, eventually revenue slows down (bureaucrats don't tend to be good stewards of capital), the rats all leave the ship, you find out the cost base could have been 50% smaller all along, and you are left with a stock on its way to bankruptcy.

there's one quote in Ben Thompson's recent Meta article that I really buy. If you look from this angle many Meta's moves make sense

> What is clear is that Zuckerberg in particular seems more committed to VR than ever. It may be the case that he is seen as the founding father of the Metaverse, even as Meta is a potential casualty.

https://stratechery.com/2022/meta-meets-microsoft/

So Zuck is bought into metaverse, but can they transition?

My guess is this is going to be a really rough winter / several quarters for Facebook until they reconsider.

They're throwing loads of technical resources at that - so they should be able to build it - but the problem is the "and they will come part". VR Gaming is awesome, BeatSaber is a wonderful game to engage in... for about an hour or so max - you'll want to shift gears and get your head out of the headset just to relax your eyes.

Zuckerberg seems to envision matrix-style VR where it's 24/7 immersive and nobody outside a very small fringe group is at all interested in that proposition. I just fail to see the value proposition of VR socialization over video and even voice calls. If you'll recall even video calls have only really caught on since the pandemic - skype did business pre-pandemic, but it was still a fringe tool for social purposes and much more likely to see use in a work setting. It might be that VR can break into the workplace - but I have my skepticism.

I don’t fully understand what the metaverse plans are, but if you look at the design of the quest pro that just released then what you say is not true. It’s an AR first device that doesn’t even come with full light blockers that make it usable as a fully immersed VR device.

I agree with you VR is not the future but AR definitely is, and even Apple has been making silent but consistent investments in AR for more than the past 5 years.

> I agree with you VR is not the future but AR definitely is.

It's interesting to see the differences of opinions on this subject. I believe this will pan out in the opposite direction.

As a consumer, AR seems so weird to me. I don't want to put on glasses or goggles to see overlays of the world around me. I want interfaces to be simpler, not more complicated and crowded.

While AR hardware has improved, the software remains reminiscent of Nintendo DS Face Raiders [1]. I'm just not being sold on a day to day use case for the tech. Maybe Apple or Meta will teach us otherwise, but I can't even imagine it at this point.

I do see AR being useful for a limited number of industrial applications. You already see quasi-AR virtual film cameras working well (cameras without a lens that capture xyz-orientation in virtual space for the purpose of pointing a virtual camera). But these don't even use optical overlays.

On the other hand, VR enables infinite workspaces, telepresence, new kinds of 3D creative tools that place you inside the thing you're building, world isolation, closer to full sensory immersion, etc. Rather than a tool that serves as an overlay of the existing world, it puts you into a new type of cognitive body altogether. Metaphors of movement combined with spatial reasoning can unlock new abilities for the human brain. Like gestures, but full body and mind.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh-YrWvdUCs

Your frame of reference is based on existing implementations, but existing implementations are by definition ones which have not solved your concerns. You are looking at AR from the lens of today's optics, rather than looking at where technology is going to lead us. Will you use AR if it's light and comfortable enough? I mean, even the giant bricks of laptops and cell phones initially had users, and eventually as they got smaller they gained even more users.

You can already see the advancement of AR software by holding up your iphone and trying out the various AR features that overlay things in the real world and can even use the depth sensor to occlude your hand. Or try out Google maps AR view which literally does a video game style overlay of the path you need to take over the actual world. Maybe you don't like these things, but I think they are objectively cool, and right now only held back by a lack of hardware to make it convenient to do AR in every day scenearios (lightweight glasses or goggles). But, Apple is working on that, and so is Meta, and since technology advances by Moore's law it's only a matter of time before the glasses get light enough and comfortable enough that we don't have to hold up our phones awkwardly in front of our faces to do AR.

Things that AR can accomplish:

1) Overlaying peoples' names so I don't have to remember so many names. Not a problem for many people but some people have a hard time remembering names. 2) Always there real world overlay of directions so you don't have to keep pulling out your phone. 3) AR games and entertainment 4) No need for giant physical 2 dimensional information displays in the real world. Once AR gets sufficiently clear and high enough resolution there is literally no need for physical displays... only virtual ones. The whole point of physical displays since inception is to show information, sometimes 3D information, on a 2D surface. We've been trying to make them smaller and smaller ever since... what better size than no size at all. 4) The whole point of any digital display is to augment our eyes with information. The ultimate display is one that is right in front of your eyes. AR is the next logical step for digital displays.

I'm still skeptical.

I will give you one case where I would give in, though: automatically translating and overlaying foreign text. I'd wear a set of AR goggles if it improved the experience of visiting countries that don't predominantly speak English.

> As a consumer, AR seems so weird to me. I don't want to put on glasses or goggles to see overlays of the world around me. I want interfaces to be simpler, not more complicated and crowded.

As a counter anecdote, I fully support AR - the idea of Google glass would have been very appealing for me if they could actually use the lens as the screen and it was less bulky.

Perhaps it's just years of seeing heads-up displays in anime and sci-fi movies (e.g. Terminator) that's pushing my desire.

If they can eventually solve the bulk and creep issue (ie, always-on camera that can surreptitiously record at will) it will become a useful addition to the phone/watch personal nimbus of data.

The problem to me is that Meta is not pursuing the "Web 2.0 concept."

Anyone who knows the digital gaming industry understands. Content is hard.

The Metaverse seems like it has Zuc supplying a vast amount of first party content, instead of integrating with third parties better to supply skins and content.

The thing with the transition to Meta is the ability to marry hardware and software together which super critical for VR to click.

There’s really only one company in the world that’s able to do that better than anyone else. You guys know which company that is.

So it’s very very hard for them to be as successful in that space

It's not an impossible playbook to follow. Tesla and Square are doing a pretty good job of it.

Tesla’s not near the level of Apple.

The physical product creaks and groans, and the software UI is android level.

Tesla just has the convenience of competing with luddites

I disagree. And I drive one everyday.

I also drive one everyday.

I think you are wrong. The software is miles ahead of competition in polish. And the cars that coming from Giga Shanghai are just as good as any other manufacturer - just read reviews in New Zealand.

2nd best of two giants still a decent place to be. See iOS vs Android.

> The difference with tech companies is Google feather-beds its EMPLOYEES with free food.

as part of an already very good compensation package.

I don't necessarily disagree with this. However wouldn't this imply a couple of world changing things:

- We should go for something akin to universal basic income? Given we could produce a bunch of output with very few people (I guess at that point it's more and ideological question of if these few people that get to stay + shareholders are going to get all that value rather than someone else) - People that are talking about "productivity growth" has declined the past 20 - 40 years, are probably wrong and we have seen productivity growth, we've just filled it up with useless stuff and made up jobs? - It also sort of implies that some of the projects that Google and Meta has taken on even though not financially sound right now haven't produced any value for humanity (and I fully understand that in a capitalist society; profits are the way we value things). I think they have and a lot do (like long tail stuff like producing knowledge, producing open source tech, driving tech that while not mature now, will explode in the future, VR + self driving comes to mind)

Another thing that comes to mind when it comes to founder driven companies doing whatever they want is all the Elon Musk companies. He has also made a bunch of crazy bets that "value"-companies would def not have made.

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