When Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Meta’s values on Tuesday, he emphasised “move fast,” “build awesome things,” and “live in the future,” which he said were examples of the company’s new “metaverse” values.
On Tuesday, Facebook’s CEO unveiled a slew of new slogans and internal branding changes during an all-hands meeting. A metaverse company, building the future of social connection, rather than a social media company, Zuckerberg claimed in a post to his own Facebook page. According to one executive, the company is now referring to its employees as “metamates,” a play on the naval slogan “ship, shipmate, self.”
Facebook’s Mark
FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces the company’s new name, Meta, during a virtual event on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, in Sausalito, California. New legislation aimed at slashing Big Tech’s bottom line is being proposed by lawmakers, and the proposed legislation targeting personal data collected from young people could hurt social media companies’ bottom lines.
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Zuckerberg announced that the company’s policies and values, which had not been updated since 2007, would be reevaluated in light of the recent name change. Workers were also urged by the CEO to “focus on long-term impact,” which may have been a reference to investor concerns about the immediate fallout from the pivot.
Instead of optimising for near-term wins, he wrote in his post, “‘Focus on Long-Term Impact’ emphasises long-term thinking and encourages us to extend the timeline for our impact.” “Even if the full results are years away, we should take on the challenges that will have the greatest impact.”
In light of the company’s rapid shift away from its social media business, the meeting was scheduled. It’s been reported that Instagram and Facebook engineers have been encouraged to apply for jobs at Meta, which has hired thousands of new employees from rival companies like Apple in the metaverse and artificial reality divisions.
Investors aren’t the only ones concerned about the changes. Following Meta’s most recent earnings report, the company’s stock value fell by more than $230 billion.
However, Zuckerberg appears to have remained steadfast in his belief that the metaverse is a worthwhile endeavour, and has already invested $10 billion in the project. This is the right investment for us to focus our attention on going forward, he assured investors on a recent earnings call. “I’m pleased with our momentum and progress so far,” he said.
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As well as altering the rules within the company, Meta also changed the way the company’s external brand was represented. “Feed” is the new name for the company’s best-known product, the “News Feed,” which was renamed Tuesday.
A customer service management platform called Kustomer was purchased by the company on Tuesday (the acquisition had been in the works since it was announced in November 2020). Rebranding comes just days after Meta settled a decade-old class action lawsuit over the use of “cookies” that tracked people online even after they logged out of the Facebook platform in 2010 and 2011 – Meta’s most recent controversy.
Meta has agreed to delete all the data it “wrongfully collected” during that time period as part of the proposed settlement, which must still be approved by a judge. The company, which earned $39.37 billion in profits in 2021, will also pay out $90 million to those who filed a claim. Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for Meta, said in a statement on Tuesday that “reaching a settlement in this case that is more than a decade old, is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we are glad to move past this issue.”