Zuckerberg’s New Focus Pulls Meta Back From The Brink

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Meta Platforms Inc. may have got caught in a downward spiral over the past year, but Mark Zuckerberg seems to be putting it back onto a more fruitful direction, at least for now. Meta's decline in ad revenue for the third straight quarter wasn't as big as expected; there was a $40 billion buyback for shareholders; and daily active users — Meta's “North Star” for years — blew past the psychological 2 billion barrier, according to fourth-quarter earnings it announced on Wednesday night. More important, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg replaced much of his usual talk about the still-to-be-realized metaverse with pledges about a new era of “efficiency” for Meta, on the heels of slashing thousands of jobs, and a refocus on artificial intelligence, echoing where other tech rivals like Google are placing more of their bets.

Zuckerberg's obsession with the metaverse and his expensive strategic pivot has put pressure on the company's stock price, which declined 60% over the last year, and it still looks years away from being a viable business. That's why it was likely a relief for investors to hear him paying significant attention on Meta's earnings call to his bread-and-butter business: social media. Along with the buyback this may have helped push Meta's shares up 20% in after-hours trading on Wednesday night.

Zuckerberg said the company's AI-discovery engine had helped plays of Reels, its short-form video rival to TikTok, double in just the last six months. “We're making progress here, and our monetization efficiency on Facebook has doubled in the past six moths,” he added. “In terms of the revenue headwind, we're still on track to be roughly neutral by the end of this year or maybe early next year, and after that we