Speaker 1: Let's get to David Kirkpatrick now he's founder and editor
Speaker 1: in chief of Taconomy to discuss the day's earnings from
Speaker 1: Meta and David cootally sales falling for the first time ever.
Speaker 1: I would have made to have to say about this. Well,
Speaker 1: they said that it's probably going to be difficult. Advertising
Speaker 1: environment is going to continue, and I'm sure they're right
Speaker 1: about that. The company is poorly positioned in a number
Speaker 1: of ways, and um it's growth is going to be
Speaker 1: dramatically less this year. It will still grow for the year,
Speaker 1: but probably more than ten points less than it has
Speaker 1: in other recent years. And you know, this is a
Speaker 1: company that's never really been through a real downturn, which
Speaker 1: is what the economy is dealing it now, and it's
Speaker 1: just figuring out how to handle it. David. As you know,
Speaker 1: these results mark the end of the career for ad Meta.
Speaker 1: For Cheryl Sandberg, she's now stepping down as the chief
Speaker 1: operating officer. What does her departure mean for this company
Speaker 1: as it faces a more challenging future. I think it's
Speaker 1: poor timing for the company that Cheryl Sandberg is leaving now,
Speaker 1: even though it seems to me that she hasn't done
Speaker 1: as good a job as I would have hoped, and
Speaker 1: I think many of us hoped in sort of restraining
Speaker 1: some of Zuckerberg's more destructive instincts. That she hasn't helped
Speaker 1: enough to ameliorate harmful speech and political disinformation that's flowing
Speaker 1: in country after country. But nonetheless, she is a more
Speaker 1: experienced business leader than anyone else really at the company
Speaker 1: and senior positions, and to lose her now when the
Speaker 1: company is facing such extreme headwinds seems very unfortunate, really sad.
Speaker 1: And I also think Facebook Meta is just not going
Speaker 1: to feel the same without Cheryl Sandberg, even to its
Speaker 1: own employees, and I think that's a risky transition. Well,
Speaker 1: we've got some other changing of the God's admit her
Speaker 1: as well, and you SEEFO, how significant is this move?
Speaker 1: I think it's not terribly significant, because you know, at Meta,
Speaker 1: nobody really has power except for Zuckerberg, which goes back
Speaker 1: to what I was saying about Cheryl Sandberg. She ended
Speaker 1: up not really having power, which I think is one
Speaker 1: reason she left. Dave Wayner, who has been the CFO since,
Speaker 1: is moving into a Chief Strategy role, which is a
Speaker 1: newly created position and one that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: may suit him. Uh. We we don't really know what
Speaker 1: he's thinking about strategy would be, I don't think but uh.
Speaker 1: And they've promoted somebody from within to be the new CFO. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't see that as a major change in terms
Speaker 1: of the company's long term direction. What they have to
Speaker 1: deal with is a declining economic environment that hurts advertising
Speaker 1: and a what I consider ill advised, early premature, shall
Speaker 1: we say, transition to a metaverse growth strategy long before
Speaker 1: there's really a business there. And I think that that
Speaker 1: is seriously problematic. But they're also being pressured, aren't they
Speaker 1: not by competition from TikTok And what how are they
Speaker 1: going to crack that nut? Well, that's a good question,
Speaker 1: It's absolutely true. I mean, TikTok is the increasing you know,
Speaker 1: bear in the room that's really threatening all the other
Speaker 1: consumer social media companies, especially on Facebook metas Instagram product um.
Speaker 1: And they are furiously attempting to change the design of
Speaker 1: both Instagram and Facebook to put more short form video
Speaker 1: that isn't created by your friends in front of the
Speaker 1: average user, which is sort of the way that TikTok works. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't really have an answer, though, I don't think
Speaker 1: those efforts have born enough fruit even remotely. So far,
Speaker 1: m TikTok continues to grow, continues to be by far
Speaker 1: of the de facto choice of young people in pretty
Speaker 1: much every developed country and increasingly the developing world. So
Speaker 1: it's a problem. It's a real problem. TikTok's executing beautifully.
Speaker 1: Um Instagram and Facebook are not. I just want to
Speaker 1: return to that remark that you made about the metaverse
Speaker 1: and how the will may not quite be ready for it.
Speaker 1: Can you explain your your logical a little bit more? Dan, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think one of the reasons that Time
Speaker 1: magazines new cover story is that the metaverse is going
Speaker 1: to change everything. You know, Facebook meta really did an
Speaker 1: extraordinarily successful pr move when it changed its name at
Speaker 1: exactly the moment when criticism was at its height for
Speaker 1: Facebook's failures to remediate harmful speech and disinformation, particularly in
Speaker 1: the political realm, and they did a great job of
Speaker 1: changing the narrative and the world ate it up. And now,
Speaker 1: because this massive company changed its name, I think there
Speaker 1: it's become acceptable to believe that the metaverse is the
Speaker 1: next phase of technology in the near term. I accept
Speaker 1: that long term, some combination of virtual and physical and
Speaker 1: you know, a r VR world will be a major,
Speaker 1: major opportunity for consumer tech, but it is not anywhere
Speaker 1: in the near term. And one reason it's not even
Speaker 1: if it were a big deal in the United States
Speaker 1: and Europe. You know, this company's business is a global business.
Speaker 1: They're huge in India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Most of users in those places do not have high
Speaker 1: bandwidth connections or technology that can really be used for
Speaker 1: a metaverse type experience, and the chances that that will
Speaker 1: happen in the near term, I think are very small.
Speaker 1: So it's really a developed world strategy that's premature even
Speaker 1: for the developer. Interesting too, today that we had the
Speaker 1: FTC suing to block metas acquisition of the virtual reality
Speaker 1: company within limited, maybe that's gonna also create a bit
Speaker 1: of uh, some restraint. David, Thanks for being with us
Speaker 1: and sharing your perspective. Always appreciated. David Kirkpatrick, founder and
Speaker 1: editor in chief Technoomy, discussing the meta earnings today and
Speaker 1: the disappointment on that front,