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Comment by woah | Hacker News Reader

> Speaking of cutting costs, the company is still pouring multiple billions of dollars into vaporware called “the metaverse”. News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles to spend any time in a digital heaven where the role of God is played by Mark Zuckerberg and you can do anything you can imagine, including “work” and “shop”.

Sounds like this guy was totally opposed to the company's new focus, to the point of describing it in derisive terms. Seems like letting him go was the best thing for everyone, and maybe it was judged that his team wouldn't be able to continue successfully without him.

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I was regretted attrition. And very, very far from the most vital person on my team.

I mean, it does sound like you are vehemently opposed to Meta's focus on the "metaverse" right?

I have no data to back this up, but if I had to bet I’d guess that the large majority of Meta employees - along with shareholders - are also strongly opposed to the company’s new focus.

I do have data to back this up for employees. You'd win that bet. Shareholders, I have no data on that.

That would be normal, wouldn't it? It's the classic example in The Innovator's Dilemma. The incumbent has a lot of pressures trying to keep it doing what it was doing.

Well, there are plenty of talented engineers who would be happy to work on AR and VR …

You are off though. I know plenty of Meta people both inside and outside of the Reality Labs division and they love it.

No offense, but “I have no data to back this up, but … (shareholders and employees of a company I don’t have inside knowledge of think X)” is lame discourse.

Well, there’s two different angles here. I also might really enjoy working in AR/VR, but I’m almost certain that heading this way is a catastrophically bad business decision for Meta and will likely lead to worse outcomes for most of its employees.

As for my comment being “lame discourse”, fair enough, but why does that apply to my comment and not the one I was replying to?

Just staring at facts on paper... It sounds like Facebook has no interest in cutting costs since they cut a team that reduced the cost of every single team they interacted with. By a large multiple of whatever it cost to have that team employed.

Regardless of your take on the "Metaverse", it's clear that this was in fact, not the best thing for everyone.

How much money did it save? How much was this in savings after paying their salaries? Article doesn't say. If they were breaking even, or barely "profitable", then maybe it wasn't worth the management overhead, especially with a team lead vehemently opposed to the company's focus.

We were a team of mathematicians focused on cost savings and improving decisions. We know how to subtract costs from benefits.

I was not the lead.

A team focused on helping the company make better decisions is all the more necessary when attempting a pivot.

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