A new report has released an internal memo from META’s CTO saying that 2025 could be a make-or-break year for the Metaverse.
The memo, which was obtained by Business Insider reportedly originates from November 2024, where META’s CTO, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth told staff that 2025 is its “most critical” year for the Metaverse.
In the memo Bosworth said, “”We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR [Metaverse],” he said.
He continued, “And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don’t feel the weight of history on you then you aren’t paying attention. “This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure.”
As reported by Business Insider, Meta’s Reality Labs reported a record $1.08 billion in revenue in Q4, however, it also had its biggest-ever quarterly loss of $4.97 billion. At the time of writing, the Meta Reality Labs division had accumulated a loss of $60 billion since 2020.
To put things into perspective, the ENTIRE US video game industry spent $58.7 billion on games and hardware in 2024, a 1% decrease from 2023.
The full memo to employee’s reads:
2025: The Year of Greatness
Next year is going to be the most critical year in my 8 years at Reality Labs. We have the best portfolio of products we’ve ever had in market and are pushing our advantage by launching half a dozen more AI powered wearables. We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR. And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don’t feel the weight of history on you then you aren’t paying attention. This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure.
I’ve been re-reading “Insanely Great,” Steven Levy’s history of the Macintosh computer. If you haven’t read it the book chronicles the incredible efforts of individuals working in teams of 1-3 to build a device that more than any other marked the consumer era of personal computing. What I find most fascinating about it is the way that even people who left the program on bad terms (it was not particularly well managed) speak about the work they did there with an immense sense of pride. There was a widespread cultural expectation, set by none other than a young Steve Jobs, that the work needed to be “insanely great.”
On paper 2024 was our most successful year to date but we aren’t sitting around celebrating because know it isn’t enough. We haven’t actually made a dent in the world yet. The prize for good work is the opportunity to do great work.
Greatness is our opportunity. We live in an incredible time of technological achievement and have placed ourselves at the center of it with our investments. There is a very good chance most of us will never get a chance like this again.
Greatness is a choice. Many people have been at the precipice of opportunity and failed to achieve. For the most part they failed to even challenge themselves.
You should be doing the best work of your career right now. You should be pushing yourself to grow where needed and doubling down on your strengths. When you look back on this time I want you to feel like you did everything in your power to make the most of it.
You don’t need big teams to do great work. In fact, it may make it harder. One trend I’ve observed the last couple of years is that our smaller teams often go faster and achieve better results than our more generously funded teams. Not only that, they are much happier! In small teams there is no risk of falling into bad habits like design by committee. You should be so focused on results that being in a bunch of docs or meetings is too frustrating to bear.
The path is clear. You don’t need to come up with a bunch of new ideas to do this great work. Most people in the organization just need to execute on the work laid out before them to succeed. It is about operational excellence. It is about master craftsmanship. It is about filling our products with “Give A Damn”. This is about having pride in our work.
I will close with an Arnold Glasow quote: “Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” 2025 is the year. Let’s be on fire.
What do you think of the Metaverse? Do you think it can succeed with a $60 billion loss? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum if you have any success.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out everything we learned from the new Battlefield gameplay snippet
Comments